In the Media

Graphika has been featured by news outlets all over the world. Here is a selection of coverage:

Monday November 28, 2022

Sympathy, and Job Offers, for Twitter’s Misinformation Experts

The New York Times

Disinformation became widely recognized as a significant problem in 2016, said John Kelly, who was an academic researcher at Columbia, Harvard and Oxford before founding Graphika, a social media analysis firm, in 2013. The company’s employees are known as “the cartographers of the internet age” for their work building detailed maps of social media for clients such as Pinterest and Meta.

Read the Full Story Here

Thursday November 3, 2022

Suspected Russian Plot Used Political Cartoons to Influence US Voters

Bloomberg

Suspected Russian Plot Used Political Cartoons to Influence US Voters Social media activity detected by Graphika Inc. tied the effort to people involved with Russia’s IRA.

Read the Full Story Here

Friday September 23, 2022

The Most Dominant Toxic Election Narratives Online

The New York Times

“A sense of grievance is already in place,” said Kyle Weiss, a senior analyst at Graphika, a research firm that studies misinformation and fake social media accounts. The 2020 election “primed the public on a set of core narratives, which are reconstituting and evolving in 2022.”

Read the Full Story Here

Sunday September 18, 2022

How Russian Trolls Helped Keep the Women’s March Out of Lock Step

The New York Times

Vladimir Barash, Graphika’s chief scientist, said the pattern of interference was “strategically similar” to troll activity targeting the vast anti-Putin protests of 2011 and 2012, with sock-puppet accounts “similarly trying to hijack the conversation, sometimes succeeding.”

Read the Full Story Here

Monday August 29, 2022

Pandemic Spurs Pushback Against Climate Change Regulations

Coda

According to Erin McAweeney, Director of Analysis at Graphika, a network analysis firm, climate conspiracists have latched onto the global attention on climate issues to push their anti-regulation agenda.

Read the Full Story Here

Tuesday July 26, 2022

AI Startups and the Fight Against Mis/Disinformation Online: An Update

German Marshall Fund

Guyte McCord, chief operations officer of Graphika, provided an overview, saying: “We are yet to see a B2C scenario. There are consumer-facing applications (fake news detection, news source ratings, etc.), but they are sold through B2B.” Graphika uses AI to create detailed maps of social media landscapes to discover how online communities are formed and how information flows within large networks.

Read the Full Story Here

Monday July 18, 2022

Exclusive: Fake Accounts Fueled the ‘Snyder Cut’ Online Army

Rolling Stone

“We see clear signs of coordinated online activity from May and June this year, when multiple communities pushed hashtags promoting Zack Snyder and deriding Warner Bros.,” Avneesh Chandra, a data analyst at Graphika, tells Rolling Stone.

Read the Full Story Here

Wednesday June 1, 2022

VKontakte Was Created to Empower Free Speech, but It Has Instead Enabled Government Censorship and Arrests.

Wired

“The leading faction in the Kremlin realized that social media was a major information channel, and then they began to try to clamp down on it,” says Vladimir Barash, chief scientist at social network analysis company Graphika.

Read the Full Story Here

Friday December 10, 2021

The ViVi Warriors, the Conspiracy Group that Promotes from Italy the Offensive on the Internet Against Vaccines

EL PAÍS

In partnership with Meta, network research firm Graphika made an extensive report on Viral_Vendetta. "We have observed what appears to be a growing populist movement that combines existing conspiracy theories with anti-authoritarian narratives and misinformation about health," says the text, which estimates that the organization has some 20,000 followers across Europe.

Read the Full Story Here

Tuesday May 18, 2021

How Cultish Social Media Accounts Fuel Trading in Penny Stocks

Financial Times

Analysis from social media intelligence group Graphika, commissioned by the FT, points to the likely use of fake accounts by Delarge to boost posts. In particular, it identified at least two clusters of hundreds of accounts — including some using stock photos — that had only been recently created before they suddenly began to follow Delarge at the same time in early February.

Read the Full Story Here

Monday May 17, 2021

Chinese Businessman with Links to Steve Bannon is Driving Force for a Sprawling Disinformation Network, Researchers Say

The Washington Post

A sprawling online network tied to Chinese businessman Guo Wengui has become a potent platform for disinformation in the United States, attacking the safety of coronavirus vaccines, promoting false election-fraud claims and spreading baseless QAnon conspiracies, according to research published Monday by the network analysis company Graphika.

Read the Full Story Here

Tuesday March 9, 2021

The World's Most Innovative Companies

Fast Company

Social network analysis company Graphika has made a name for itself spotting targeted disinformation across the internet. In 2020, its researchers reported suspected Russian operations targeting right-wing U.S. voters before the presidential election. The New York-based company also flagged Chinese state efforts targeting Taiwan, global misinformation around the coronavirus pandemic, and a massive Kremlin-tied operation that published thousands of posts across numerous platforms.

Read the Full Story Here

Tuesday March 9, 2021

The 10 Most Innovative Security Companies of 2021

Fast Company

Researchers at the social network analysis company Graphika made a name for themselves in 2020 by reporting suspected Russian operations targeting conservative voters before the U.S. presidential election, flagging Chinese state efforts targeting Taiwan, and discovering global misinformation around COVID-19. Working with competing companies—including Facebook, Google, and Twitter—helps Graphika spot deceptive activities that aren’t limited to just one site and get posts taken down, rooting out online disinformation. For more on why Graphika is a 2021 Most Innovative Company, click here. 

Read the Full Story Here

How Russian Trolls Weaponized Social Media

Interview: John Kelly, Ph.D, CEO of Graphika on Andrea Mitchell Reports

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Foreign Influence on Social Media

Attack on Democracy

Camille Francois (Graphika) on Quest Means Business

House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Hearing: Online Imposters and Disinformation

Agents of Chaos: A Conversation with Director Alex Gibney and Camille Francois

Viral (P)articles: A Network Mapping Approach to Infodemiology (WHO Global Infodemiology Conference)

House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Hearing: Hijacking our Heroes

How QAnon Went Global

Exposing Government Botnets That Spread Propaganda: Interview with Camille Francois, Chief Innovation Officer at Graphika

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Sympathy, and Job Offers, for Twitter’s Misinformation Experts

(The New York Times, Monday November 28, 2022)

Disinformation became widely recognized as a significant problem in 2016, said John Kelly, who was an academic researcher at Columbia, Harvard and Oxford before founding Graphika, a social media analysis firm, in 2013. The company’s employees are known as “the cartographers of the internet age” for their work building detailed maps of social media for clients such as Pinterest and Meta.

Read the Full Story Here

Suspected Russian Plot Used Political Cartoons to Influence US Voters

(Bloomberg, Thursday November 3, 2022)

Suspected Russian Plot Used Political Cartoons to Influence US Voters Social media activity detected by Graphika Inc. tied the effort to people involved with Russia’s IRA.

Read the Full Story Here

The Most Dominant Toxic Election Narratives Online

(The New York Times, Friday September 23, 2022)

“A sense of grievance is already in place,” said Kyle Weiss, a senior analyst at Graphika, a research firm that studies misinformation and fake social media accounts. The 2020 election “primed the public on a set of core narratives, which are reconstituting and evolving in 2022.”

Read the Full Story Here

Pentagon Opens Sweeping Review of Clandestine Psychological Operations

(The Washington Post, Monday September 19, 2022)

The takedowns in recent years by Twitter and Facebook of more than 150 bogus personas and media sites created in the United States was disclosed last month by internet researchers Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory. While the researchers did not attribute the sham accounts to the U.S. military, two officials familiar with the matter said that U.S. Central Command is among those whose activities are facing scrutiny.

Read the Full Story Here

How Russian Trolls Helped Keep the Women’s March Out of Lock Step

(The New York Times, Sunday September 18, 2022)

Vladimir Barash, Graphika’s chief scientist, said the pattern of interference was “strategically similar” to troll activity targeting the vast anti-Putin protests of 2011 and 2012, with sock-puppet accounts “similarly trying to hijack the conversation, sometimes succeeding.”

Read the Full Story Here

Pandemic Spurs Pushback Against Climate Change Regulations

(Coda, Monday August 29, 2022)

According to Erin McAweeney, Director of Analysis at Graphika, a network analysis firm, climate conspiracists have latched onto the global attention on climate issues to push their anti-regulation agenda.

Read the Full Story Here

Anti-Vax Group in Europe Thrives Online, Thwarts Tech Effort

(AP News, Friday August 19, 2022)

Graphika estimated the group’s membership to be 20,000 in late 2021, with a smaller core of members involved in its online harassment efforts. In addition to Italy and France, Graphika’s team found evidence that V_V is trying to create chapters in Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil and Germany, where a similar anti-government movement known as Querdenken is active.

Read the Full Story Here

Election Disinformation Fears Loom Over Hacker Confab

(Politico, Monday August 15, 2022)

Jennifer Mathieu, chief technology officer at Graphika, told attendees at DEF CON’s Misinformation Village on Friday that her group was tracking several “wedge issues” being used to influence voters. These include abortion and LGBTQ+ issues, concerns around the economy, COVID-19 narratives and the Jan. 6 hearings. 

Read the Full Story Here

AI Startups and the Fight Against Mis/Disinformation Online: An Update

(German Marshall Fund, Tuesday July 26, 2022)

Guyte McCord, chief operations officer of Graphika, provided an overview, saying: “We are yet to see a B2C scenario. There are consumer-facing applications (fake news detection, news source ratings, etc.), but they are sold through B2B.” Graphika uses AI to create detailed maps of social media landscapes to discover how online communities are formed and how information flows within large networks.

Read the Full Story Here

AI-Generated Faces Are Taking Over the Internet

(Digital Trends, Wednesday July 20, 2022)

The adoption of synthetic media will continue to erode trust in public institutions like governments and journalism, says Tyler Williams, the director of investigations at Graphika, a social network analysis firm that has uncovered some of the most extensive campaigns involving fake personas. And a crucial element in fighting against the misuse of such technologies, Williams adds, is “a media literacy curriculum starting from a young age and source verification training.”

Read the Full Story Here

Exclusive: Fake Accounts Fueled the ‘Snyder Cut’ Online Army

(Rolling Stone, Monday July 18, 2022)

“We see clear signs of coordinated online activity from May and June this year, when multiple communities pushed hashtags promoting Zack Snyder and deriding Warner Bros.,” Avneesh Chandra, a data analyst at Graphika, tells Rolling Stone.

Read the Full Story Here

Elon Musk Got Twitter’s Data Dump, Next Comes the Hard Part

(The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday June 28, 2022)

The limitations to the fire hose data could meaningfully affect how percentages of users are calculated. The fire hose doesn’t provide data on users who log onto the platform to read tweets but don’t themselves post—likely a significant share of the platform’s users, said John Kelly, CEO of social-media analytics firm Graphika Inc. That means it can’t be used to estimate the total against which to compare any estimated number of fake accounts.

Read the Full Story Here

VKontakte Was Created to Empower Free Speech, but It Has Instead Enabled Government Censorship and Arrests.

(Wired, Wednesday June 1, 2022)

“The leading faction in the Kremlin realized that social media was a major information channel, and then they began to try to clamp down on it,” says Vladimir Barash, chief scientist at social network analysis company Graphika.

Read the Full Story Here

How Candidates Utilized Social Media for the 2022 Elections

(Rappler, Saturday May 7, 2022)

Former Phillipines senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Vice President Leni Robredo are going head-to-head for the presidency. Graphika provided data and visualizations that indicated that the pro-Robredo cluster (21.4%) is bigger than the pro-Marcos (7.62%) and pro-Duterte (9.16%) clusters combined.

Read the Full Story Here

A Fugitive Chinese Tycoon Met Steve Bannon. Misinformation Mayhem Ensued.

(Mother Jones, Tuesday March 1, 2022)

As Graphika, a social media analysis firm, concluded in a report last spring, “The ‘Guo media network’ defies traditional characterization as either a media organization or an influence operation. Instead, it is an ever-evolving constellation of personalities and entities that revolve around Guo. This includes media figures, content creators, publishing platforms, social media accounts, non-profits, brands, financial schemes, a faux ‘government’ and more, all under the guise of a global sociopolitical movement.”

Read the Full Story Here

How Bots and Fake Accounts Push China’s Vision of Winter Olympic Wonderland

(, Tuesday March 1, 2022)

Jack Stubbs, vice president of intelligence at Graphika, a social media monitoring company, said his firm had observed another Chinese propaganda network using foreign social media platforms, including Facebook. The network, which the company has dubbed Spamouflage, has spread videos emphasizing the Olympics as environmentally friendly and crooning about strengthening Chinese-Russian ties, punctuated by President Vladimir V. Putin’s attendance at the opening ceremony.

Read the Full Story Here

Influencers Played Outsized Role in Pushing Anti-Vax Conspiracies

(Axios, Thursday February 24, 2022)

The report from the Stanford Internet Observatory, Graphika and several universities and institutes, found that the same subset of recurring actors, including political leaders and celebrities, were often the ones most effective at spreading misinformation widely.

Read the Full Story Here

The ViVi Warriors, the Conspiracy Group that Promotes from Italy the Offensive on the Internet Against Vaccines

(EL PAÍS, Friday December 10, 2021)

In partnership with Meta, network research firm Graphika made an extensive report on Viral_Vendetta. "We have observed what appears to be a growing populist movement that combines existing conspiracy theories with anti-authoritarian narratives and misinformation about health," says the text, which estimates that the organization has some 20,000 followers across Europe.

Read the Full Story Here

Activist Movements Drive Misinformation Mayhem

(Axios, Thursday December 2, 2021)

The movement [“V_V”], which was identified in conjunction with the risk intelligence firm Graphika, sought to bully people who hold pro-vaccination views, including health officials, into deleting their posts or making them private.

Read the Full Story Here

Facebook Takes Down China-based Network Spreading False COVID-19 Claims

(NPR, Wednesday December 1, 2021)

According to a report from the research firm Graphika, the group largely coordinates on the messaging app Telegram, but "appears to primarily target Facebook, where its members display the group's double V symbol in their profile pictures and swarm the comments sections of posts advocating for COVID-19 vaccines with hundreds of abusive messages." Graphika said the group has also defaced health facilities and attempted to disrupt public vaccination programs.

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Facebook Hits Anti-Vaccine Campaign Harassing Doctors

(Yahoo News, Wednesday December 1, 2021)

A report by social network analysis firm Graphika offered additional information on "V_V," which it says touts itself as engaged in guerilla "psychological warfare" that targets vaccine supporters.

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COVID-19 Deaths And Hospitalizations Continue To Rise In The U.S.

(NPR, Monday August 30, 2021)

Now, Erin McAweeney of the social media research firm Graphika says, there are lots of microinfluencers out there who put out messages to sow seeds of distrust and doubt.

Read the Full Story Here

How a Fake Network Pushes Pro-China Propaganda

(BBC News, Thursday August 5, 2021)

Commenting on the new study Ira Hubert, a senior investigative analyst at Graphika, said: "The report shows that on US platforms, there was no 'honeymoon' in the first months of the Biden administration.

Read the Full Story Here

Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming

(New York Times, Sunday July 25, 2021)

Back-alley firms meddle in elections and promote falsehoods on behalf of clients who can claim deniability, escalating our era of unreality.

Read the Full Story Here

The Life Cycle Of A COVID-19 Vaccine Lie

(NPR, Tuesday July 20, 2021)

With the help of the internet research firm Graphika, NPR analyzed the rise of one persistent set of lies about COVID-19 vaccines: that they can affect female fertility. Despite a mountain of scientific evidence showing the vaccines are safe and effective, the false information persists.

Read the Full Story Here

What Is the Great Reset - and How Did It Get Hijacked by Conspiracy Theories?

(BBC, Wednesday June 23, 2021)

Melanie Smith, head of analysis at Graphika, who researches online movements and disinformation, says the rumours are typical of an "anti-establishment conspiracy theory".

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Anti-Vaccine Activists Use A Federal Database To Spread Fear About COVID Vaccines

(NPR, Monday June 14, 2021)

"There's very little control over what can be accessed and what can be manipulated," says Melanie Smith, director of analysis at Graphika, a company that tracks vaccine misinformation online. She says that she sees VAERS data being shared across a wide variety of anti-vaccine social media channels. "I would say almost every mis- and disinformation story that we cover is accompanied by some set of VAERS data."

Read the Full Story Here

Russian Accounts Still Active on Pro-Trump Sites -Researchers

(Reuters, Monday June 7, 2021)

A group believed to be Russian has remained active on internet services favored by far-right Americans, showing efforts to interfere in U.S. politics continue after the election, according to reports from social media research firm Graphika and nonprofit Advance Democracy Inc.

Read the Full Story Here

How Cultish Social Media Accounts Fuel Trading in Penny Stocks

(Financial Times, Tuesday May 18, 2021)

Analysis from social media intelligence group Graphika, commissioned by the FT, points to the likely use of fake accounts by Delarge to boost posts. In particular, it identified at least two clusters of hundreds of accounts — including some using stock photos — that had only been recently created before they suddenly began to follow Delarge at the same time in early February.

Read the Full Story Here

Chinese Businessman with Links to Steve Bannon is Driving Force for a Sprawling Disinformation Network, Researchers Say

(The Washington Post, Monday May 17, 2021)

A sprawling online network tied to Chinese businessman Guo Wengui has become a potent platform for disinformation in the United States, attacking the safety of coronavirus vaccines, promoting false election-fraud claims and spreading baseless QAnon conspiracies, according to research published Monday by the network analysis company Graphika.

Read the Full Story Here

Rising Star | Camille Francois Battles Disinformation to Protect Elections, Consumers

(SC Magazine, Monday May 3, 2021)

Camille Francois isn’t a rising star in the traditional sense. She didn’t break onto the scene in 2020. Graphika, where she is the chief innovation officer, was well-known in online disinformation circles before the Senate Intelligence Committee tapped the firm for research in 2018 to investigate Russian election meddling. And Graphika wasn’t her first high-profile role. Francois had already been principal researcher at Jigsaw, Google’s public interest technology division.

Read the Full Story Here

Got Science? Ep. 106 "The Science of Disinformation on Social Media"

(Union of Concerned Scientists, Tuesday March 30, 2021)

Erin McAweeney, Graphika social media analyst pulls back the curtain on how disinformation spreads across Facebook and Twitter on episode 106 of the Got Science? podcast from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Read the Full Story Here

Beijing Is Getting Better at Disinformation on Global Social Media

(The Diplomat, Monday March 29, 2021)

A February 21 report by the cybersecurity firm Graphika was its fourth focused on a network of accounts it has termed Spamouflage. Despite repeated takedowns by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube following reports from Graphika or independent detection by the social media platforms themselves (sometimes just hours after the questionable accounts posted content), the networks and specific fake personas have continued to revive themselves.

Read the Full Story Here

The World's Most Innovative Companies

(Fast Company, Tuesday March 9, 2021)

Social network analysis company Graphika has made a name for itself spotting targeted disinformation across the internet. In 2020, its researchers reported suspected Russian operations targeting right-wing U.S. voters before the presidential election. The New York-based company also flagged Chinese state efforts targeting Taiwan, global misinformation around the coronavirus pandemic, and a massive Kremlin-tied operation that published thousands of posts across numerous platforms.

Read the Full Story Here

The 10 Most Innovative Security Companies of 2021

(Fast Company, Tuesday March 9, 2021)

Researchers at the social network analysis company Graphika made a name for themselves in 2020 by reporting suspected Russian operations targeting conservative voters before the U.S. presidential election, flagging Chinese state efforts targeting Taiwan, and discovering global misinformation around COVID-19. Working with competing companies—including Facebook, Google, and Twitter—helps Graphika spot deceptive activities that aren’t limited to just one site and get posts taken down, rooting out online disinformation. For more on why Graphika is a 2021 Most Innovative Company, click here. 

Read the Full Story Here

What Went Right in the 2020 Election

(The New York Times, Monday March 8, 2021)

Some foreign governments, including Russia and Iran, tried to disrupt our elections again, but it mostly didn’t work. The same U.S. institutions and digital defenses that failed four years earlier largely held strong this time. “The progress that was made between 2016 and 2020 was remarkable,” said Camille François, chief innovation officer at Graphika, a firm that analyzes manipulation of social networks.

Read the Full Story Here

Unwelcome On Facebook, Twitter, QAnon Followers Flock To Fringe Sites

(NPR, Sunday January 31, 2021)

Graphika found that among a dense network of 14,000 QAnon-promoting Twitter accounts it has been tracking, 60% are now inactive. That splintering makes it harder for harmful, even violent ideas to gain traction — and less likely that unsuspecting Twitter users will stumble across them.

Read the Full Story Here

Inside a Pro-Huawei Influence Campaign

(The New York Times, Friday January 29, 2021)

First, at least 14 Twitter accounts posing as telecommunications experts, writers and academics shared articles by Mr. Vermulst and many others attacking draft Belgium legislation that would limit “high risk” vendors like Huawei from building the country’s 5G system, according to Graphika, a research firm that studies misinformation and fake social media accounts.

Read the Full Story Here

QAnon and Pro-Trump Online Forums Are Struggling and Fracturing in Aftermath of the U.S. Capitol Siege

(The Washington Post, Friday January 29, 2021)

A report evaluating Twitter’s Jan. 11 enforcement action against QAnon accounts, released by network analysis firm Graphika on Friday, underscores the power mainstream social media sites have to squelch hateful, violent and conspiratorial conversation when they choose to. Graphika found that more than 60 percent of a densely clustered network of nearly 14,000 QAnon accounts are now inactive.

Read the Full Story Here

Why Social Media Hasn’t Been Able to Shut Down Vaccine Misinformation

(POLITICO, Tuesday December 22, 2020)

Melanie Smith, head of analysis at Graphika, a social media analytics firm that tracks misinformation, said the fringe QAnon movement has gained influence with anti-vaccine communities online, boosting momentum and pushing unfounded claims about Covid vaccines into the mainstream.

Read the Full Story Here

QAnon Believers Spread False Claims About COVID-19 Vaccine Touted by Trump

(Yahoo!, Tuesday December 15, 2020)

Ahead of the U.S. vaccine rollout on Monday, Melanie Smith, head of analysis at the social media research firm Graphika, told Yahoo News that much of current QAnon conversation around covid vaccines seemed to be driven by scientists and doctors, including former employees of the pharmaceutical companies involved in developing the vaccines.

Read the Full Story Here

House Intelligence Committee to Hold Virtual Open Hearing on Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories Online

(U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Tuesday October 13, 2020)

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) convened a virtual unclassified hearing entitled, “Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories, and ‘Infodemics’: Stopping the Spread Online.” Melanie Smith, Graphika's Head of Analysis, provided expert testimony.

Read the Full Story Here

How QAnon Rode the Pandemic to New Heights — and Fueled the Viral Anti-Mask Phenomenon

(NBC News, Tuesday October 13, 2020)

Erin McAweeney, a senior research analyst at Graphika, a New York-based social media analysis company, discovered that some alternative health, religious and anti-vaccination communities appeared to become singularly focused on COVID-19 health misinformation right as the pandemic was beginning to ramp up in the United States.

Read the Full Story Here

'It's Like a Parasite' How a Dangerous Virtual Cult Is Going Global

(CNN Business, Wednesday October 7, 2020)

Graphika, which analyzes social media networks and how they evolve, told CNN that it had migrated to mainstream platforms quickly after starting out at the fringe on Gab, 4chan and 8chan, unfiltered websites that are popular with extremist groups. QAnon followings now populate all the main platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Reddit. 

Read the Full Story Here

As QAnon Grew, Facebook and Twitter Missed Years of Warning Signs About the Conspiracy Theory’s Violent Nature

(The Washington Post, Saturday October 3, 2020)

Researchers at Graphika, a network analysis firm that works with Facebook and other social media companies, found that QAnon and Trump’s online support overlapped to such an extent in 2018 that the two online communities were almost inextricable for the purposes of mapping relationships among accounts. Camille François, the company’s chief innovation officer, called the resulting network maps of interactions “a hairball” of overlapping accounts.

Read the Full Story Here

Facebook Takedown Exposed Wider Russian Ops Network, Study Says

(BNN Bloomberg, Friday September 25, 2020)

Graphika found that many of the same accounts shut down by Facebook lived elsewhere online and that, within those platforms, the same assets cross-posted one another. “For example, Facebook and Twitter accounts from the cluster of assets that focused on the Middle East shared links to Medium articles that were posted by the operation,” Graphika said in its report. 

Read the Full Story Here

Facebook Says Russian Network Was Behind Fake Leftwing News

(Financial Times, Friday September 25, 2020)

Facebook on Tuesday said it pulled a small network of roughly a dozen accounts linked to Russia's Internet Research Agency.

Read the Full Story Here

Facebook Removes Russian Networks Tied to Intelligence Services that Interfered in the U.S. in 2016

(The Washington Post, Thursday September 24, 2020)

Graphika, another outside research group that studied one of the Russian networks, said one of the campaigns aimed at Americans focused on courting Black voters and criticizing Democratic nominee Joe Biden — in efforts that included Facebook and other online services including Twitter, Medium, Tumblr and WordPress.

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Facebook Takes Down Accounts It Says Were Run from China and Posting About 2020 Election

(CNN, Thursday September 24, 2020)

Graphika, a social media analytics company commissioned by Facebook to study the network of accounts, wrote in its report Tuesday, "In 2019-2020, the operation began running accounts that posed as Americans and posted a small amount of content about the US presidential election. Different assets supported President Donald Trump and his rival Joe Biden; one short-lived group supported former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. The operation did not single out either candidate for preferential treatment. Many of the accounts in this phase of the operation were barely active."

Read the Full Story Here

China Failed Miserably at Election Interference on Facebook, Again

(VICE, Wednesday September 23, 2020)

“It is possible that the intention was to further polarize America’s political landscape by affirming each side’s view of the other, but in that case, it is strange that the operation paid no attention to more progressive groups and candidates, such as senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren,” Graphika, a social media monitoring group, said in a report analyzing the campaign.

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Facebook Removes Chinese Accounts Posting About Foreign Policy, 2020 Election

(NPR, Tuesday September 22, 2020)

An investigation by the research firm Graphika, commissioned by Facebook, said the recurrent "theme" of the network was maritime security, "especially the achievements of the Chinese Navy." The topic was so dominant, Graphika named the operation "Naval Gazing. Graphika found the network began running accounts posing as Americans and posting about the election in April 2019.

Read the Full Story Here

Russians Again Targeting Americans With Disinformation, Facebook and Twitter Say

(The New York Times, Tuesday September 1, 2020)

“The Russians are trying harder to hide; they are increasingly putting up more and more layers of obfuscation,” said Ben Nimmo, whose firm, Graphika, worked with Facebook to release a report on the fake site. “But they are still getting caught.”

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Chinese Network of Fake Accounts Targets Trump with English-Language Videos

(The Washington Post, Wednesday August 12, 2020)

The researchers, from the network analysis firm Graphika, said it was the first direct reference to Biden from the Chinese network. They also found persistent sloppiness in the videos overall, such as odd translations and a poor grasp of spoken English. An apparently automated voice, for example, said “us” for “U.S.” One video had words appear on-screen in English and Chinese saying the confusing phrase, “Cast A Chestnut In The Fire Will Burn Themselves With Fire.”

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How to Productionize Machine Learning Models

(Built in NYC, Thursday July 16, 2020)

“New model architectures are created almost daily, but often the purported gains of such approaches fail to outweigh the technical debt,” Machine Learning Research Engineer Alex Ruch said. Ruch works at Graphika, which uses AI to map online social landscapes.

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Facebook Removes Disinformation Networks Tied to Roger Stone and Jair Bolsonaro

(NBC News, Wednesday July 8, 2020)

It appears to have largely been built to boost online perception of Stone himself, according to a report by the social media analytics firm Graphika.“Much of the network’s content focused on Roger Stone, praising his political acumen, defending him against criminal charges, and demanding that he be pardoned after he was found guilty of those charges in November 2019,” Graphika found.

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2,500 Posts, 300 Platforms, 6 Years: A Huge But Mysterious Pro-Russia Disinformation Campaign Is Exposed

(Forbes, Tuesday June 16, 2020)

Some disinformation groups go for low volume, high impact. Others go for the opposite. The latter is the case with Russian-linked operators who, in late 2019, infamously leaked documents on trade discussions between the U.S. and the UK, according to a new report from researchers at Graphika. 

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Russia’s Secondary Infektion Trolls Hit West With Thousands of Fake Leaks and Fake News Stories

(Daily Beast, Tuesday June 16, 2020)

Since 2014, a different and more shadowy disinformation crew linked to the Russian government has been spreading forgeries and disinformation across social media. In a report released Tuesday, the social media tracking firm Graphika has uncovered the online trail of Secondary Infektion stretching across half a dozen years, two continents, and thousands of fake articles. 

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The Russian Disinfo Operation You Never Heard About

(WIRED, Tuesday June 16, 2020)

Dubbed Secondary Infektion, the campaign came on the radar of researchers last year. Today, the social media analysis firm Graphika is publishing the first comprehensive review of the group's activity, which seems to have begun all the way back in January 2014. 

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Russian Disinformation Operation Relied on Forgeries, Fake Posts on 300 Platforms, New Report Says

(The Washington Post, Tuesday June 16, 2020)

Russian operatives used online forgeries, fake blog posts and more than 300 social media platforms to undermine opponents and spin disinformation about perceived enemies throughout the world, including in the United States, according to a new report published Tuesday.

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Facebook Says It Dismantles Russian Intelligence Operation Targeting Ukraine

(Reuters, Tuesday June 16, 2020)

Researchers at social media analytics firm Graphika, who reviewed the accounts before they were suspended by Facebook, said most of the activity dated back to 2016 and 2017, although some accounts were active as recently as this year. The network failed to gather more than a few thousand followers but was able to get articles published in some local media outlets, said Ben Nimmo, Graphika’s head of investigations.

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With the Coronavirus, Usually Distinct Conspiracy Groups Turn to a Shared Interest

(TechCrunch, Tuesday April 21, 2020)

In new research led by its cyber intelligence analyst Melanie Smith, the social analytics AI company Graphika compared snapshots of the coronavirus conversation on Twitter in January, February and March, creating a bird’s eye view of misinformation about the virus from its earliest online mentions.

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Here's the Latest Info Operation to Blame the U.S. for Coronavirus

(Cyberscoop, Wednesday April 15, 2020)

The Iranian propaganda group known as the International Union of Virtual Media, or IUVM, is behind a series of headlines and animated cartoons reporting, for instance, that COVID-19 is part of “a biological war led by Trump to strike at China’s economy,” according to a report published Wednesday by Graphika.

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Coronavirus Conspiracies Like that Bogus 5G Claim Are Racing Across the Internet

(TechCrunch, Wednesday April 15, 2020)

In previous research on 5G-related conspiracies, social analytics company Graphika found that the majority of the online conversation around 5G focused on its health effects. Accounts sharing those kinds of conspiracies overlapped with accounts pushing anti-vaccine, flat Earth and chemtrail misinformation.

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Iran-Linked Group Caught Spreading COVID-19 ‘Disinformation’ On Facebook And Instagram

(Forbes, Wednesday April 15, 2020)

On Instagram, Graphika found IUVM created a western persona, @chriistophercarlos3, which appeared to be a personal account, but posted much the same content as appeared on Facebook and other IUVM-linked sources. That included a cartoon depicting Trump as a virus cell and other disinformation tracked on iuvmarchive.com. The Instagram account is no longer accessible.

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A Pro-Iranian Operation Has Spread Coronavirus Disinformation Across Facebook and Twitter

(The Verge, Wednesday April 15, 2020)

The International Union of Virtual Media (IUVM) “is a prolific operator” that hosts and creates pro-Iran and pro-Palestinian video reports, news articles, and memes. According to Graphika, this content is linked out over social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In recent weeks, the disinformation operation has pivoted toward blaming the US for creating the coronavirus and critiquing its sanctions against Iran, alleging that they have hurt the nation’s ability to combat the disease.

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Russian Intelligence Agency Outsources to Africa to Boost US Racial Tensions

(TechCrunch (Japan), Friday February 14, 2020)

Camille Francois, Chief Innovation Officer for Graphika, said that Russia-based activities used Ghana-based NGOs as a kind of agent, and at least some of the staff involved were involved in the original work. She points out that they are likely to be unaware of its purpose.

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Facebook Removes 'Foreign Interference' Operations from Iran and Russia

(BBC, Friday February 14, 2020)

The Russian network used dozens of fake personas to post pro-Kremlin and anti-Western messages on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and news websites. It focused primarily on Ukraine, but some of Russia's neighbouring countries, such as Moldova, the Baltic states and Turkey, were also targeted. A few accounts also focused on Germany and the UK, but "left little trace of online activity", according to Graphika, a social media analytics firm.

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The Latest in Facebook's Dragnet: Propaganda from Russian Military Intelligence

(Cyberscoop, Wednesday February 12, 2020)

The GRU was behind much of the effort, according to Graphika’s analysis. The intelligence agency authored long articles on blogging platforms which often criticized lawmakers who argued for stronger relationships with the West. Then, after cloaking the identity of the author, they would post the article on Facebook and try to create divisive material.

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He Combs the Web for Russian Bots. That Makes Him a Target.

(The New York Times, Sunday February 9, 2020)

Last year, Mr. Nimmo became the head of investigations for the social-media monitoring company Graphika. “He was there well before this was a trendy thing to do,” said Alex Stamos, who is conducting similar disinformation research work at Stanford University and was previously Facebook’s chief security officer. Both Graphika and the Digital Forensic Research Lab have received funding from Facebook.

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Facebook Discovers Fakes That Show Evolution of Disinformation

(The New York Times, Friday December 20, 2019)

The Atlantic Council’s lab and another company, Graphika, which also studies disinformation, released a joint report analyzing the Facebook takedown. 

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POLITICO Playbook PM: Congress is ready to open the checkbook

(Politico, Tuesday December 17, 2019)

“The ‘known Russian operation,’ as Graphika called it, involved doctored visuals and sought to cover its tracks using single-use accounts on discussion forums and other crowdsourced websites, as well as on the news aggregation site Reddit.

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Text-Based Deepfakes, Model Hacking Among Top AI Threats

(The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday December 3, 2019)

Deepfake videos—manipulated using AI to look realistic—are certainly a concern, said Camille François, chief innovation officer at social-media analytics firm Graphika Inc., speaking Tuesday at the WSJ Pro Cybersecurity Executive Forum in New York. But Ms. François said a bigger threat comes from fabricated news articles, websites or other text content created by AI, which she called “read-fakes.

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Questions Raised Over Source of Labour’s ‘NHS for Sale’ Dossier

(Financial Times, Monday December 2, 2019)

Graphika, a company that has analysed the document leak alongside the Washington-based Atlantic Council think-tank, published a report on Monday, seen by the Financial Times, suggesting the incident could point to potential foreign interference in the upcoming UK election. 
 

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‘Kardashian Jokes and Then a Really Racist Tweet’: How Russian Social Media Trolls Suckered in Americans

(SC Magazine, Thursday November 14, 2019)

Camille Francois remembers the day she learned that the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was granting her the extraordinary opportunity to research the extent of Russia’s influence operations during 2016 presidential election campaign.

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TIME 100 Next 2019: Camille Francois

(TIME, Wednesday November 13, 2019)

Camille François was one of those brilliant researchers who ultimately helped us uncover a vast assault on our democracy. She and her colleagues at Graphika utilize innovative tools to track and combat online disinformation. Her work for the committee showed how Russia and other adversaries continue to manipulate our social-media feeds and divide us as a nation. 

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The Technology 202: Disinformation campaigns targeting veterans are in the spotlight on Capitol Hill today

(The Washington Post, Wednesday November 13, 2019)

“These operations are surgically precise, targeting influential people and organizations in the veteran community,” Vlad Barash, science director at the research firm Graphika, will tell members of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee at a hearing about online scams impacting veterans, according to prepared testimony. 

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Close Election in Kentucky Was Ripe for Twitter, and an Omen for 2020

(The New York Times, Sunday November 10, 2019)

Graphika, a company that specializes in analyzing social media, agreed with the conclusion that much of the activity around the Kentucky vote was domestic and not likely to have been pushed by any foreign power. Graphika said the tweets about electoral fraud appeared to land in what it calls a “Trump core” — a large number of highly interconnected social media accounts, many run by real people, that are typically reactive and loud and can keep a conversation going for days at a time.

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A Veteran, a Scientist and Representatives from Facebook and Twitter Are All Set to Testify.

(Nextgov, Wednesday November 6, 2019)

The witnesses for the Nov. 13 hearing—entitled “Hijacking our Heroes: Exploiting Veterans through Disinformation on Social Media"—will include Facebook’s Head of Security Policy Nathaniel Gleicher, Twitter’s Public Policy Manager Kevin Kane, Graphika’s Science Director Vladimir Barash and Vietnam Veterans of America’s Chief Investigator and Associate Director of Policy and Government Affairs Kristofer Goldsmith.

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Russian Operatives Sacrifice Followers to Stay Under Cover on Facebook

(Reuters, Thursday October 24, 2019)

Those efforts included sharing memes and screenshots of other users' social media posts instead of producing original content in English, likely to avoid making language errors typical of non-native speakers, according to a report here by social media analytics firm Graphika. This technique “gave each asset less of a discernible personality and therefore may have reduced the (campaign’s) ability to build audiences,” Graphika said.

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Camille Francois (Graphika) on Quest Means Business

(CNN International, Thursday October 24, 2019)

Chief Innovation Officer, Camille Francois visits Quest Means Business to discuss Graphika's latest findings as FB reveals efforts by Russia to sway 2020 elections.

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Facebook: Russian Trolls Are Back. And They're Here to Meddle with 2020

(CNN, Tuesday October 22, 2019)

Although the accounts posed as Americans from all sides of the political spectrum, many were united in their opposition to the candidacy of former Vice President Joe Biden, according to Graphika, a social media investigations company that Facebook asked to analyze the accounts.

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Facebook Takedowns Show New Russian Activity Targeted Biden, Praised Trump

(The Washington Post, Monday October 21, 2019)

The network appeared still to be in an audience-building phase when it was removed by Facebook: 246,000 accounts followed one or more of the inauthentic Russian accounts, which had collectively made just fewer than 75,000 posts, according to a report from Graphika, a social media analysis firm that examined the operation for Facebook. Only one account, which addressed environmental themes, had more than 20,000 followers.

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Facebook Discloses Operations by Russia and Iran to Meddle in 2020 Election

(The Guardian, Monday October 21, 2019)

The accounts adopted various political identities, such as pro-Donald Trump, anti-police violence, pro-Bernie Sanders, LGBTQ, feminist, pro-police and pro-Confederate, according to Graphika’s analysis. Most posts were not explicitly related to electoral politics, Graphika said, but were focused on general political commentary for “persona development and branding”

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Facebook Finds New Disinformation Campaigns and Braces for 2020 Torrent

(The New York Times, Monday October 21, 2019)

One of the campaigns focused more on the 2020 election. In that campaign, 50 accounts linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency — a Kremlin-backed professional troll farm — targeted candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, according to an analysis from Graphika, a social media research firm. Roughly half of those accounts claimed to be based in swing states. 

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How One Tweet Turned Pro-China Trolls Against the NBA

(The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday October 16, 2019)

The Houston Rockets general manager’s account was flooded with comments from pro-Chinese-government accounts that mentioned him more than 16,000 times, according to an analysis by Ben Nimmo, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and head of investigations at Graphika Inc., a social-media analytics firm.

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The Troll Hunter Who Could Stop Russia from Hacking the 2020 Presidential Election

(Marie Claire, Monday October 7, 2019)

Camille François’s colleagues like to say she’s the most optimistic person looking at the darkest corners of the Internet. François is chief innovation officer at Graphika, a New York–based company that uses artificial intelligence and other technologies to map out social-media interactions.

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Troll Watch: Impeachment Inquiry Unleashes U.S.-Driven Disinformation

(NPR Politics, Saturday October 5, 2019)

"That is real power. It's not about fake news. It's about gaining power in the 21st century, whether it's doing this internally so that your team wins an election or during this on the world stage so that your enemies' alliances come apart at the seams without you having to fire a shot." That's John Kelly, founder and CEO of Graphika, a top social media analysis firm.

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Experts: Russian Influence Efforts Constitute "Informational Warfare," Span Beyond Election

(CBS News, Saturday October 5, 2019)

Panelists from organizations like RAND, Graphika and the Alliance for Securing Democracy urged lawmakers that Russia's attacks on the democratic process are far greater than a single election, pointing to disinformation campaigns that seek to weaken western institutions as well as target world industries.

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Exclusive: Bumbling social media scheme hit Hong Kong protestors

(AXIOS, Thursday September 26, 2019)

Researchers at Graphika uncovered an amateurish social media campaign targeting the Hong Kong protests that spanned across hundreds of accounts on several mainstream Western platforms.

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At Least 70 Countries Have Had Disinformation Campaigns, Study Finds

(The New York Times, Thursday September 26, 2019)

Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at Graphika, a company that specializes in analyzing social media, said the growing use of internet disinformation is concerning for the 2020 United States election. A mix of domestic and foreign groups, operating autonomously or with loose ties to a government, are building from the methods used by Russia in the last presidential election, making it difficult for the platforms to police, he said.

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Graphika's Testimony to U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Hearing on Online Imposters and Disinformation

(U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Thursday September 26, 2019)

Camille Francois, Chief Innovation Officer provided Graphika's testimony ​​​​​​to the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Hearing on Online Imposters and Disinformation.

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Why Crafty Internet Trolls in the Philippines May Be Coming to a Website Near You

(The Washington Post, Friday July 26, 2019)

“This is what disinformation will look like in the U.S. in 2020,” said Camille François, chief innovation officer at the New York-based social network analysis company Graphika. Political manipulation, she said, does not need to come from an ill-intentioned enemy state. It can originate with those who have cut their teeth in the competitive worlds of advertising, media and marketing. 

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It’s Not Just the Russians Anymore as Iranians and Others Turn up Disinformation Efforts Ahead of 2020 Vote

(The Washington Post, Thursday July 25, 2019)

“The Iranian operations were a wake-up call to remind us that the Russians were not the only ones doing information operations,” said Camille François, chief innovation officer for Graphika, a network analysis firm based in New York that studies online disinformation.

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35 Innovators Under 35 Visionaries - Camille Francois

(MIT Technology Review, Tuesday June 25, 2019)

Their innovations are leading the way to smarter AI, better brain treatments, and a safer internet. Camille Francois uses data science to detect disinformation and organized harassment campaigns.

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Bird-Killing, Cancer-Causing 5G Is the Internet's New Favourite Conspiracy Theory

(Wired, Wednesday June 12, 2019)

“It is much easier for people to find that kind of information and find it compelling, and more importantly, find a community around it that makes them feel like they belong to a group of people that have figured out the truth,” says John Kelly, CEO of Graphika.

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INSIDER SPOTLIGHT Explorers of the Cybersocial Terrain: How Graphika Is Making Sense of Social Media

(Built in NYC, Friday June 7, 2019)

Our rapidly growing team was featured on Built In NYC's Insider Spotlight. Showcasing a day in the life of three unique employees, this in-depth piece gives curious readers and job seekers the chance to explore what it's like to work at Graphika. 

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Your 5G Phone Won’t Hurt You. But Russia Wants You to Think Otherwise

(The New York Times, Sunday May 12, 2019)

“RT successfully feeds the conspiracy-oriented ecosystem,” said John Kelly, chief executive of Graphika, a network analytics firm. “This effort is having a real impact. It’s bearing fruit.”

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How Russian Trolls Are Using American Businesses as Their Weapons

(Inc., Wednesday May 1, 2019)

A co-author of a recent report on Russian propaganda tactics for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Kelly has become one of the world's foremost experts on the subject.

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Did Twitter Keep Tabs on Journalists' Political Leanings?

(Gizmodo, Monday April 29, 2019)

Gizmodo spoke extensively with one of that study’s co-authors, Camille Francois, who confirmed Graphika’s work had not examined the follow relationships between journalists of varying political appetites on Twitter. She could not recall any public academic study that had.

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When It Comes to Social Media Manipulation, We’re Our Own Worst Enemy

(The Washington Post, Monday April 29, 2019)

In a new opinion essay for the Washington Post, Graphika's CEO, Dr. John Kelly advocates for online authenticity as a foundation for preventing foreign and domestic political manipulation.

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Fake Account Network Massively Pro-Duterte – Report

(Rappler, Monday April 29, 2019)

While Facebook conducts its own investigations, they also rely on outside help from the intelligence community, journalists and other technical experts. In the Gabunada case, US-based Graphika was tasked with an independent analysis of the takedown to provide more details and share insights.

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How Russian Trolls Weaponized Social Media

(MSNBC, Sunday April 14, 2019)

A Russian troll farm in St Petersburg latched onto wedge issues in America—race, immigration, gun control—and spread disinformation around them online to sow discord in America. The goal was to get Americans off their computers and onto the streets.

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U.S. Disrupted Russian Trolls on Day of November Election

(The Moscow Times, Wednesday February 27, 2019)

A report, by an Oxford University team working with analytical firm Graphika, said Russian trolls urged African-Americans to boycott the 2016 election or to follow wrong voting procedures, while also encouraging right-wing voters to be more confrontational.

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It's Past Time for a National Data Privacy Law

(Forbes, Friday January 18, 2019)

According to Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and Graphika, which prepared a new report, “this strategy is not an invention for politics and foreign intrigue, it is consistent with techniques used in digital marketing.”

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There’s a Way to Know if Russia Threw the Election to Trump

(The Washington Post, Friday January 18, 2019)

John Kelly of the data-analysis firm Graphika insists that the Russians were sophisticated enough to tailor their messages to key groups — such as African Americans, who were bombarded with social media posts designed to demotivate them from voting.

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How the Russians Attacked America's Democracy

(USA Today, Wednesday December 19, 2018)

A Russian company with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin used the biggest names in American technology to spread disinformation, poison the electorate and enrage voters.

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Codebook - News Recap

(Axios, Tuesday December 18, 2018)

In the United States, Russia's social media disinformation campaigns are often seen as an election-tampering issue. There's a good chance we'll spend 2019 talking about propaganda as something we have to prepare for before the 2020 election.

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Russia Rejects Reports Alleging Extensive US Election Meddling

(Voice of America, Tuesday December 18, 2018)

The size and scope of Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was far more extensive and thorough than previously understood, according to two newly released reports.

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New Senate Reports Are an Indictment of the White House's Inaction ...

(Slate, Tuesday December 18, 2018)

The Senate Intelligence Committee has just released two new reports on Russian disinformation, revealing in unusually rich detail the scope of Russia’s interference not only in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but also in our day-to-day democratic dialogue since.

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Russian Disinformation Campaign Included 'Pro-Jill Stein Sentiments'

(The Hill, Tuesday December 18, 2018)

Russia's online disinformation campaign included messaging that supported 2016 Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein, according to a new report prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee.

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Russian Trolls Used ‘Digital Marketing Best Practices’ to Sow Discord, Senate Reports Find

(AdWeek, Tuesday December 18, 2018)

The Russian troll farm responsible for running disinformation campaigns intended to influence the 2016 presidential election reached more people on Instagram than on Facebook, and Russian-government-linked accounts are still spreading disinformation on both of the platforms at even higher rates than before the 2016 presidential election.

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How Russia Hacked US Politics With Instagram Marketing

(Foreign Policy, Monday December 17, 2018)

In June 2017, some eight months after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, Kremlin operatives running a digital interference campaign in American politics scored a viral success with a post on Instagram.

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Massive Scale of Russian Election Trolling Revealed in Draft Senate Report

(ARS Technica, Monday December 17, 2018)

A report prepared for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) concludes that the activities of Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA) leading up to and following the 2016 US presidential election were crafted to specifically help the Republican Party and Donald Trump.

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Russian Interference in the Election Was Worse than We Thought

(Los Angeles Times, Monday December 17, 2018)

Two studies released by the Senate Intelligence Committee provide shocking specifics about the scope and sophistication of the effort by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian business linked to the Kremlin, to spread manipulative content online.

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Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African-Americans on Social Media

(The New York Times, Monday December 17, 2018)

The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook

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How Russian Trolls Boosted Conservative News Outlets in the United States

(MotherJones, Monday December 17, 2018)

Russian internet trolls helped expand the reach of conservative media outlets as part of a Kremlin campaign to influence US politics and sow social discord, according to a new report commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

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Voter Suppression and Racial Targeting: In Facebook’s and Twitter’s Words

(The New York Times, Monday December 17, 2018)

A report submitted to a Senate committee about Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election says that social media companies made misleading or evasive claims about whether the efforts tried to discourage voting or targeted African-Americans on their platforms.

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Senate-commissioned reports show scale of Russian misinformation campaign

(Axios, Monday December 17, 2018)

Two outside research groups used data obtained from Silicon Valley giants by the Senate Intelligence Committee to paint a sweeping picture of Russia’s online disinformation efforts both before and after the 2016 presidential election in reports released Monday.

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Silicon Valley May Have Done 'Bare Minimum' to Help Russia Investigation

(CNN, Monday December 17, 2018)

The Senate Intelligence Committee has been advised that social media companies might have provided the "bare minimum" amount of data to aid the panel's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, according to a person familiar with a report commissioned by the committee.

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Russian operatives were promoting sex toys on Instagram to sow discord in the US

(Quartz, Monday December 17, 2018)

Two reports produced by independent researchers for the US Senate Intelligence Committee show that Instagram was a much more significant tool in the hands of Russian operatives trying to influence US politics than previously thought—and was at times potentially more powerful than Facebook.

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Key Takeaways from New Reports on Russian Disinformation

(Fox Business, Monday December 17, 2018)

Russians seeking to influence U.S. elections through social media had their eyes on Instagram and the black community. These were among the findings in two reports released Monday by the Senate intelligence committee.

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How Russia Exploited Racial Tensions in America During the 2016 Elections

(Vox, Monday December 17, 2018)

More than two years after the 2016 elections, media outlets and academics are still discovering the extent of Russian disinformation campaigns aimed at American voters.

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We Made It Easy for the Russians

(Esquire, Monday December 17, 2018)

A new report states very plainly that the Russian government designed this sweeping program specifically to help the Trump campaign, and that it was based on a thoroughgoing analysis of how easily Americans can be duped when it comes to electing a president.

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Russia Disinformation Report Calls out Big Tech

(Seeking Alpha, Monday December 17, 2018)

A new report prepared for the Senate highlights the "belated and uncoordinated response" of tech companies to the Russian disinformation campaign during the 2016 election.

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10 Things You Need to Know Today

(The Week, Monday December 17, 2018)

The study by Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and network analysis firm Graphika found that Russians working at the Internet Research Agency separated Americans into key interest groups and targeted them with messages.

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Here's How Russian Trolls Turned Social Media Into a Weapon

(Gizmodo, Monday December 17, 2018)

Two new independent studies commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee were made public, providing the most in-depth look at online Russian interference in the 2016 election to date.

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Yes, Russian Trolls Helped Elect Trump

(The New York Times, Monday December 17, 2018)

Russian propaganda had about 187 million engagements on Instagram, reaching at least 20 million users, and 76.5 million engagements on Facebook, reaching 126 million people. Approximately 1.4 million people engaged with tweets associated with the Internet Research Agency.

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How Russia Harvested American Rage to Reshape U.S. Politics

(The New York Times, Tuesday October 9, 2018)

John Kelly, Ph.D, Graphika’s founder and CEO contributed analysis and expertise for this New York Times piece revealing the consistent nature of Russian social media manipulation strategy across different social network platforms.

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Here’s Proof that Russian-Backed Accounts Pushed the Nike Boycott

(Wired, Thursday September 27, 2018)

Graphika’s John Kelly, Ph.D contributed expert opinion about ongoing Russian disinformation campaigns that helped to amplify the anti-Nike sentiment during the boycott of the brand following the announcement of Colin Kaepernick as the face of a major Nike advertising campaign.

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Interview: John Kelly, Ph.D, CEO of Graphika on Andrea Mitchell Reports

(MSNBC, Thursday August 2, 2018)

After delivering his testimony on Russian foreign influence on social media to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, Graphika CEO and founder, John Kelly, Ph.D visited Andrea Mitchell Reports (MSNBC) in Washington, D.C. on August 2nd, 2018.

Watch the Full Interview Here

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Foreign Influence on Social Media

(C-SPAN, Wednesday August 1, 2018)

Graphika Founder and CEO, John Kelly, Ph.D was invited to provide his expert testimony on foreign interference in the U.S. presidential election before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Watch the broadcast here.

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A Global Guide to State-Sponsored Trolling

(Bloomberg, Thursday July 19, 2018)

Graphika founder and CEO, John Kelly, Ph.D contributed analysis and expert perspective for this piece from Bloomberg exploring the global rise of government sponsored interference in elections by means of online manipulation and disinformation.

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How an Ex-YouTube Insider Investigated its Secret Algorithm

(The Guardian, Friday February 2, 2018)

Graphika discovered over 513,000 Twitter accounts tweeted links to one or more YouTube-recommended videos that were boosted by vigorous social media campaigns leading up to the 2016 election, involving thousands of accounts controlled by political operatives, including a large number of bots.

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This Former Google Exec Talked to the Social Media Trolls the Russians Paid to Influence Elections — Here’s What She Learned

(CNBC, Friday January 19, 2018)

Camille François, Graphika’s Chief Innovation Officer, shared first hand accounts of the stories of real troll farm workers and her own experience co-authoring a landmark report on Russian electoral influence operations for the Senate Select Intelligence Committee.

Watch the Full Interview Here

The Insanity of NBA All-Star Voting

(ESPN, Thursday February 16, 2017)

Graphika sifted through more than 5 million tweets on behalf of ESPN, revealing a number of interesting findings about NBA All-Star voting, including 10 hyperactive bot accounts voting for Kawhi Leonard about 1,000 times per day.

Read the Full Story Here

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