U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

30–959 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018

S. HRG. 115–397 

OPEN HEARING ON FOREIGN INFLUENCE 

OPERATIONS’ USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS 

(THIRD PARTY EXPERT WITNESSES) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE 

OF THE

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2018 

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Intelligence 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov 

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SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE 

[Established by S. Res. 400, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.] 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina, Chairman 

MARK R. WARNER, Virginia, Vice Chairman 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

SUSAN COLLINS, Maine 

ROY BLUNT, Missouri 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

ANGUS KING, Maine 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

KAMALA HARRIS, California 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky, Ex Officio 

CHUCK SCHUMER, New York, Ex Officio 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona, Ex Officio 

JACK REED, Rhode Island, Ex Officio 

CHRIS JOYNER, Staff Director 

MICHAEL CASEY, Minority Staff Director 

KELSEY STROUD BAILEY, Chief Clerk 

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CONTENTS 

AUGUST 1, 2018 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Burr, Hon. Richard, Chairman, a U.S. Senator from North Carolina ................ 1 

Warner, Mark R., Vice Chairman, a U.S. Senator from Virginia ........................ 3 

WITNESSES 

Helmus, Dr. Todd, Senior Behavioral Scientist, The Rand Corporation ............. 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

DiResta, Renee, Director of Research for New Knowledge .................................. 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19 

Kelly, John, CEO and Founder of Graphika ......................................................... 25 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27 

Rosenberger, Laura, Director, Alliance for Securing Democracy, German Marshall Fund of the United States .......................................................................... 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 32 

Howard, Philip, Director of the Oxford Internet Institute ................................... 89 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 91 

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL 

Responses to Questions for the Record by: 

Todd Helmus ..................................................................................................... 134 

Renee DiResta ................................................................................................... 142 

John Kelly ......................................................................................................... 148 

Laura Rosenberger ........................................................................................... 150 

Philip Howard ................................................................................................... 159 

Charts introduced by members .............................................................................. 163 

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OPEN HEARING ON FOREIGN INFLUENCE 

OPERATIONS’ USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA 

PLATFORMS (THIRD PARTY EXPERT 

WITNESSES) 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2018 

U.S. SENATE, 

SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m. in Room 

SH–216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard Burr (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Burr, Warner, Risch, Collins, Blunt, Lankford, 

Cotton, Cornyn, Feinstein, Wyden, Heinrich, King, Manchin, and 

Harris. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BURR, CHAIRMAN, A 

U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH CAROLINA 

Chairman BURR. I’d like to call the hearing to order. 

I’d like to welcome our witnesses today: Dr. Todd Helmus, Senior 

Behavioral Scientist at the RAND Corporation; Renee DiResta, Director of Research at New Knowledge; John Kelly, CEO and founder of Graphika; Laura Rosenberger, Director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund; and Dr. Phil 

Howard, Director of the Oxford Internet Institute. 

Welcome to all of you. I thank you for being here today and for 

your willingness to share your expertise and insights with this 

Committee and, more importantly, with the American people. 

We’re here to discuss a threat to the Nation that this Committee 

takes every bit as seriously as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, espionage and regional instability. Today we’re talking about 

how social media platforms have enabled foreign influence operations against the United States. 

Every member of this Committee and the American people understand what an attack on the integrity of our electoral process 

means. Election interference from abroad represents an intolerable 

assault on the democratic foundation this republic was built on. 

The Committee, in a bipartisan fashion, has addressed this issue 

head on. In May, we released the initial findings of our investigation into Russia’s targeting of election infrastructure during the 

2016 election. 

Today’s hearing is an extension of that effort. But in some ways 

it highlights something far more sinister, the use of our own rights 

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tant that the American people know that these activities neither 

began nor ended with the 2016 election. As you can see on the one 

graph on display to my left, your right, the Kremlin began testing 

this capability on their domestic population several years ago, before using it against their foes in the Near Abroad and on the 

United States and Western democracies. 

Even today, almost two years after the 2016 election, foreign actors continue an aggressive and pervasive influence campaign 

against the United States of America. Nothing underscores that 

fact more than yesterday’s announcement by Facebook that they’ve 

identified over 30 new accounts that are not only causing chaos in 

the virtual domain, but also creating events on our streets with 

real Americans unknowingly participating. 

These cyber actors are using social media platforms to spread 

disinformation, provoke societal conflict and undermine public faith 

in democratic institutions. There does not seem to be much debate 

about that. 

I think it’s also the case that social media isn’t going anywhere 

anytime soon. It’s part of how we exchange ideas, we stay connected, it binds us as a community, it gives voice to those that are 

voiceless. Social media is the modern public forum, and it’s being 

used to divide us. 

This was never about elections. It is about the integrity of our 

society. 

So how do you keep the good while getting rid of the bad? That’s 

the fundamental question in front of this Committee and in front 

of the American people. And it’s a complex problem that intertwines First Amendment freedoms with corporate responsibility, 

government regulation and the right of innovators to prosper from 

their own work. 

Sixty percent of the U.S. population uses Facebook. A foreign 

power using the platform to influence how Americans see/think 

about one another is as much a public policy issue as it is a national security concern. 

Crafting an elegant policy solution that’s effective but not overly 

burdensome demands good faith and partnership between social 

media companies and this Committee. We hope to hear from those 

innovators in September, because you can’t solve a problem like 

this by imposing a solution from 3,000 miles away. This requires 

a thoughtful and informed public policy debate and this Committee 

is uniquely positioned to foster that debate. 

Last November, when we first welcomed the social media companies in an open hearing, I stressed then what this debate is and 

is not about. This isn’t about relitigating the 2016 U.S. presidential 

elections. This isn’t about who won or who lost. This is about national security. This is about corporate responsibility. And this is 

about the deliberate and multifaceted manipulation of the American people by agents of a foreign hostile government. 

I thank you again for being here, for the work that you’ve done. 

Your analytic and technical expertise is indispensable to us getting 

this right. We cannot possibly formulate the right solution without 

first knowing the extent of the problem. 

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I’m hopeful this morning that as you offer your insights and your 

findings, that you’ll also share your recommendations. We can’t afford ineffective half-measures, let alone nothing at all. 

While it’s shocking to think that foreign actors used social networking and communication mediums that are so central to our 

lives in an effort to interfere with the core of our democracy, what 

is even more troubling is that it’s still happening today. Nothing 

less than the integrity of our democratic institutions, processes and 

ideals is at stake. 

With that, I turn to the Vice Chairman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK R. WARNER, VICE 

CHAIRMAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM VIRGINIA 

Vice Chairman WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I also 

want to welcome our witnesses today. 

This Committee has invested a significant amount of time, focus, 

and energy, both in public and behind closed doors, in uncovering 

and exposing Russian information warfare in our own backyard. 

It is clear that our efforts have increased Americans’ understanding of what the Russians did in 2016 and how they sought to 

attack us through the use of social media. It was pressure brought 

by this Committee that led Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to uncover malicious activity by the Russian-backed Internet Research 

Agency. These revelations eventually resulted in the indictments of 

13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies by the Special 

Counsel’s Office in February of this year. 

Social media oversight has not typically been a function of our 

Committee and, for that matter, any Committee. I have no problem 

acknowledging that the terminology of this world—bots, spam, click 

bait, API, trolls—does not always come naturally to all of us. But 

thanks to bipartisan determination to understand what happened 

in 2016 and a commitment to stopping it from happening again, we 

have been able to accomplish a lot. We have helped reveal the Russian playbook, we have raised public awareness regarding the 

threat, and we have succeeded, however incremental, in pressuring 

each of these companies to take steps to address the problems on 

their platforms. 

That’s the good news. The bad news is that we’ve got a lot more 

work to do. Twenty-one months after the 2016 election and only 3 

months before the 2018 elections, Russian-backed operatives continue to infiltrate and manipulate social media to hijack the national conversation and set Americans against each other. They 

were doing it in 2016; they are still doing it today. 

That was made just evident yesterday, as the Chairman noted, 

when Facebook announced the takedown of 32 new pages and accounts that had connections to Russian-backed operations, and 

those accounts had hundreds of thousands of followers. 

In our previous hearings on Russian disinformation, we outlined 

the Russian playbook in the 2016 elections. We discussed how Russian operatives set up thousands of fake and automated accounts 

on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and others, in order to 

build networks of hundreds of thousands of real Americans. These 

networks pushed an array of misinformation, including stolen emails, state-led propaganda, fake news and divisive content, onto 

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the newsfeeds of as many potentially receptive Americans as they 

could. And you will note out here today from our experts that they 

were extremely successful in that effort. 

These active measures have two things in common: first, they’re 

effective; and second, they’re cheap. For just pennies on the dollar, 

they can wreak havoc in our society and in our elections. 

And I’m concerned that, even after 18 months of study, we are 

still only scratching the surface when it comes to Russia’s information warfare. Much of the initial focus was on paid advertisements, 

but it quickly became clear that these ads represented a tiny percentage of the IRA’s activity compared to the hundreds of thousands of free Facebook and Instagram posts, pages and groups, and 

millions of tweets from IRA-backed accounts. 

Today, it is becoming clearer that IRA activity represents just a 

small fraction of the total Russian effort on social media. In reality, 

the IRA operatives were just the incompetent ones who made it 

easy to get caught. Who else is still out there actively attacking us? 

Are there other troll farms? What about the actual Russian intelligence services? I hope we’ll hear from the experts today how 

much further out they think this Russian disinformation effort 

goes. 

I’m also concerned that the United States government is not 

well-positioned to detect, track or counter these types of influence 

operations on social media. These types of asymmetric attacks— 

which include foreign operatives appearing to be Americans, engaging in online public discourse—almost by design slipped between 

the seams of our free speech guarantees and our legal authorities 

and responsibilities. 

Again, I hope our witnesses will recommend ideas for better tackling this problem while also protecting our constitutional rights as 

Americans. 

All the evidence this Committee has seen to date suggests that 

the platform companies, namely, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, 

Google and YouTube, still have a lot of work to do. Now, before I 

went into politics I spent more than 20 years in the tech business 

and I have tremendous respect for these companies and what they 

represent. And when they are at their best, they are a symbol of 

what this country does best: innovation, job creation, changing the 

world. 

I’ve been hard on them, though, that’s true. But it’s because I 

know they can do better to protect our democracy. They have the 

creativity, expertise, resources, and technological capability to get 

ahead of these malicious actors. 

That’s why, as the Chairman mentioned, we’ll be hosting senior 

executives from Facebook, Twitter, and, yes, Google, for a hearing 

on September 5th to hear the plans they have in place, to press 

them to do more, and to work together to address this challenge. 

That’s because it’s only going to get harder. As digital targeting 

continues to improve, and as new advances in technology and artificial intelligence—one that I’m particularly concerned on, like deep 

fakes—continue to spread, the magnitude of the challenge will only 

grow. 

I know today we’ll focus on what happened in 2016 and what is 

happening now, but Russian active measures have revealed a dark 

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underbelly of the social media ecosystem. These same tools that 

spread misinformation can negatively affect other aspects of our 

lives. 

I think we need to start pushing ourselves beyond just recognizing the problems and start to press actual policy ideas forward. 

I’m interested in hearing some of those policy options that might 

help us address broader challenges posed by the growth and dominance of a few social media companies. 

For example, does a user have the right to know if they are 

interacting with a person or a bot online? Do companies have a responsibility to ensure more transparency of how they collect, use, 

and secure user data? Do users have enough control over their own 

personal data? 

I hope, as a panel of experts here, you can help this Committee 

to lead and to begin to shape a bipartisan responsibility to this ongoing, as the Chairman has indicated, national security threat. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BURR. I thank the Vice Chairman. 

Before I move to the testimony from our witnesses, some Committee housekeeping. After testimony, members will be recognized 

for five minutes by seniority, and I will hold that to five minutes 

today. 

We have five votes that are scheduled for 11 a.m. I’ll make sure 

that all members today are able to ask these witnesses their questions. I would ask members that, when you need to leave to vote, 

would you be expeditious in coming back if you’re in the queue to 

ask questions, and the Chair will work with each one of you to let 

you know where we think you’ll be in the sequence. 

The Chair will announce he’s going to miss the first two votes 

to stay here and keep the continuity of the hearing going so that 

we can get through as many members as we possibly can. 

With that, Dr. Helmus, I’ll recognize you and we’ll go from your 

right to left from there on. Dr. Helmus, the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF TODD HELMUS, Ph.D., SENIOR BEHAVIORAL 

SCIENTIST, RAND CORPORATION 

Dr. HELMUS. Thank you, Chairman. 

Good morning, Chairman Burr, Vice Chairman Warner and distinguished members of the Committee. Thank you for the invitation to testify at this important hearing. 

Russia is engaged in a worldwide propaganda campaign. One 

particular focus for this campaign is in Russia’s own backyard, in 

the former Soviet states of Eastern Europe. In addition to a military and propaganda war in Ukraine, Russia is disseminating 

propaganda to Russian speakers in the Baltics and other nearby 

states. 

Their goal principally is to drive a wedge between these Russian 

speakers and their host nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the European Union. To do this, Russia uses—Russia, 

of course, uses bot and troll social media accounts. They also synchronize such tools with their state-funded television network, 

their online news portals, and an army of regional proxies that 

some call ‘‘useful idiots.’’ 

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The RAND study I will talk to you about today sought to better 

understand the nature and effectiveness of Russian—of pro-Russia 

outreach on social media. By focusing on the region that includes 

Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, our research team sought to help advance NATO’s defense of the Baltic 

states and shed light on how to combat this issue around the globe. 

My written testimony highlights the analytic methods and key 

findings from this—from our report, but for today’s testimony, I’ll 

focus on our five key recommendations. 

First, there’s a need to further develop analytic methods to track 

and target Russian propaganda efforts. To take any action against 

Russian social media operations, it is critical to identify Russian 

bot and troll accounts and track their activity in real time. This 

will require continued analytic advancements so that computers 

can distinguish between authentic social media chatter and the adversarial information campaigns that are to come. 

Second, it is important to highlight and tag Russian propaganda. 

The approach by international organizations involves frequently 

websites or e-mail alerts which reach only fellow activists or members of the policy community. Instead, the research team argues 

that it is important to highlight Russian propaganda in ways that 

are much faster and target at-risk audiences. 

One example is Google ads could potentially help improve the 

speed and targeting of counter-messaging. The approach uses videos and other content embedded in Google search results to educate 

people who search for Russian-born fake news on Google. 

Third, expand and improve access to local and original content. 

One challenge, particularly in the Baltics, is that Moscow-controlled media, especially TV, is a dominant source of information 

for many Russian speakers in the region. Policies should not so 

much counter the Russian narrative as to displace it with more entertaining and accurate content. The team argues for training Russian language journalists, increasing access to Russian language 

television programming such as Current Time, and highlighting 

the authentic voice of local influencers. 

Fourth, the U.S., NATO and the EU must do a better job of telling their story. They should, for example, offer a compelling argument for Russian-speaking populations to align with the West or 

individual nation-states to which they belong. NATO should also 

more effectively communicate the purpose and intent of its infantry 

battalions now stationed in the Baltics. 

Finally, there is a need to build resilience in target populations. 

This will include long-term effort to implement media literacy 

training and integrate such training into classrooms. A public information campaign that can immediately convey the concepts of 

media literacy and the risk of Russian propaganda may also be 

necessary. 

Thank you once again for inviting me, and I look forward to taking your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Helmus follows:] 

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Testimony 

Russian Social Media Influence 

Understanding Russian Propaganda in Eastern Europe 

Todd C. Helmus 

CT-496 

Testimony presented before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on August 1, 2018. 
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For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT496.html 

Testimonies 

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Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. 

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information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit 

www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.html. 

www.rand.org 
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Russian Social Media Influence: Understanding Russian Propaganda in Eastern Europe 

Testimony of Todd Helmus 1 

The RAND Corporation2 

Before the Select Committee on Intelligence 

United States Senate 

August I, 2018 

Good morning, Chairman Burr, Vice Chairman Warner, and distinguished members of 

the committee. Thank you for the invitation to testifY at this important hearing. 

Russia is engaged in an active, worldwide propaganda campaign. Information 

operations are a major part of Russia's foreign policy and social media are one 

important element of Russia's state-led activities. The RAND Corporation has been studying 

these activities; today, I will share some lessons learned from one particular study-Russian 

Social Media Influence: Understanding Russian Propaganda in Eastern Europe-that examined 

Russia's social media influence in Eastern Europe.3 Understanding activities in this region, 

which Russia considers its "near abroad," will help advance the North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO) defense of the Baltics and also shed light on how to combat this issue 

around the globe. I will provide an overview of Russian propaganda activities, review our efforts 

to identifY Russian propaganda on Twitter, and examine challenges confronting U.S. and 

European policymakers in the region. T will conclude with recommendations for countering the 

Russian propaganda threat. 

1 The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are the author's alone and should not be interpreted as 

representing those of the RAND Corporation or any of the sponsors of its research. 

2 The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make 

communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, 

nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. 

3 Todd C. Helm us, Elizabeth Bodine Baron, Andrew Radin, Madeline Magnuson, Joshua Mendelsohn, William 

Marcellino, Andriy Bega, and Zev Winkelman, Russian Social Media Influence: Understanding Russian 

Propaganda in Eastern Europe, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-2237-0SD, 2018. 
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Overview of Russian Propaganda Activities 

The Kremlin has made significant investments to influence the social media debate, 

developing an army of trolls, or fake social media accounts managed by Russian agents, as well 

as social media hots, or automated social media accounts. 4 These capabilities, initially designed 

to influence the Russian domestic audience, have likely been adapted and expanded to be used 

abroad. 

This social media does not work in isolation but is part of a larger propaganda infrastructure. 

A state-funded Russian television network, Russia Today (RI), broadcasts abroad in English, 

Arabic, and Spanish. State-controlled news websites, such as Sputnik, disseminate news in about 

30 languages. Russia also relies on civil society organizations, political parties, think tanks, and 

private citizens to echo and reinforce the Kremlin message. 5 Some of these elements may be 

directly supported by the Russian state; others disseminate pro-Russia content on their own free 

will and dime. Russia's social media campaigns are often synchronized tightly with these outlets. 

The objectives for social media campaigns vary. In the former Soviet states, including the 

Baltic states and Ukraine, the Kremlin often aims to leverage shared elements of the post-Soviet 

experience to drive wedges between ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking populations and their 

host governments, NATO, and the West. Further abroad, the Kremlin often attempts to achieve 

policy paralysis by sowing confusion, stoking fears, and eroding trust in Western and democratic 

institutions. To achieve these and other objectives, Russian social media operations work on 

many fronts, including influencing conversation and debate on news comment sections; 

organizing protests against adversary governments, such as Ukraine; increasing web traffic for 

state-sponsored news stories; harassing individuals who criticize the Russian state; and 

disseminating fake news and other propaganda content.6 

Although Russia seems to have a near-worldwide scope to its propaganda campaign, it is 

particularly interested in the lands on its western border-part of what Russia calls its "near 

abroad." This region stretches from the Baltic states to Ukraine and encompasses Estonia, Latvia, 

Lithuania, Belarus, and Moldova. This is an area of intense Russian focus, as evidenced by 

Russia's annexation of Crimea; the ongoing hybrid warfare in eastern Ukraine; and a campaign 

4 Keir Giles, "Russia's 'New' Tools for Confronting the West: Continuity and Innovation in Moscow's Exercise of 

Power," Chatham House, Russia and Eurasia Programme, March 21,2016. 

5 See John Lough, Orysia Lutsevych, Peter Pomerantsev, Stanislav Secrieru, and Anton Shekhovtsov, "Russian 

Influence Abroad: Non-State Actors and Propaganda," Chatham House, Russia and Eurasia Programme Meeting 

Summary, October 24, 20 14; Daunis Auers, Comparative Politics and Government of the Baltic States: Estonia, 

Latvia and Lithuania in the 21st Century, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; and Andrew Wilson, "Four Types 

of Russian Propaganda," Aspen Review, Issue 4, 2015. 

6 A number of examples support these points. In January 2016, automated complaints posted by hots on social 

media caused Twitter to block pro-Ukraine user accounts. Russia also used themed groups on such social media 

platforms as the Russian-language VKontakte (similar to Facebook) to mobilize antigovernment protests against the 

Ukrainian government. It also used social media to spread fake rumors to undermine the morale of Ukrainian troops 

and discredit Ukrainian leadership and sent harassing SMS messages to Ukrainian soldiers on Ukraine's eastern 

front. Russia also used trolls and hots to artificially inflate web traffic and statistics for pro-Russia content. See 

Giles, 2016; Digital Forensic Research Lab, Atlantic Council, "Electronic Warfare by Drone and SMS: How RussiaBacked Separatists Use 'Pinpoint Propaganda' in the Donbas," Medium. com, May 18, 20 17; and Landana 

Samokhvalova, "The Russian Organizers of a 'Third Maidan' in Ukraine," Euromaidan Press, February 14, 2016. 

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of fake news, hostile Twitter bots, and encouraging protests. Neighboring countries look at these 

actions and wonder where Russia will tum next.7 

The Office of the Secretary of Defense's Rapid Reaction Technology Office asked the 

RAND Corporation to help it better understand the nature and effectiveness of pro-Russia 

outreach on social media and identify countermessaging opportunities in the areas surrounding 

Russia. The goals of our study of Russian social media influence were to (I) identify pro-Russia 

propagandists and anti-Russia activists on Twitter; (2) assess the degree to which Russianspeaking populations in a selection of former Soviet states have adopted pro-Russia propaganda 

themes in their Twitter language, and (3) consider challenges confronting U.S. and European 

policymakers in the region. 

Identify Pro-Russia Propagandists and Anti-Russia Activists on Twitter 

By analyzing Russian-language Twitter data emanating from the former Soviet states of 

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine, as well as from Moldova and Belarus, we were able to 

uncover two communities of interest-a population of pro-Russia activists and a community of 

Ukrainian activists.9 These communities were not only large, with approximately 40,000 

members each, but also highly influential. They produced a lot of content and were mentioned by 

a large number of accounts. When we examined this content, we discovered that these 

communities form two sides of a war of ideas. 

The Russian activist community consisted of consumers and disseminators of pro-Russia 

propaganda. They disseminated content that was virulently anti-Ukraine and the West, and they 

supported breakaway Ukrainian confederations aligned with Russia. The Ukrainian activist 

group appeared to oppose Russian interference and exposed Russian propaganda. They 

supported Ukrainian independence and opposed corruption. 

We also analyzed the key influencers of each community. For the pro-Russia community, the 

most influential users were ardently pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine and the West. Several 

disseminated what are described as "hate posts" about Ukraine and the United States, and one 

pontificated on Russian history. Several influencers appeared to operate from Russia or proRussia locations, and one was a journalist based out of the United Kingdom. Pro-Ukraine 

7 Russia has several reasons for training its propaganda machine on the former Communist countries. First, 

effectively influencing the political outcomes of these countries helps establish a cushion against what it considers 

malign Western influence. Second, some of these countries. including the Baltic states and Ukraine, have minority 

populations of Russian-speaking former Soviet citizens and their descendants. It is an established Russian policyspecifically, "the compatriot policy"-to protect the interests of this population and, more importantly, influence this 

population to support pro-Russia causes and effectively influence the politics of its neighbors. See Andrew Radin, 

Hybrid Waifare in the Baltics: Threats and Potential Responses, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR1577-AF, 2017. 

9 Using a method called Community Lexical Analysis, or CLA, we conducted social network analysis of our Twitter 

data set to distill22,825,114 Russian-language tweets from 512,413 unique user accounts into ten of the most 

central or influential communities. We then used a analytics software called RAND Lex, which identifies 

statistically overpresent and underpresent words in comparison to a baseline text. For this study, our baseline text 

included all Russian-language tweets in our collected dataset. For more on RAND Lex, see Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, 

Todd Helmus, Madeline Magnuson, and Zev Winkelman, Examining ISIS Support and Opposition Networks on 

Twitter, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-1328-RC, 2016. 

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influencers were, of course, anti-Russia and pro-Ukraine. Several used humor and sarcasm to 

convey their message, and others sought to expose Russian propagandists and fake news content. 

One was even supported by Radio Free Europe, in a type of capacity-building venture that is 

proposed in the recommendations of our recent research. Our study argues that analyses such as 

these can play a key role in campaigns designed to empower anti-Russia influencers. 10 

Are the accounts in the pro-Russia activist community working at the behest of the Russian 

state? We ran a randomly selected 2,000 accounts from each community to determine whether 

they were computer automated. 11 Accounts are more likely to exhibit bot-like behavior in the 

pro-Russia than in the pro-Ukraine activist community at a statistically significant rate, although 

the total numbers remain under 1 0 percent for both groups. Either the Russian activist 

community has fewer Russian bots than anticipated, or the Russians have improved their ability 

to surreptitiously field social media bots. 13 Alternatively, the accounts could be managed by 

Russian troll accounts, but such accounts can be difficult to distinguish from Russia's zealous, 

but otherwise authentic, base. Being able to differentiate Russian state-sponsored propaganda 

campaigns from genuine Twitter content is a key and challenging question for technologists. 

The Degree to Which Regional Twitter Users Have Adopted the Language 

of Pro-Russia Propagandists 

We tested whether we could discern the influence of the pro-Russia activist community over 

time and in different regions in eastern Europe. To do this, we developed a fingerprint of the 

word patterns from the content from the pro-Russia activist community. We then compared that 

word pattern fingerprint with that of eight longitudinal panels of Twitter users who were geoinferenced to the region. 14 

The team found that an extremely high 15 to 20 percent of users in Crimea and Donetsk 

shared the same linguistic pattern as the rabid pro-Russia activist Twitter community. This rate 

drops the farther one goes away from the zone of Russian influence.3 Only approximately 5 

10 IdentifYing these influencers-as well as the number offollowers and what each is focusing on-is useful for 

targeting and countermessaging. For example, if the U.S. government were to work with pro-Ukraine influencers 

and help improve their skills, it could more effectively counter the Russian propaganda machine. It goes without 

saying that the pro-Ukraine influencers have far more credibility than any U.S. government agency. 

II Such features include unusual frequency of tweets, profile characteristics, and retweet behavior; Bolometer, 

home page, undated. 

13 The field of computer bots is engaged in an arms race with bot developers increasingly trying to create bots that 

mimic complex human behavior on social media and can avoid detection by automated bot detector programs. See 

Jinque Zhang, Rui Zhang, Yanchao Zhang, and Guanhau Yan, "The Rise of Social Botnets: Attacks and Counter 

Measures," IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, March 8, 2016. 

14 The data for the panels consisted of all tweets that met all of the following conditions: (l) They were written 

between August 2015 and May 2016, (2) they contained primarily Russian language (according to Gnip's language 

classification algorithm), (3) they belonged to one of the 2,200- to 2,600-person user samples in six specific areas in 

Ukraine (Crimea, Donetsk, Dnipro, Kharkov, Kiev, and Odessa) and two other areas in the region (Minsk and Riga). 

These samples yielded between 500,000 and 900,000 tweets each. 

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percent of users reporting from Kiev, Minsk, and Riga, show similarities to the Russian activist 

community. 

We validated the ability of our method to accurately detect the pro-Russia activist accounts 

and argue that this method could be used to track the spread of Russian propaganda over time in 

various regions. This could be a critical component to an effort to detect malign Russian 

information-shaping campaigns in real time. 

Challenges Confronting U.S. and European Policymakers in the Region 

To understand threats and identify policy recommendations, we interviewed more than 

40 U.S. and regional experts for our study, visited U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, and met 

with security and civil society experts in Estonia and Latvia. 

We learned several lessons from these engagements. First, given the breadth of Russia's 

propaganda campaign, it should not be surprising that it is not solely a social media problem. 

Particularly for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the biggest propaganda threat 

comes from television. Moscow-controlled media, especially television, is the dominant source 

of information for many Russian speakers in the countries of the former Soviet Union. 15 Any 

effort to address Russian propaganda in the region must account for this monopoly that Russia 

holds over the Russian-language media market. 

Second, the intensity of Russia's information campaign on social media appears higher in 

Ukraine than in the Baltic states. Some Baltic government security experts suggest that they are 

worried about an intensified Russian social media propaganda as a prelude to a kinetic campaign. 

Third, there is a relatively high presence of Russian-speaking populations in the region. They 

are or descend from Soviet-era migrants, and their host countries have refused them 

citizenship--giving Russia a unique opportunity to communicate with a sympathetic audience. 

Further, some government policies prioritize national languages and limit government outreach 

in the Russian language, complicating state outreach to Russian speakers. 

Finally, as discussed above, numerous social media activists, websites, news sources, and 

other content producers appear to actively disseminate their own pro-Russia propaganda without 

any obvious direct support from the Russian state. This makes identification of state-sponsored 

Russian-language bots, trolls, and other nonattributed content difficult. 

Recommendations 

Drawing on the above, our study made five recommendations that seek to limit Russian 

influence in the region. 

Expand and Improve Access to Local and Original Content 

To effectively compete with Russia propaganda, it is critical that Russian speakers in the 

region have alternatives to Russian-language television, Internet, and social media entertainment. 

15 Ukraine is the exception: It has censored Russian government broadcasting and VKontakte. 

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The key is not to so much counter the Russian narrative as to displace it with more entertaining 

and accurate content. There are several options for achieving this objective. 

One approach is to empower influencers on social media. There are many social media 

activists in the region who speak Russian, hold pan-European outlooks, and have a large 

following on social media. The goal is to identifY such actors and provide funding for content 

creation; offer training in monetization; and, overall, help them produce better content. Some 

efforts are ongoing in this respect, and additional efforts are needed. 

Alternatively, some people we spoke with in the region suggested formal training efforts for 

Russian-speaking journalists in the region. Others suggest increasing access to Russian-language 

television programming. The Estonians, for example, have begun a publicly funded television 

station to help communicate to the 300,000 Russian-speaking residents of Estonia. The United 

States has created Current Time, a Russian-language television broadcast that seeks to give the 

U.S. perspective on news and current events. Current Time may also wisely increase their 

portfolio of entertainment programming. 

Better Tell the U.S., NATO, and European Union Story 

NATO, European Union, and host nations should offer a compelling argument for Russianspeaking populations to align with the West or with individual nation-states; populations, 

especially those sitting on the fence, should be easily able to grasp the goals and motivations of 

the West. Our study concludes that such a compelling argument or vision is currently missing. 

NATO also should better communicate the purpose and intent of its Enhanced Forward 

Presence units--battalion-sized infantry units now stationed in the Baltic states. Russia is 

seeking to drive a wedge between Russian-speaking populations in the region and these units. 

Public affairs elements attached to these units should help frame their presence and mission and 

tell their story with compelling social media content. Civil affairs activities can also be used to 

their advantage. For example, after U.S. soldiers helped cut firewood for local Russian speaking 

residents, one resident was heard saying, "Russian soldiers would never do that." 

Highlight and "Tag" Russian Propaganda 

The current approach to highlighting Russian propaganda is to do so through websites or 

email alerts. Unfortunately, such efforts are extremely slow, and the messages fail to reach the 

populations most in need. It is critical to highlight Russian propaganda in speedy ways that target 

the audiences at risk. Our study highlights the potential use ofGoogle Ads. This approach uses 

videos and other content embedded in Google search results to educate populations who search 

for Russian-created fake news on Google and other search engines. The report also notes the 

potential value of viewpoint bots. A viewpoint bot can, in theory, use advanced algorithms to 

identifY Russian bots or trolls engaged in hashtag campaigns. Once it identifies a bot or troll, the 

viewpoint bot posts messages to the offending hashtags, informing audiences of Russian 

influence efforts. 

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Build the Resilience of At-Risk Populations 

In the Baltic states, we frequently heard of the need for media literacy training, and there is a 

growing recognition of the need for such training in general. Facebook has begun broad-based 

media literacy training, and several countries, including Canada, Australia, and Sweden, now 

introduce media literacy training into their education system. While this is a long-term solution, 

such efforts would likely be warranted in the Baltic states and Ukraine. In the short term, there 

may be value in launching a public information campaign that can more immediately convey the 

concepts of media literacy and the risk of Russian propaganda to a mass audience. 

Track Russian Media and Develop Analytic Methods 

For the United States, allied governments, and technology firms to take any action against 

Russian social media operations, it will be critical to identify Russian bot and troll accounts and 

track their activity in real time. This is no small problem, as such accounts can be very difficult 

for the naked eye or even computer algorithms to spot. It will be critical to develop advanced 

computational analytics that can distinguish between authentic social media chatter and 

adversarial information campaigns. This will require a coordinated research program. 

7 
16 

Chairman BURR. Thank you, Dr. Helmus. 

Ms. DiResta. 

STATEMENT OF RENEE DiRESTA, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, 

NEW KNOWLEDGE 

Ms. DIRESTA. Thank you, Chairman, Vice Chairman and members of the Committee, for giving me the opportunity to address 

this body today. I’m Renee DiResta, Director of Research at New 

Knowledge, and I study computation propaganda. 

Disinformation, misinformation and social media hoaxes have 

evolved from a nuisance into a high-stakes information war. Our 

frameworks for dealing with them have not evolved. We discuss 

counter-messaging, treating this as a problem of false stories rather than as an attack on our information ecosystem. 

We’re in the midst of an arms race, in which responsibility for 

the integrity of public discourse is largely in the hands of private 

social platforms, and determined adversaries continually find new 

ways to manipulate features and circumvent security measures. 

Computational propaganda and disinformation is not about arbitrating truth, nor is it a question of free speech. It’s information 

warfare, it’s a cybersecurity issue, and it must be addressed 

through collaboration between governments responsible for the 

safety of their citizens and private industry responsible for the integrity of their platforms. 

Malign narratives have existed for a very long time, but today’s 

influence operations are materially different because the propaganda is shared by friends on popular social platforms. It’s efficiently amplified by algorithms, so campaigns achieve unprecedented scale. Adversaries leverage the entire information ecosystem to manufacture the appearance of popular consensus. Content is created, tested and hosted on platforms such as YouTube, 

Reddit and Pinterest; it’s pushed to Twitter and Facebook with 

their standing audiences in the hundreds of millions, and it’s targeted at the most receptive. 

Trending algorithms are gamed to make content go viral. This 

often has the added benefit of mainstream media coverage on traditional channels, including television. And if an operation is successful and the content gets wide distribution, recommendation and 

search engines will continue to serve it up. 

We’re here because the Internet Research Agency employed this 

playbook. Their operation began around 2013, continued throughout the 2016 election, and even increased on some platforms, such 

as Instagram and Twitter, in 2017. The operation reached hundreds of millions of users across Facebook, Twitter, Vine, YouTube, 

G+, Reddit, Tumblr, and Medium. Websites were created to push 

content about everything from social issues to concerns about war, 

the environment and GMOs. 

Twitter accounts masqueraded as local news stations, WhiteHouse.gov petitions were co-opted, Facebook events were promoted, 

and activists were contacted personally via Messenger to take the 

operation to the streets. Twitter accounts and Facebook accounts 

associated with the IRA remain active today. 

The focus of the IRA campaign was to exploit social and especially racial tension. Despite YouTube’s claim that the content 

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found on its platform was not targeted to any particular sector of 

the U.S. population, the majority was related to issues of importance to the black community, particularly officer-involved shootings. Hundreds of thousands of Americans liked Facebook pages 

with names like Blacktivist, Heart of Texas and Stop All Invaders. 

The amount of explicitly political content that mentioned the 

candidates in 2016 was small, but unified in its negativity towards 

the candidacy of Secretary Clinton. In content that targeted the 

left, this included messages aimed at depressing the turnout, particularly among black voters, or painting Secretary Clinton in a 

negative light compared to Jill Stein or Bernie Sanders. 

Only the social networks that hosted this campaign are currently 

in a position to gauge its impact. 

The IRA was not the only adversary to target American citizens 

online. The co-opting of social networks reached mainstream 

awareness in 2014, as ISIS established a virtual caliphate across 

all social platforms. 

The debate about what to do about that made it obvious that no 

one was in charge. That confusion continues even as the threat expands. The Wall Street Journal recently revealed that a private intelligence company, Psy-Group, marketed their ability to conduct 

similar types of influence operations to impact the 2016 election. 

Social platforms have begun to take steps to reduce the spread 

of disinformation and deserve credit for doing that. These steps, 

several of which were inspired by prior hearings in this chamber, 

are a good start, but as platform, tactics and protections change, 

determined adversaries will develop new tactics. 

We should anticipate an increase in the misuse of less resourced 

social platforms. We should anticipate an increase in the use of 

peer-to-peer encrypted messaging services. Future campaigns will 

likely be compounded by the use of witting or unwitting persons 

through whom state actors will filter their propaganda. We anticipate the incorporation of new technologies, such as video and audio 

produced by AI, to supplement these operations, making it increasingly difficult for people to trust what they see. 

This problem is one of the defining threats of our generation. Influence operations exploit divisions in our society using 

vulnerabilities in our information ecosystem. They take advantage 

of our commitment to freedom of speech and the free flow of ideas. 

The social media platforms cannot and should not be the sole defenders of democracy and public discourse. 

So, we recommend immediate action to identify and eliminate 

maligned influence campaigns and to educate the public in preparation for the 2018 elections. We recommend an updated global IO 

doctrine, including a clear delegation of responsibility within the 

U.S. government. We believe that private tech platforms must be 

held accountable to ensure that they’re doing their utmost to mitigate the problem in our privately owned public squares, and oversight is key. 

Finally, we need structures and cooperation, information-sharing 

between the public and private sectors. Formal partnerships between security companies, researchers and the government will be 

essential to defending our values, our democracy and our society. 

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In closing, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this 

conversation. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. DiResta follows:] 

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Statement for the record from Renee DiResta, Director of Research, New Knowledge 

Honorable Committee Members -

My name is Renee DiResta, and I research influence operations and social network 

manipulation. I appreciate the opportunity to submit this written and verbal testimony to 

your committee. 

Over the past decade, disinformation, misinformation, and social media hoaxes have 

evolved from a nuisance into high-stakes information war. Our frameworks for dealing 

with them, however, remain the same --we discuss counter-messaging and 

counter-narratives, falling into the trap of treating this as a problem of false stories 

rather than as an attack on our information ecosystem. We find ourselves in the midst of 

an arms race, in which responsibility for the integrity of public discourse is largely in the 

hands of private social platforms, and determined adversaries continually find new ways 

to manipulate evolving feature sets and circumvent new security measures. It is critical 

to acknowledge that computational propaganda and disinformation is not about 

arbitrating truth, nor is it a question of free speech. Information Warfare is a 

cybersecurity issue, it is an ongoing national security issue, and it must be addressed 

through a collaboration between governments responsible for the safety of their citizens 

and private industry responsible for the integrity of their products and platforms. 

Propaganda and malign narratives have existed for a very long time, but today's 

influence operations, which co-opt popular social platforms, are materially different- the 

propaganda is shared by our friends, often in the form of highly effective, shareable, 

immediately graspable memes. It is efficiently amplified by algorithms, and the 

campaigns achieve unprecedented scale. To conduct an operation, adversaries 

leverage the entire media ecosystem to push a narrative and manufacture the 

appearance of popular consensus. The operation is planned on one platform, such as a 

messaging or chat board. Content is created, tested, and hosted on others, such as 

Reddit, Pinterest and YouTube. It's then pushed to platforms like Twitter and Facebook, 

with standing audiences of hundreds of millions of people, and targeted at those most 

likely to be receptive to it. The platform's trending algorithms are gamed to make the 

content go viral - this often delivers the added benefit of mainstream media coverage, 

increasing attention via traditional media channels including television. If an operation is 

successful and the content gets wide distribution, or a manipulative Page or Group 

gains enough followers, the recommendation engine and search engine will continue to 
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serve up the content on an ongoing basis. 

We are here because the Internet Research Agency (IRA) employed this playbook, 

conducting an operation that leveraged our social networks to spread propaganda and 

disinformation directly to American citizens. Their operation likely began sometime in 

2013, continued throughout the 2016 election cycle, and even increased on lnstagram 

in 2017. While many accounts were shut down in 2017 as the tech companies began 

their investigations, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages associated with the IRA 

remain active. The IRA content on Facebook and lnstagram alone had 293 million 

engagements; Facebook itself estimates 146 million users across the two platforms 

were affected. The Internet Research Agency's disinformation campaign was conducted 

on all the major platforms in the social network ecosystem. The presence of 

manipulated content on Facebook and Twitter is well-documented. In the case of 

Alphabet, YouTube, G+, Gmail, and Google Voice were all leveraged to either host 

content or to support personas. Reddit, Tumblr, and Medium have confirmed that they 

were misused; Twitter's Vine video app was co-opted as well, and IRA meme boards 

were discovered on Pinterest. Games and music apps were created and pushed to 

teenagers to download. Even popular game Pokemon Go was incorporated into the 

operation. Outside of social platforms, a number of websites were created to host 

original written content, many of which looked very much like citizen journalism-style 

blogs and think tanks. Topics ran the gamut, from social issues to concerns about wars, 

the environment, corporate greed, GMOs, energy policy, and immigration. Twitter 

accounts were created to masquerade as local news stations. White House petitions 

were either created or co-opted to engineer a perception of social consensus. Dozens 

of Facebook Events were promoted, and activists were contacted personally via 

Messenger, to take the operation to the streets. 

The Internet Research Agency's campaign pressed on a variety of socially divisive 

issues, but the primary focus was on racial tension. Despite YouTube's claim that the 

content attributed to the IRA on its platform was "not targeted to the US or to any 

particular sector of the US population", it appears that the overwhelming majority of the 

videos were related to issues of importance to the black community, particularly 

officer-involved shootings. Hundreds of thousands of Americans liked Facebook Pages 

with names like Blacktivist, Heart of Texas, and Stop All Invaders. The percentage of 

explicitly political content that mentioned candidates by name was smallapproximately 10% - but the political content targeting both right-leaning and 

left-leaning Americans was unified in its negativity toward the candidacy of Secretary 

Clinton. In pages targeting the left, this included content intended to depress voter 
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turnout among black voters, or to paint Secretary Clinton in a negative light as 

compared to candidates Jill Stein or Senator Bernie Sanders. Only the social networks 

that hosted this campaign are in a position to gauge its full impact in changing voter 

attitudes on their respective platforms. However, independent of its impact, the fact that 

it was attempted, went undetected, and achieved such significant reach is sufficient 

cause for concern. 

Although this hearing was convened because of the Internet Research Agency's 

interference in the 2016 election, Russia was not the first to target American citizens 

with propaganda using the social ecosystem. In 2014, the co-opting of social 

communication infrastructure rose to mainstream awareness in the United States as 

ISIS established a virtual caliphate, using every social app imaginable to push 

propaganda boldly and transparently, using the features of our of social ecosystem in 

precisely the way they were meant to be used: to build an audience and connect with 

followers. This was a visible indication that the tools built to enable marketers and 

messengers and friends to communicate could be co-opted and misused; the ensuing 

debate about what to do about the problem made it apparent to anyone watching that 

no one was in charge, and that American companies, American civil society 

organizations, and the American government were deeply divided on how to respond to 

the threat. That confusion continues even as the threat expands beyond extremists and 

state actors: the Wall Street Journal recently revealed that a private intelligence 

company, Psy-Group, openly marketed their ability to conduct similar types of influence 

operations to impact the 2016 election. 

As the internet has evolved, we've seen the consolidation of users into large standing 

audiences on a small handful of social networks. This infrastructure has been a 

phenomenal tool for small businesses to reach customers, and for the previously 

voiceless to find a voice. But like any tool without appropriate safeguards, it can be 

misused. These platforms employ gameable algorithms, and facilitate personalized 

targeting that is enabled by the ongoing collection of extensive amounts of personal 

data. As a result, social networks continue to be the most effective vector to manipulate 

public sentiment and cause lasting damage to our democratic process. To combat this 

evolving threat, we have to address those structural weaknesses and design an 

effective deterrence strategy. 

Individually, several social platforms have begun to take steps to reduce the spread of 

disinformation, by disrupting economic incentive structures, reducing the spread of 
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clickbait headlines, and reducing the granularity of targeting criteria that were used to 

push malicious content directly to subsets of the American people. Political ad content 

on Facebook and Twitter is somewhat public now; we look forward to this database 

being searchable via API, better equipping researchers and journalists to understand 

our paid political conversation. Several platforms are beginning to take source quality 

into account, which may help curb the ability of manipulative propaganda websites to 

reach their audience. These steps, several of which were inspired by prior hearings in 

this chamber, are a good start. But as platform features and protections change, 

determined adversaries will develop new tactics. 

In addition to the ongoing exploitation of social divisions, targeting of elections, and 

disinformation about geopolitical events (such as the conflict in Syria), campaigns 

targeting U.S. industry have emerged and are thriving. Influence operations are 

increasingly appealing to a variety of actors: ideological true believers, non-state 

extremists, economically-motivated enterprises, and State Actors. The last of these 

requires a whole-of-government defense strategy, as it's unlikely that commercial 

platforms will be able to compete with the sophistication of well-resourced and 

motivated hostile foreign government experienced in bypassing common security 

checks. 

The gaps in our ability to combat this type of information warfare became apparent 

while attempting to address ISIS propaganda: the U.S. government was legally 

constrained in its ability to respond, and the social platforms proved slow to act as 

extremist content, assisted by platform targeting algorithms, easily made its way into the 

social feeds of Americans. That wake-up call fell on deaf ears as our adversaries 

prioritized, deployed, and perfected their influence operation capabilities. They were 

able to exploit gaps in our intelligence community's authorities, and take advantage of 

our commitment to civil liberties; this left social platforms in the impossible position of 

having to individually respond to this global threat, which has resulted in the 

implementation of inadequate solutions and self-serving defensive policies on the part 

of those private companies. 

Several years after the threat emerged, the U.S. Government and the tech industry 

respectively took small steps towards combating this threat by establishing the Global 

Engagement Center and the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. The focus of 

the latter is still solely terrorism, although the Global Engagement Center's mandate has 

expanded to countering foreign propaganda. The DOJ and NSA & Cyber Command's 
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recent announcements that they will prioritize the mitigation and prosecution of this 

activity is a positive sign. However, addressing this asymmetric threat requires a 21st 

century Information Operations Doctrine, the implementation of a global real-time 

detection and deterrence strategy, and the cooperation of private industry, press, law 

enforcement, and the intelligence community. 

The evolution of social media propaganda and influence techniques will bring serious 

threats. We should anticipate an increase in the misuse of less popular and less 

resourced social platforms, and an increase in the use of peer-to-peer messaging 

services. We believe that future campaigns will be compounded by the employment of 

witting or unwitting U.S. Persons through whom these state actors will filter their 

propaganda, in order to circumvent detection by social platforms and law enforcement. 

We should anticipate the incorporation of new technologies, such as videos and audio 

produced by artificial intelligence, to supplement these operations, making it 

increasingly difficult for citizens to trust their own eyes. 

This will be one of the defining threats of our generation. Influence operations exploit 

divisions in our society using vulnerabilities in our information ecosystem. They take 

advantage of America's commitment to freedom of speech and the free flow of ideas. 

The social media platforms cannot, and should not, be the sole defenders of democracy 

and public discourse. In that light, here are several recommendations we are proposing 

toward achieving the goal of restoring integrity to the information ecosystem: 

First, to address the most pressing short term issue, we recommend immediate 

government action to identify and eliminate malign influence campaigns and to educate 

the public in preparation for the 2018 elections. 

Second, this domestic defense must be complimented by an updated globaiiO doctrine 

and international detection and deterrence strategy, with the goal of mitigating foreign 

influence targeting our allies, including the clear delegation of responsibility of this 

activity within the U.S. Government. Taking example from the U.S. Government's cyber 

security response over the past decade, we must implement legislation that defines and 

criminalizes foreign propaganda that targets not just our political process but also 

addresses the targeting of commercial industry and social issues. Empowering law 

enforcement with updated legal tools to investigate and prosecute sophisticated foreign 

propaganda is essential to combatting this threat in the age of information warfare. 

Third, the private tech platforms must be held accountable to ensure that they are doing 
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their utmost to manage and mitigate the pervasiveness of disinformation and 

manipulative narratives in our privately-owned public squares. A number of regulatory 

frameworks are on the table, including mandating that automated accounts be labeled, 

limiting high-frequency advertising practices, and curtailing and reporting inauthentic 

accounts. Regardless of which is chosen, and whether these policies are implemented 

voluntarily by platforms (self-regulatory action) or via formal regulation, the incorporation 

of oversight is key. 

Finally, given that this asymmetric persistent threat impacts our social, geo-political, and 

economic spheres, and given the sophistication of its tradecraft, we need new 

structures for cooperation and information sharing between the public and private 

sectors. Formal partnerships between security companies, researchers, and 

government will be essential to defending our values, our democracy, and our society. 

Thank you. 
25 

Chairman BURR. Thank you, Ms. DiResta. 

Dr. Kelly. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN W. KELLY, Ph.D., FOUNDER AND CEO, 

GRAPHIKA 

Dr. KELLY. Chairman Burr, Vice Chairman Warner, members of 

the Committee: Thank you for this opportunity to appear before 

you today to discuss the weaponization of our social media platforms and the resulting harm to our democracy. 

The data now available make it clear that Russian efforts are not 

directed against one election, one party, or even one country. We 

are facing a sustained campaign of organized manipulation, a coordinated attack on the trust we place in our institutions and in 

our media, both social and traditional. 

These attacks are sophisticated and complex, and the Committee’s bipartisan work to untangle and expose them sets a great example for the country. 

I am a social scientist and the CEO of a marketing analytics firm 

that develops advanced techniques for understanding the flow of 

information online. My experience with Russian online communities began 10 years ago when I helped lead a research effort at 

Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. In this 

work, we observed Russia’s own online political discussion evolve 

from a vigorously free and open forum with a wide variety of organic voices and viewpoints to a network rife with automated accounts and organized pro-government trolling. In short, for the past 

several years the Russian government has been doing to us what 

they first did at home and in Eastern Europe a decade ago. 

We know this because of indispensable work by a wide range of 

investigative journalists, academic researchers, NGOs, grassroots 

organizations, often conducted at great personal risk. For more 

than a decade, these groups have documented the playbook used by 

the Russian government to spread chaos and discord online. These 

techniques include crafting fictitious online personas to infiltrate 

communities, infiltrating radical political communities on both 

sides to enhance their mutual distrust, targeting both sides of a 

country’s most divisive issues, mixing pop culture references and 

radical political discourse to influence young minds, using bots and 

trolls for inorganic amplification, launching cyberattacks in conjunction with information operations. 

Again, each one of these features of the Russian government’s attack against the American public was first tested and deployed 

against their own people, and then refined to target their chosen 

enemies abroad. 

Thanks to the great work of this Committee and to the cooperation of social media platforms, data documenting the Internet Research Agency’s U.S.-focused effort in 2016 has now been released 

to the public. Many dissertations will be written on this data, but 

today I want to highlight just three points. 

First, Russian manipulation did not stop in 2016. After Election 

Day, the Russian government stepped on the gas. Accounts operated by the IRA troll farm became more active after the election, 

confirming again that the assault on our democratic process is 

much bigger than the attack on a single election. 

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Second, they are targeting both sides of our political spectrum simultaneously, both before the 2016 election and right now. We see 

from the IRA data how the same Russian organization will use sophisticated false personas and automated amplification on the left 

and the right in an attempt to exploit an already divided political 

landscape. 

Our current landscape is particularly vulnerable to these sorts of 

attacks. In our estimate, today the automated accounts at the far 

left and the far right extremes of the American political spectrum 

produce as many as 25 to 30 times the number of messages per day 

on average as genuine political accounts across the mainstream. 

The extremes are screaming while the majority whispers. 

Third, American media is also being targeted. The IRA persona 

‘‘Jenna Abrams,’’ which had accounts on multiple platforms, was 

cited by over 40 U.S. journalists before being unmasked. The Russian activity seeks to turn the normal differences of opinion among 

Americans into headlines about unbridgeable political divisions. 

American journalism has a responsibility to harden itself to these 

manipulations. 

The platform’s proactive transparency in these matters will be 

critical in keeping us ahead of the new efforts and tactics and to 

informing public debate on how to strengthen our democracy in the 

face of these threats. There are significant challenges ahead of us, 

and, unfortunately, knowing the other team’s playbook does not 

mean you are going to win the game. 

The released data allow us to understand what the IRA did in 

retrospect. Detecting these efforts before they have already had 

their intended effect and agreeing on how to address them remains 

a formidable challenge. 

On the technological front, our field is making progress in discerning technical markers that distinguish true grassroots movements from fabricated campaigns. And research is yielding methods for detecting manipulations before they gain momentum. It is 

equally important to keep our values front and center in this work, 

notably our dedication to freedom of expression and to protecting 

user privacy. 

It will take skilled women and men professionally dedicated to 

this task and an investment in the development of tools and methods to first catch up and then stay ahead in our race to defend 

America’s cyber social fabric from a new form of 21st-century warfare. 

Civil society or media institutions in the technology sector can 

only do so much in the face of it. The responsibility also lies with 

government to ensure that any state actor eager to manipulate and 

harass faces consequences for their actions. It is not just bots that 

are attacking us and it’s not just algorithms that must protect us. 

The efforts of this Committee represent a tremendous step forward in what will undoubtedly be a long and challenging process, 

and I commend its leadership, dedication, thoroughness and bipartisan spirit. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate today. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Kelly follows:] 

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BRIEFING FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE 

Statement of Dr. John W. Kelly, Chief Executive Officer 

Washington, DC 

August 1 , 2018 

Chairman Burr, Vice Chairman Warner, members of the committee: Thank you for the 

opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the weaponization of our social media 

platforms and the resulting harm to our democracy. 

The data now available make it clear that Russian efforts are not directed against one election, 

one party, or even one country. We are facing a sustained campaign of organized 

manipulation, a coordinated attack on the trust we place in our institutions and in our media -

both social and traditional. These attacks are sophisticated and complex, and the committee's 

bi-partisan work to untangle and expose them sets a great example for the country. 

I am a social scientist, and the CEO of a marketing analytics firm that develops advanced 

techniques for understanding the flow of information online. My experience with Russian online 

communities began ten years ago, when I helped lead a research effort at Harvard's 

Berkman-Kiein Center for Internet & Society.' In this work, we observed Russia's own online 

political discussion evolve, from a vigorously free and open forum with a wide variety of 

organic voices and viewpoints, to a network rife with automated accounts and organized 

pro-government trolling. 

In short, for the past several years, the Russian government has been doing to us what they 

first did at home and in Eastern Europe a decade ago. 

We know this because of indispensable work by a wide range of investigative journalists, 

academic researchers, NGOs, and grassroots organizations, often conducted at great personal 

1 John Palfrey. Urs Gasser. John Kelly. Karina Alexanyan. Bruce Etling and Rob Faris (2010) Public Discourse in the 

Russian Blogosphere: Mapping RuNet Politics and Mobilization, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard 

University. Available l:lere.; Karina Alexanyan, Vladimir Barash, Bruce Etling, Rob Paris, John Pa~rey, Urs Gasser, Hal 

Roberts and John Kelly (2012) Exploring Russian Cyberspace: Digitally-Mediated Collective Action and the Networked 

Public Sphere, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Available J:lere.. 
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risk. For more than a decade, these groups have documented2 the playbook used by the 

Russian government to spread chaos and discord online. These techniques include: 

• Crafting fictitious online personas to infiltrate communities 

• Infiltrating radical political communities on both sides to enhance their mutual distrust 

• Targeting both sides of a country's most divisive issues 

• Mixing pop culture references and radical political discourse to influence young minds 

• Using bots and trolls for inorganic amplification 

• Launching cyber attacks in conjunction with information operations 

Again, each one of these features of the Russian government's attack against the American 

public was first tested and deployed against their own people and then refined to target their 

chosen enemies abroad.3 

Thanks to the great work of this committee and to the cooperation of social media platforms, 

data documenting the Internet Research Agency's US-focused effort in 2016 has now been 

released to the public. Many dissertations will be written on this data, but today I want to 

highlight just three points: 

First, Russian manipulation did not stop in 2016. 

After election day the Russian Government stepped on the gas. Accounts operated by the IRA 

troll farm became more active after the election, confirming again that the assault on our 

democratic process is much bigger than the attack on a single election. 

Second, they are targeting both sides of our political spectrum simultaneously, both before the 

2016 election and right now. 

We see from the IRA data how the same Russian organization will use sophisticated false 

personas and automated amplification, on the left and the right, in an attempt to exploit an 

already divided political landscape.4 Our current landscape is particularly vulnerable to these 

sorts of attacks. In our estimate, today the automated accounts at the far left and far right 

extremes of the American political spectrum produce as many as 25 to 30 times the number of 

messages per day on average as genuine political accounts across the mainstream. The 

extremes are screaming while the majority whispers. 

2 See for instance: Ivan Sigal (13 October 2017) "Tracking Russian Online Interference Teaches Valuable Lessons on 

Improving News Quality." Global Voices. Available..blllil.; Max Seddon (June 2, 2014) "Documents Show How Russia's 

Troll Army Hit America," Buzzfeed News. Available llerll; Adrian Chen (June 2 2015) "The Agency" New York Times. 

Available llerll; Leo G. Stewart, Ahmer Arif, and Kate Starbird. 2018. "Examining Trolls and Polarization with a Retweet 

Network." ACM, New York, NY, USA, 6 pages. Available llerll. 3 Ellen Nakashima (December 25, 2017) "Inside a Russian disinformation campaign in Ukraine in 2014," Washington 

Post. Available llerll; 4 Darren L. Linvill and Patrick L. Warren (2018) "Troll Factories: The Internet Research Agency and State-Sponsored 

Agenda Building," Clemson University. Working Paper available !J!lrg. 

2 
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Third, American media is also being targeted. The IRA persona "Jenna Abrams," which had 

accounts on multiple platforms, was cited by over 40 US journalists before being unmasked. 5 

The Russian activity seeks to turn the normal differences of opinion among Americans into 

headlines about unbridgeable political divisions. American journalism has a responsibility to 

harden itself to these manipulations. 

The platforms' proactive transparency in these matters will be critical to keeping us ahead of 

new efforts and tactics, and to informing public debate on how to strengthen our democracy in 

the face of these threats. 

There are significant challenges ahead of us, and unfortunately, knowing the other team's 

playbook does not mean you are going to win the game. The released data allow us to 

understand what the IRA did in retrospect. Detecting these efforts before they have already 

had their intended effect - and agreeing on how to address them - remains a formidable 

challenge. 

On the technological front, our field is making progress on discerning technical markers that 

distinguish true grassroots movements from fabricated campaigns, and research is yielding 

methods for detecting manipulations before they gain momentum. It is equally important to 

keep our values front and center in this work, notably our dedication to freedom of expression 

and to protecting user privacy. 

It will take skilled women and men professionally dedicated to this task and an investment in 

the development of tools and methods to first catch up, and then stay ahead, in our race to 

defend America's cyber-social fabric from a new form of Twenty First Century warfare. 

Civil society, our media institutions, and the technology sector can only do so much in the face 

of it: the responsibility also lies with Government to ensure that any state actor eager to 

manipulate and harass6 faces consequences for their actions. It's not just bots that are 

attacking us, and it's not just algorithms that must protect us. 

The efforts of this committee represent a tremendous step forward in what will undoubtedly be 

a long and challenging process, and I commend its leadership, dedication, thoroughness, and 

bipartisan spirit. Thank you again for the opportunity to participate today. 

5 Joseph Cox and Ben Collins (2 November 2017) "Jenna Abrams, Russia's Clown Troll Princess, Duped the Mainstream 

Media and the World." The Daily Beast. Available bam. 6 See for instance: Michael Riley, Lauren Etter and Bibhudatta Pradhan (19 July 2018) "A Global Guide to 

State-Sponsored Trolling." Bloomberg. Available here; Samantha Bradshaw and Philip N. Howard, "Challenging Truth 

and Trust: A Global inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation." Working Paper 2018.1. Oxford, UK: Project on 

Computational Propaganda. Available b§m. 

3 
30 

Chairman BURR. Thank you, Dr. Kelly. 

Ms. Rosenberger. 

STATEMENT OF LAURA ROSENBERGER, DIRECTOR, ALLIANCE 

FOR SECURING DEMOCRACY AT THE GERMAN MARSHALL 

FUND OF THE UNITED STATES 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Thank you, Chairman Burr, Vice Chairman 

Warner and distinguished members of the Committee. I submitted 

my full statement for the record, but let me highlight a few key 

points on the national security context of these activities and steps 

we need to take to address them. 

The health and strength of our democracy depends on Americans’ 

ability to engage freely in political speech, to hold vibrant debates 

free from manipulation, and to obtain reliable information about 

the issues of the day. 

I come at this issue as a national security professional who has 

watched social media and online platforms be weaponized to attack 

these foundations of our democracy. I watched from inside the National Security Council when Russia test-drove these approaches in 

Ukraine and as our government struggled to understand them and 

respond. And I watched from the campaign trail in 2016 as our 

government was surprised that these tools were used against 

American democracy. 

The 9/11 Commission characterized the failures that preceded 

that attack as a failure of imagination. I believe the failure to detect and disrupt the Russian government’s weaponization of online 

platforms to be a similar failure to imagine, not just by the government but also by those who ought to understand these tools best, 

their creators. 

Thanks in part to the bipartisan work of this Committee, we now 

know that Russian government-linked actors used a range of 

means to manipulate the online information space, using nearly 

every social media and online platform to amplify extreme content 

and promote polarization, manipulate search results, encourage action off-line, undermine faith in institutions, insinuate themselves 

to target audiences in order to influence public debates on geopolitics, and spread hacked information. 

And, it’s not just the Internet Research Agency. We know Russian military intelligence officers used fake social media personas 

and websites, and the United States is not the only target. 

The Chinese government has also begun to use social media to 

manipulate conversation and public opinion outside of its borders. 

Our authoritarian adversaries are using these platforms because 

controlling the information space is a powerful means to undermine 

democratic institutions and alliances and advance their geopolitical 

goals. But meaningful actions to close off these vulnerabilities by 

both government and the private sector are lacking, and as we 

focus on the past we are missing what still is happening and what 

will happen again. What may have once been a failure to imagine 

is now a failure to act. 

Fundamentally, this is not a content problem. This is a deliberate manipulation of the information space by actors with malicious intent engaging in deceptive behavior. Transparency and exposure of manipulation is critical to reducing its effectiveness and 

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deterring it, but tech companies have remained defensive and reluctant to share information. Their focus cannot be on public relations campaigns; it needs to be on detailing the nefarious activities 

these companies are seeing and curtailing it. Facebook’s announcement yesterday is what we need more of. 

Transparency is also critical for accountability, and outside researchers need greater access to data in a manner that protects 

users’ privacy. Users also need more context about the origin of information and why they see it, including disclosure of automated 

accounts while protecting anonymity. 

Identifying malicious actors and their patterns of activity requires new mechanisms for sharing data, both between the public 

and private sectors and among technology companies. Massive efforts along these lines are welcome, but need to be streamlined and 

institutionalized and protect privacy and speech. 

We also need to identify threats in new technology before they 

are exploited. AI presents new tools to both combat the problem as 

well as new ways to make it worse, such as deep fakes. Government and tech companies need to close off vulnerabilities that are 

being exploited, including by providing a legal framework such as 

the Honest Ads Act that applies the same standards to political ads 

online that apply off-line. 

Manipulation of social media is one part of a larger strategy to 

weaken our democracy. My bipartisan program recently released a 

policy blueprint for countering authoritarian interference in democracies endorsed by a bipartisan and trans-Atlantic group of former 

national security officials. Our recommendations include sending 

clear deterrent warnings to foreign actors about the consequences 

for such activity and identifying our own asymmetric advantages. 

Government also needs to expose foreign interference publicly, 

and legislating reporting requirements for the Executive Branch 

would ensure that politics are not a consideration. 

We also need to harden our electoral infrastructures through 

measures like the Secure Elections Act, as cyber attacks remain a 

core part of Moscow’s arsenal. More broadly, the government needs 

a unified and integrated approach, including through a counter-foreign-interference coordinator at the National Security Council and 

a National Hybrid Threat Center. 

Finally, this is a transnational challenge and it is essential that 

we work more closely with allies and partners to share information 

about threats and collaborate on responses. 

Distinguished members, there are steps that we can take today 

to make our democracy more secure. We need to come together 

across party lines and between the public and private sector to address this challenge. Putin’s strategy is to divide Americans from 

one another in order to weaken us as a country. In the face of this 

threat, standing together as Americans has never been more important. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rosenberger follows:] 

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Statement of 

LAURA ROSENBERGER 

Alliance for Securing Democracy, the German Marshall Fund of the United States 

BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON 

INTELLIGENCE 

Concerning 

"Foreign Influence Operations and their use of Social Media Platforms" 

August 1, 2018 

Thank you Chairman Burr, Vice Chairman Warner, and Distinguished Members of the 

Committee for inviting me to address you today. Few issues are more important to the health 

and strength of our democracy than Americans' ability to engage freely in political speech, to 

hold vibrant debates free from manipulation, and to obtain reliable information about the issues 

of the day. And that's why America's adversaries are deliberately targeting those abilities. 

I come at this issue as a national security professional who has watched social media and 

online platforms be weaponized to attack the foundations of our democracy. I watched from 

inside our National Security Council when Russia was test-driving many of these approaches in 

Ukraine as our government struggled to fully understand and respond to these tactics. And I 

watched from the campaign trail as our government was caught by surprise that these tools were 

being used against American democracy ahead of the 2016 presidential election. 

Imagination Fails Again 

Eighteen years ago, the 9/11 Commission report characterized the failures that led to that 

attack on our country as a "failure of imagination." I believe the failure to detect and disrupt the 

Russian government's weaponization of online platforms against the United States and our allies 

to be a similar failure to imagine- a failure not just by the government, but also by the very 

people who ought to understand these tools best: their creators. 

Today, nearly two years after the alarm bells first began sounding about this activity, 

imagination is no longer required to understand this threat. Thanks in part to the bipartisan work 

of this Committee, we now know that social media and online information platforms have 

provided a powerful means for the Russian government to interfere in our democracy. But 

despite acknowledging and discussing this issue, meaningful efforts to close off these 

vulnerabilities by both government and the private sector remain woefully lacking. And I worry 

that even as we focus on the past, we are missing what still is happening at this very moment, 

and what will certainly happen again. What may have once been a failure to imagine is now a 

failure to act with the urgency and measures required to meet this threat to our democracy. 
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Virtual Tradecraft 

Technology is not standing still, and authoritarian regimes including not only the 

Russian government, but also others like the Chinese Communist Party, are learning lessons 

about how to use these tools most effectively. 

Specific to Russia's efforts to target Americans, Russian government-linked actors have 

used a range of means to manipulate the information space: 1) using fake personas, websites, and 

automation to flood the information zone; 2) manipulating search results; 3) recruiting 

Americans to take action offline and using traditional media to spread manipulated content; 4) 

amplifying extreme content to increase polarization; 5) undermining faith in institutions, 

including the integrity of elections; 6) influencing public opinion directly, both in the U.S. and 

globally, in ways directly at odds with U.S. interests; and 7) spreading hacked and weaponized 

information. 

While much focus appropriately has been on large social media platforms like Facebook 

and Twitter, they represent only a segment of the broader information ecosystem. The Russian 

government and its proxies have infiltrated and utilized nearly every social media and online 

information platform- including Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Tumblr, 4chan, 9GAG, and 

Pinterest- flooding the information zone to target Americans. Some of these platforms have 

been used to target specific communities: Tumblr, for instance, was used to target African 

Americans. Paid advertising was combined with organic content to grow and build audiences, 

establish credibility, target content, and amplify certain messages. These accounts have also 

directed traffic to fringe websites created by foreign actors for the sole purpose of misleading 

Americans. For instance, the website "USAReally" was set up by an entity connected to the 

Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) and claims to provide "objective and independent" 

news to Americans while focusing its content on divisive issues like guns, immigration, and 

LGBT rights. 1 While this site was amateurish and possibly meant to be discovered, numerous 

other fringe websites exist. Some of these sites and social media accounts have masqueraded as 

local news sites, attempting to establish themselves as credible community voices.2 

Another way the Russian government distorts the information space is through 

manipulating search results. Just Google any geopolitical issue of significance to Moscow- MH17, the White Helmets, the Novichok poisonings in the UK- and you will be served up a set of 

top results consisting of outlandish conspiracy theories emanating from Russia.3 And on 

You Tube, while RT and Sputnik are labeled as "funded in whole or part by the Russian 

government," search results on similar geopolitical issues bring these channels to the top, and a 

1 Naira Davlashyan and Angela Charlton, "Russian Sots, Trolls Test Waters Ahead of US Midterms," AP News, July 

15, 2018, https://www.apnews.com/9f85e68cd7764c9080e9edba089a5c16/Russian·bots,-trolls-test-watersahead-of-US-midterms. 

2 Tim Mak, "Russian Influence Campaign Sought To Exploit Americans' Trust In Local News," NPR.Org, July 12, 

2018, https:l/www.npr.org/2018/07 /12/628085238/russian-influence-campaign-sought-to-exploit-americanstrust-in-local-news. 

3 Bradley Hanlon, "From Nord Stream to Novichok: Kremlin Propaganda on Google's Front Page," June 14, 2018, 

https://securi ngdemocracy.gmfus.org/from-nord-stream-to-novichok-kremlin-propaganda-on-googles-frontpage/. 
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millennial-focused RT spin-off, ICYMI, continues to operate without its Russian government 

affiliation labeled. Labeling some foreign government content but not all effectively lends more 

credibility to channels that remain unlabeled. 

The Method to the Madness 

What happens online doesn't necessarily stay online. We know that, using social media 

to masquerade as Americans, the IRA convinced Americans to set aside their daily activities and 

commitments to show up at protests.4 Moreover, roughly nine out often of Americans currently 

get at least some of their news online, 5 and 67% get news from social media.6 Social media also 

tends to drive what traditional media organizations cover, so manipulating the narrative online 

influences reporters' coverage offline. And disturbingly, according to one study, from 2015 to 

2017, 32 major American media organizations - in a total of 116 articles - cited what we now 

know were fake IRA-created social media accounts masquerading as legitimate Americans.7 

This is not just a thing of the past- one IRA-created Twitter account, @wokeluisa, that was 

active through earlier this year appeared in more than two dozen news stories from outlets such 

as BBC, USA Today, Time, Wired, HuftPo, and BET.8 

As you are aware, this manipulation has continued. Much of the activity today is aimed 

at amplifYing discussion of contentious issues in order to further polarize American society. Fake 

accounts often jump on real debates happening in society to drive more attention to a particular 

issue, or to make certain extreme positions seem more prevalent than they actually are. Another 

goal of such activity is for these accounts and networks to insinuate themselves to a particular 

audience and gain followers by jumping on trending topics of discussion, for the purpose of later 

injecting views on other topics of particular interest to Russia. Non-political content has also 

been used for similar purposes. On Reddit, for example, a significant number of IRA-created 

accounts masquerading as Americans shared pornography and puppy photos,9 and many also 

used handles from popular television shows, apparently to try to grow their audience. 10 This is a 

4 Tim Lister and Clare Sebastian, "Stoking lslamophobia and Secession in Texas-- from an Office in Russia," CNN, 

October 6, 2017, https://www .cnn.com/2017/10/05/politics/heart -of -texas-russia-event/index.html. 5 "Digital News Fact Sheet/' Pew Research Center~s Journalism Project, June 6, 2018, 

http://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/digital-news/. 

6 Elisa Shearer and Jeffrey Gottfried, "News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017," Pew Research Centers 

Journalism Project (blog), September 7, 2017, http:!/www.journalism.org/2017/09/07/news-use-across-socialmedia-platforms-2017 /. 7 Josephine Lukito and Chris Wells, "Most Major Outlets Have Used Russian Tweets as Sources for Partisan 

Opinion: Study," Columbia Journalism Review, March 8, 2018, https:!/www.cjr.org/analysis/tweets-russianews.php. 

8 Heather Gardner, "Twitter Does Not Respect Donald Trump Jr.'s Request for Privacy after Divorce 

Announcement," March 16, 2018, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/twitter-not-respect-donald-trump-jr-srequest-privacy-divorce-announcement-172804416.html. 

9 See, for example, https://www.reddit.com/user/emilyli and https:!/www.reddit.com/user/hank-schrade. Both 

accounts are among the 944 accounts Reddit suspended for association with the Internet Research Agency. 10 Several handles used character names from the AMC television series "Breaking Bad," 

including saulgoodman1978, jessepinkman1984, salamanca_tuco, hank-schrade, fring-gus, and walterwhite1962. 
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sound strategy. After all, many of us forget why we followed someone on social media in the 

first place, but nonetheless continue to see their posts. 

These operations often target both sides of a contentious issue - a pattern evidenced on 

Facebook, 11 Twitter,12 and Reddit. 13 One IRA-created Twitter account that I mentioned earlier, 

@wokeluisa, was largely targeted at the left. In one viral tweet on the NFL Anthem protests that 

received 37,000 retweets, this IRA account tweeted on March 13,2018-just over fourth months 

ago: "Just a reminder: Colin Kaepernick still doesn't have a job, because in this country fighting 

for justice will make you unemployable." But at the same time, another IRA account, 

@BarbaraForTrump, was tweeting on the other side of this issue, consistently criticizing the 

Anthem protests. 14 An IRA-created Reddit account, mr_clarnpin posted similar remarks that 

President Obama was "telling us that we have no right to bear guns" in response to comments 

from Obama that Kaepernick was "exercising his constitutional right to make a statement." 15 In 

other words, the goal is not to influence the discussion in one particular direction, but rather to 

sow division and chaos across the political spectrum. 

Another goal is to undermine faith in institutions. Russian active measures have sought 

to undermine public faith and confidence in the rule of law. 16 These attacks not only seek to 

weaken core pillars of democracy, but also to limit efforts to combat corruption and other 

pernicious activities that are endemic in autocratic societies. 17 IRA-created accounts have also 

played up concerns about potential vulnerabilities to U.S. election systems in order to undermine 

faith in elections. 18 

Russian-linked networks on social media also attempt covertly to influence public 

opinion and political sentiment in the United States and globally- on issues concerning both 

domestic and foreign policy. Sometimes, hot button or divisive issues serve as a platform to 

inject a geopolitical narrative. For example, a number of IRA-purchased ads on Facebook 

around the time of the Trump administration's May 2017 strikes on Syria following a chemical 

11 Scott Shane, "These Are the Ads Russia Bought on Facebook in 2016," The New York Times, November 1, 2017, 

https:/ /www.nytimes.com/20 17/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html. 12 Denise Clifton, "Russian Trolls Hyped Anger over Black Lives Matter More than was Previously Known," Mother 

Jones, January 30, 2018, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/0l/russian-trolls-hyped-anger-over-blackl!ves-matter-more-than-previousfy-known/. 

13 Caroline 0., "Russian Propaganda On Reddit," Arc Digital, April17, 2018, https://arcdigital.media/russianpropaganda-on-reddit -7945dc04eb 7b. 14 Donie O'Sullivan, "American Media Keeps falling for Russian Trolls," June 21, 2018, 

https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/21/technology/american-med ia-russian-trolls/index. html. 15 Mr_Ciampin, "Obama: Kaepernick 'exercising his constitutional right to make a statement,"' 

Reddit.com/r/politics,https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/519c46/obama_kaepernick_exercising_his_co 

nstitutional/d7ah 7ae/?context=3. 16 Suzanne Spaulding, "Countering Adversary Threats to Democratic Institutions," Center for Strategic and 

International Studies, February 14, 2018, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fspublic/publication/180214 Spaulding CounteringAdversaryThreats Web2.pdf?EzgGtMw0AjQIIH8eRNNoZ10T490 

V631h. 

17 1bid. 18 See e.g. an IRA-created Reddit account targeted at African-Americans: https://www.reddit.com/user/Abena Tau 
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attack sought to influence public opinion against this military action. 19 One Facebook ad 

purchased by the fake IRA-created "Biacktivist" page and targeted at African Americans asked, 

"How would we feel if another country bombed us for the poisoned water in Flint and for police 

brutality?"20 On Reddit, multiple IRA-generated memes posted to the r/funny sub-reddit were 

targeted at discouraging U.S. support for Montenegrin-accession to NATO, attempting to portray 

Montenegrins either as free riders or as protestors resisting this move. 21 These are just a few 

examples of the manner in which these information operations seek to use the community they 

have built around one set of issues to inject content that shapes American's foreign policy views. 

Another effort aims to shape Americans' views of Europe and Europeans' views of America 

more generally in a negative light - often using the debates around immigration as a means to do 

so. IRA-created accounts have promoted content from openly xenophobic sites, including an 

article that suggested that migrants from Muslim-majority countries were responsible for 84 

percent of rapes in Sweden.22 

This pattern is not unique to operations targeted at the United States. After the poisoning 

of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK, Russian-language accounts on 

Twitter engaged in significant amplification of a poll which asked: "Are you satisfied that 

Theresa May has supplied enough evidence for us to be able to confidently point the finger of 

blame towards Russia?" UK officials believe that 2,800 Russian automated accounts were active 

on Twitter in Britain following the Skripal attack, reaching at least 7.5 million people.23 A 

report released over the weekend by a UK Parliamentary Committee detailed Russia's use of 

social media for political interference in UK politics, includin~ ahead of the Brexit referendum 

and the use of IRA-purchased political ads targeted at the UK. 4 

And while much attention has focused on the Internet Research Agency, we know that it 

was not the only Russian government-related actor using these tactics. In particular, from the 

Special Counsel's July 13 indictment of Russian GRU officers, we know that Russian military 

19 U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 1262," 

Social Media Advertisements, accessed July 30, 2018, https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-mediacontent/social-media-advertisements.htm; U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on 

Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 3023," Social Media Advertisements, accessed July 30, 2018, 

https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/social-media-advertisements.htm. 

20 U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence~ "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 981/' 

Social Media Advertisements, accessed July 26, 2018, https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-mediacontent/social-media-advertisements.htm. 

21 lronhammerConjukelv, "Accession of Countries to NATO: expectations vs. reality," Reddit.com/r/funny/, 

https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3q5zon/accession of countries to nato expectations vs/. and 

HityndiDutilar, "NATO? No action, talk only," Reddit.com/r/funny, 

https:/ /www. redd it.com/r /funny I comments/3q5w97 /nato_ no_ action_ talk_ only I. 22 Shomyo, "Sweden: Migrants from Muslim-majority countries commit 84 per cent of very violent rapes," 

Reddit.com/r/uncen, 

https://www.reddit.com/r/uncen/comments/79ufdb/sweden_migrants_from_muslimmajority_countries/ 

23 Deborah Haynes, "Skripal Attack: 2,800 Russian Sots 'Sowed Confusion after Poison Attacks,"' The Times, March 

24, 2018, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2-800-russian-bots-sowed-confusion-after-poison-attacks-zf61vb3nc. 24 United Kingdom House of Commons, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Disinformation and 'fake 

news': Interim Report, Fifth Report of Session 2017-19, July 29, 2018, 

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/363/36308.htm. 
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intelligence officers also used fake social media personas and websites to spread weaponized 

information.25 And the entities that have been uncovered and identified may be only the tip of 

the iceberg. At the same time, Moscow appears to be emboldened by its perceived success, and 

its activity is becoming more overt. After the Skripal attack, official Russian diplomatic Twitter 

accounts spread conspiracy theories, attacked critics, and mocked host-country government 

officials. 

Manipulating Information as Authoritarian Tool 

And it is not just Russia. The Chinese government has also begun to use social media to 

manipulate conversation and public opinion outside its borders, especially in its immediate 

region. The chat app LINE, popular in Taiwan, has been used to spread disinformation around 

politically sensitive issues; according to Taiwan national security officials, an increasing amount 

of this is from "content farms" located on the Chinese mainland.26 In another instance, fake 

imagery of Chinese bombers flying near Taiwan's Jade Mountain circulated on the social media 

platform Sina Weibo in order to instill fear in the Taiwanese ¥ublic- the image was shared 

widely before Taiwan's Defense Ministry denied the image.2 China has also begun to censor 

content outside its borders, including via the popular Chinese chat app W eChat, as a means of 

shaping the information space.28 China has pressured foreign tech companies to censor content 

on their platforms; in one case, Chinese authorities pressured Facebook to take down the account 

of a Chinese business tycoon living abroad because of content he posted critical ofBeijing.29 

As these examples show, while much of our discussion of social media manipulation in 

the United States has been in a political context, our authoritarian adversaries are using these 

tools because controlling the information space is a powerful means to advance their geopolitical 

goals. For them, this is a strategic domain, and social media and online information platforms 

are powerful weapons to be mastered and used to advance their interests and goals at the expense 

of democratic institutions and alliances. In the case ofPutin's Russia, using information 

operations to weaken our democracy is a means for a declining Russia to gain relative power, 

and manipulating debate to promote a less-engaged America, a weaker NATO, and a weaker EU 

-all of which serve as counterweights to Moscow. In the case of Xi Jinping's China, denying 

the information space to its external critics and shaping discussion of institutions in a manner 

more favorable to Beijing will advance its goal of gaining a more dominant global position. 

25 RobertS. Mueller, Ill, United States of America v. Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, Boris Alekseyevich Antonov, 

Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov, Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev, Sergey Aleksandrovich 

Morgachev, Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek, Pavel Vyacheslavovich Yershov, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev, Aleksandr 

Vladimirovich Osadchuk, Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin, and Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, No. 1:18-cr-00215-

ABJ (United States District Court for the District of Columbia July 13, 2018). 26 Russell Hsiao, "CCP Propaganda against Taiwan Enters the Social Age," Jamestown China Brief 18, no. 7 {April 24, 

2018), https:/ /jamestown.org/program/ccp-propaganda-agai nst -taiwan-enters-the-social-age/. 27 1bid. 

"Lulu Yilun Chen, "WeChat Censoring Messages Even Outside China, Study Says," Bloomberg, November 30, 2016, 

https:/ /www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-0l/wechat-censoring-user-messages-even-outside-chinastudy-says. 

29 Paul Mozer, "China Presses Its Internet Censorship Efforts Across the Globe," The New York Times, March 2, 

2018, https:/jwww.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/technology/china-technology-censorship-borders-expansion.html. 
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Identifying Malicious Behavior Requires Information Sharing 

That is why it is critical that we take meaningful steps now- to address this problem 

and protect our country and our allies. We need to do so in a way that preserves our greatest 

strength- our free speech and privacy. Addressing this issue the right way will ultimately 

strengthen democracy. Moreover, this systemic problem requires action by the government, the 

private sector, and civil society. 

The challenge of countering online information operations is usually discussed from one 

of two directions- either the content being promoted, or the actors' and their deceptive and 

manipulative intent and behavior. I believe that fundamentally, this is not a content problem. 

Looking at it this way misses large parts of activity in which malicious foreign actors are 

engaged, such as the use of fake personas and manipulation of search results; is a reactive 

approach by definition; and creates significant challenges with respect to free speech. Instead, I 

believe we must approach this issue as a deliberate manipulation of the information space by 

actors with malicious intent engaging in deceptive behavior. Focusing on the underlying 

behavior of the actors engaged in that activity helps identify patterns- making it easier to stop in 

the future. 

There are several important steps that the government, tech companies, and civil society 

need to take to defend against and deter this behavior. These include: I) information sharing 

between the public and private sector and among companies about malicious activity; 2) 

addressing identified vulnerabilities that have been exploited; 3) providing transparency about 

online activity, including disclosure of automated accounts and greater context for users about 

why they see certain content; 4) exposure of information operations; 5) collaboration with 

outside researchers; 6) adopting a proactive approach to identify new threats in technology 

before they are exploited; and 7) approaching this effort as part of a larger strategy to counter the 

full range of tactics authoritarian governments are using to undermine democracies. 

Identifying malicious actors and their patterns of activity requires new mechanisms for 

data sharing, both between the public and private sectors and among technology companies. 

Government must play an important role in identifying the threat actors of concern. The 

intelligence community, in particular, has important capabilities that allow it to identify both the 

intentions and behaviors of threat actors. At the same time, social media companies have unique 

visibility in to activity on their platforms- and oftentimes government analysts cannot access 

that information. And given the manner in which these operations work across the information 

ecosystem, tech companies need to share threat indicators with one another. 

The recently announced Department of Justice policy on foreign interference includes 

"Work[ing] with social media companies to illuminate and ultimately disrupt" foreign influence 

campaigns on their platforms," and a number of task forces have been set up across the 

government related to information sharing with social media. 30 These are welcome steps, which 

30 U.S. Department of Justice, Report of the Attorney General's Cyber Digital Task Force, July 2, 2018, 

https://www.justice.gov/ag/page/file/1076696/download, 12. 
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need to be streamlined and institutionalized, and must include both vertical and horizontal 

information sharing that protects privacy and speech. There are models of such mechanisms 

from counter-terrorism, cybersecurity, and financial integrity efforts. 31 

One recent illustration of why this is so necessary is the case of a persona used by the 

GRU to masquerade as a left-leaning American journalist- Alice Donovan. According to the 

Special Counsel's June 13 indictment, the GRU used "a preexisting social media account under 

the name Alice Donovan" to create a Facebook page for DC Leaks, the site that was initially 

created and used to leak material hacked from the DNC.32 According to press reports, the FBI 

began tracking "Alice Donovan" as a Russian government proxy/persona in the spring of2016; 

reporters revealed that "she" may be a Russian troll in September 2017.33 The Donovan 

persona's Facebook page remained live until the New York Times approached the company in 

September 2017.34 The Twitter account was not suspended until a jew weeks ago - after the 

Special Counsel's indictment, and months after Facebook's suspension and multiple press 

reports on the persona's suspected origin.35 If these press reports are accurate, more robust 

information-sharing between the FBI and tech companies, and between Facebook and Twitter, 

could have resulted in earlier termination of this activity by Russian military intelligence. 

