Researchers discover ?Fishwrap? influence campaign recycling old terror news

While relatively small in comparison to influence and disinformation operations run by the Russia-affiliated Internet Research Agency (IRA), the campaign is notable because of its systematic method of recycling images and reports from past terrorist attacks and other events and presenting them as breaking news—an approach that prompted researchers to call the campaign "Fishwrap."The campaign was identified by researchers applying Recorded Future's "Snowball" algorithm, a machine-learning-based analytics system that groups social media accounts as related if they:Influence operations typically try to shape the world view of a target audience in order to create social and political divisions; undermine the authority and credibility of political leaders; and generate fear, uncertainty, and doubt about their institutions. All of the accounts used domain shorteners hosted on a total of 10 domains but using identical code.Many of the accounts have been suspended, but Truvé noted that "there has been no general suspension of accounts related to these URL shorteners." One of the reasons, he suggested, was that since the accounts are posting text and links associated with "old—but real!—terror events," the posts don't technically violate the terms of service of the social media platforms they were posted on, making them less likely to be taken down by human or algorithmic moderation.You must login or create an account to comment.Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox.