101. Leaks, Lies, and Altered Tape: Russia’s Maturing Information Manipulation Playbook
- Author:
- Jessica Brandt and Amber Frankland
- Publication Date:
- 10-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS)
- Abstract:
- In 2016 the Russian government and its proxies interfered in the U.S. presidential election in a “sweeping and systematic” fashion. Thanks to multiple bipartisan investigations and the work of researchers and journalists, rich detail about that operation—and the tools Russia’s disinformation agents used to execute it—are available to the public. In 2020 Americans are again preparing to elect a president. As the U.S. intelligence community assessed, and FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed in recent testimony before Congress, Russia is conducting a “very active” interference campaign. Since 2016, Russia’s interference activity in the United States, and elsewhere around the world, has not abated. That’s because elections are a flashpoint for Russian information operations, but not the start or endpoint of this activity, which targets a broad range of polarizing or contentious political events. Over the past four years, the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) the Russian government and its proxies use to manipulate information and carry out deceptive campaigns have matured. These include: Co-opting authentic domestic voices and institutions, often by co-locating trolls within a target population, renting social media accounts of local actors, entrapping local leaders in “interviews” with purported journalists, recruiting real activists to foment protests, or mimicking or appropriating the names of local groups; Exploiting the anticipation of manipulation to claim that manipulation has occurred, often through false flag operations, or the amplification of homegrown conspiracy theories; Practicing tailored influence, by working through micro-influencers and in closed groups; Exploiting the full information ecosystem to launder a narrative, by seeding it with authentic domestic actors, deploying quasi-transparent Russian-supported media properties, and exploiting data voids. Broadly speaking, we are witnessing a marked shift toward harder to detect, more targeted information operations that cover greater swaths of the information ecosystem, likely carried out by Russian military intelligence. That is a very different challenge than the one policymakers faced in 2016, when the threat was not yet fully comprehended, and in 2018, when the threat appeared to be largely driven by Internet Research Agency (IRA) trolls. While it is important to glean lessons from those experiences, it is also important that policymakers not overlearn them, and in doing so, miss the consequential changes to Russia’s information manipulation strategy that are now underway. These changes are occurring partly to evade increasingly sophisticated detection capabilities and policies on the part of social media platforms. But they are also occurring for a more fundamental reason: the Russian government and its proxies do not need to rely on large quantities of troll farm content to upend U.S. domestic politics with corrosive narratives that undermine trust in democratic institutions and belief in the existence of truth itself. The fire is already raging—it needs only a nudge here or there to be redirected to good effect. This paper is not meant to be a taxonomy of Russian TTPs generally, but to highlight evolving trends with relevance to policymakers. It is an effort to help stakeholders of all types—journalists, regulators, and researchers—look beyond individual campaigns to see the full picture of Russian activity as it is changing and to anticipate what might be to come.
- Topic:
- Elections, Disinformation, Foreign Interference, and Leaks
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Eurasia