Sunlight is the Best Firewall 

Government and tech companies also need to close off vulnerabilities that have been and 

are being exploited. While organic content from foreign actors has had larger reach, the IRA 

exploited the lack of legal or regulatory requirements around political advertising online to 

purchase political ads, allowing them to target specific audiences with precision. While some 

companies have taken steps to implement their own transparency and disclosure requirements, 

others have not- and those that have acted have used different definitions for political 

31 One example is the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), whose goal is to substantially disrupt 

terrorists' ability to promote terrorism, disseminate violent extremist propaganda, and exploit or glorify real-world 

acts of violence using our platforms by: employing and leveraging technology; sharing knowledge, information and 

best practices; and conducting and funding research. https:/lgifct.org/: The National Cyber Forensics and Training 

Alliance, is a nonprofit partnership between industry, government, and academia to provide a neutral, trusted 

environment that enables two-way collaboration and cooperation to identify, mitigate, and disrupt cyber crime. 

http://www.ncfta.net/; Two models from the world of financial intelligence are the UK's Joint Money Laundering 

Intelligence Taskforce (JMLIT) and the United States' FinCEN Exchange. 32 RobertS. Mueller, Ill, United States of America v. Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, Boris Alekseyevich Antonov, 

Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov, Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev, Sergey Aleksandrovich 

Morgachev, Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek, Pavel Vyacheslavovich Yershov, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev, Aleksandr 

Vladimirovich Osadchuk, Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin, and Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, No. 1:18-cr-00215-

ABJ (United States District Court for the District of Columbia July 13, 2018). 33 Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima, and Greg Jaffe, "Kremlin Trolls Burned across the Internet as Washington 

Debated Options," The Washington Post, December 25, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nationalsecuritv/kreml in-trolls-burned-across-the-internet-as-washington-debated-options/2017 /12/23/ e 7b9dc92 -e403-

lle7-ab50-621fe0588340 story.html?utm term=.elf173841821. 

,. Scott Shane, "The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election," The New York Times, January 20, 

2018, https:l/www. nytimes.com/2017 /09/07 /us/politics/russia-facebook-twitter-election .html. 35 Adam Entous, "The Rise and Fall of a Kremlin Troll," The New Yorker, July 19, 2018, 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-rise-and-fall-of-a-kremlin-troll. 
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advertising and are implementing different restrictions on who can and cannot purchase them. 

Because disclosure and transparency provide consumers with important context to evaluate 

information, using different standards confuses consumers and could actually make the problem 

worse. Moreover, labeling publishers as political advertisers- as Facebook has- undermines 

users' faith in credible information. This is not an area for self-regulation- the need for a legal 

framework such as the Honest Ads Act that applies the same standards to political advertising 

online that apply on any other media could not be more clear. 

Exposing information manipulation is critical to both reducing its effectiveness and 

deterring it. That is why transparency by the platforms about the actions they take is essential. 

To date, however, these companies have remained defensive about their approach to these issues, 

and much of what we know about the activity on them is only due to the pressure from this 

Committee and others in Congress. The focus cannot be on public relations campaigns about 

tech companies' commitment to addressing the problem- it needs to be on detailing the 

nefarious activity these companies are seeing and curtailing. 36 

Government must play a similar role in publicly exposing foreign interference activity on 

social media. The recently announced Department of Justice policy to alert key individuals, 

including victims, tech companies, Congress, and the public about foreign influence activities is 

a welcome development.37 As much as possible, information should be provided in an 

unclassified format to enable non-government actors to more readily act on it. But as we saw in 

2016, too often this issue becomes ensnared in politics- which will limit an effective response. 

Legislating mandatory reporting requirements for DNI and DHS would be a critical step to 

ensure that approach going forward. I appreciate the consideration of such measures in the 

Intelligence Authorization Act, and hope they will be enacted and include the full scope of 

foreign interference activity that we are discussing today. 

Transparency by tech companies on the actions they are taking is also critical for 

accountability. It is essential that outside researchers be given greater access to data- in a 

manner that protects users' privacy- in order to have greater visibility into the activity on these 

platforms and inform development of strategies to address malign activity. While some 

companies have taken steps along these lines, they remain too limited and narrow to have a real 

impact. Civil society should be seen as an ally- not an adversary in countering foreign actors' 

manipulation of social media. 

Transparency also means providing users with more information about the origin of 

information and why they see it, as context is critical to evaluating information. Senators 

Warner and Rubio wrote recently that "there is really no better defense against Russian 

36 Paul M. Barrett, Tara Wadhwa, and Dorothee Baumann-Pauly, Combating Russian Disinformation: The Case for 

Stepping Up the Fight Online (New York, NY: NYU Stern Cetner for Business and Human Rights, July 2018). 37 U.S. Department of Justice, Report of the Attorney General's Cyber Dig ito/ Task Force, July 2, 2018, 

https:ljwww.justice.gov/ag/page/file/1076696/download. 
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aggression on social media than an informed citizenry."38 Transparency around and disclosure 

of automated accounts is another means to ensure consumers have information about the online 

information space. Any such disclosure requirements should ensure that anonymity online -

which remains an important and empowering force for activists in authoritarian countries -

remains protected even while disclosing those accounts that are automated.39 Longer-term, 

media literacy and critical thinking skills are essential to promoting resilience, but these efforts 

do not address how the information space itself is manipulated to make certain content seem 

more prevalent than it is. Any media literacy efforts need to include online literacy, so people 

can be more critical in assessing not just the information they are seeing but why they are seeing 

it. Education outreach must also extend beyond classrooms, as research suggests that older 

generations may be more vulnerable to digital disinformation.40 

Getting Ahead of the Curve 

To ensure that imagination does not fail us again, we need to develop better mechanisms 

to identity threats in new technology before they are exploited, including through greater 

connectivity between the national security and tech communities. For too long, "move fast and 

break things" has been tech's modus operandi, with any downsides of technological creation to 

be addressed once a product released into the wild. 

That approach needs to change. As Alex Stamos, the departing CSO at Facebook, told 

his colleagues: "we need to think adversarially in every process, product and engineering 

decision we make."41 We know that AI will present both new tools to combat the problem of 

information manipulation as well as new ways to make it much worse- such as "Deep Fakes," 

which use AI to manipulate video and audio content so that it is indistinguishable to the human 

eye or ear. Moreover, the growth of the Internet of Things will increase the surface area for 

cyberattacks, due to the increased number of exploitable Internet-connected devices Americans 

are placing in their homes, offices, and on their roads. It is critical that we get ahead of these 

threats- and others we have likely not yet identified, before they are weaponized against us. 

Seeing the Whole Field 

Finally, foreign actors' manipulation of social media is part of a larger strategy to 

undermine our democratic institutions. The bipartisan organization I co-direct recently released 

a "Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in Democracies," which outlines a 

38 Mark Warner and Marco Rubio, "As Trump Meets Putin, We'll Spotlight and Resist Russian Aggression: Warner & 

Rubio," USA TODAY, July 12,2018, https:Uwww.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/07/12/trump-putin-helsinkisummit-resist-russian-aggression-column/776617002/. 

39 One option for requiring such disclosure is 5.3127- Bot Disclosure and Accountability Act of 2018," 

Congress.gov, www.conqress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3127. 40 David Z. Hambrick and Madeline Marquardt, "Cognitive Ability and Vulnerability to Fake News," Scientific 

American, February 6, 2018, https:/ /www.scientificamerican.com/article/cognitive-ability-and-vulnerability-tofake-news/. 

41 Ryan Mac and Charlie Warzel, "Departing Facebook security officer's memo: 'We need to be willing to pick 

sides,"' Buzzfeed, July 24, 2018, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rvanmac/facebook-alex-stamos-memocambridge-analvtica-pick-sides. 
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comprehensive strategy that was endorsed by a bipartisan and transatlantic group of former 

senior national security officials (See Appendix A).42 Among those recommendations, our 

government needs to send clear deterrent warnings to foreign actors about the costs that will be 

imposed for engaging in such activity - including through additional sanctions like those 

proposed in the DETER Act and the legislation being developed by Senators Graham and 

Menendez43 -and identify our own asymmetric advantages. 

As we were again reminded by recent reports about alleged cyberattacks on several 

Congressional candidates, including reportedly Senator McCaskill, cyberattacks remain a core 

part of the Russian government's arsenal. That is why we need to harden our election systems 

against cyber threats through measures like the SECURE Elections Act. Such steps are also 

critical to ensuring that Americans have confidence in our election systems, as information 

operations casting doubt on the credibility of an election could undermine faith in the outcome 

even if those systems themselves are not compromised. And more broadly, the government 

needs to develop a unified and integrated approach to this issue in order to see and respond to the 

full threat picture- this should include a creating a counter-foreign interference coordinator at 

the National Security Council and a National Hybrid Threat Center. 

At its core, this is a transnational challenge. Our European partners and allies have 

experiences from which we can learn, and it is essential that we work more closely together 

through mechanisms like that established at the recent 07 meeting44 to share information about 

threats and collaborate on responses to this shared challenge to our democracies. The UK report 

released earlier this week outlines the hurdles it has faced in getting tran~arency and action 

from tech companies, as well as the kinds of measures it is considering.4 We will be more 

powerful in tackling these shared challenges if we do so together. 

Distinguished Members, robust action from tech companies, Congress, the Executive 

Branch, and civil society are all required to meet these threats to our democracy. While this is 

not an easy issue, there are clear steps that we CAN take - today- to make our democracy more 

secure. We need to come together as Americans across party lines and between the public and 

private sector- to address this challenge. Putin's strategy is to divide Americans from one 

another in order to weaken us as a country. A partisan response to this issue only help Putin 

succeed. It is imperative that we stand as a united front against these threats to our country, and 

42 Jamie Fly, Laura Rosenberger, and David Salvo. Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in 

Democracies. June 26, 2018. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.orgjwp-content/uploads/2018/06/PolicyBiueprint.pdf 

43 See United States Congress, Senate, Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act of 2018, S 

2313, 115'" Cong., 1st. sess., introduced in Senate January 16, 2018, www.congress.gov/bill/ll5thcongress/senate-bill/2313; see also !ordain Carney, "Graham, Menendez Crafting Bill to Crack down on Russia," 

The Hill, July 24, 2018, http:/lthehill.com/homenews/senate/398583-graham-menendez-crafting-bill-to-crackdown-on-russia. 

44 Leaders of the Group of Seven, "Charlevoix Commitment on Defending Democracy from Foreign Threats," June 

9, 2018, https:ljg7 .gc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DefendingDemocracyFrom Foreign Threats.pdf. 45 United Kingdom House of Commons, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Disinformation and 'fake 

news': Interim Report, Fifth Report of Session 2017-19, July 29, 2018, 

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/363/36308.htm. 
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that we reduce the polarization and real issues at home that Putin is exploiting. In the face of this 

threat, standing together as Americans has never been more important. 

Appendix A 

Jamie Fly, Laura Rosenberger, and David Salvo. Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian 

Interference in Democracies. June 26,2018. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/wpcontent/uploads/20 18/06!Policy-Blueprint. pdf 
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POLICY BLUEPRINT FOR 

COUNTERING AUTHORITARIAN 

INTERFERENCE IN DEMOCRACIES 

2018 I No.27 

JAMIE FLY, LAURA ROSENBERGER, AND DAVID SALVO 

Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................................................... ! 

Foreward ........................................................................................................................................................................................ S 

I. The Operation Against America ............................................................................................................................................. 7 

II. New Technologies, Old Tactics: The Longstanding Threat to Democracy ..................................................................... lO 

Ill. A New Strategic Approach for Government and Society ............................................................................................... IS 

IV. Recommendations for the U.S. Government. ................................................................................................................... 20 

V. Recommendations for the EU and NAT0 .......................................................................................................................... 26 

VI. Recommendations for the Private Sector .......................................................................................................................... 29 

VII. Recommendations for Media Organizations ................................................................................................................... 32 

VIII. Recommendations for Civil Society .............................................................................................................................. .33 

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................................................... 36 

Appendix A: Influential Publications ...................................................................................................................................... 37 

Appendix B: ASD Advisory Council... ..................................................................................................................................... 39 
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© 20181he Alliance for Securing Democracy 

Please direct inquiries to 

The Alliance for Securing Democracy at 

The German Marshall Fund of the United States 

170018thStreet,NW 

Washington, DC 20009 

T I 202 683 2650 

F 1202 265 1662 

E info@securingdemocracy.org 

This publication can be downloaded for free at http://www.gmfus.org/listings/researchltype/publication. 

'lbe views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the author alone. 

About the Authors 

Jamie Fly is a senior fellow and director of the Future of Geopolitics and Asia programs at The German Marshall 

Fund of the United States. 

Laura Rosenberger is the director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) 

David Salvo is the deputy director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy 

About the Alliance for Securing Democracy 

The Alliance for Securing Democracy is a bipartisan, transatlantic initiative housed at The German Marshall Fund 

of the United States (GMF) that is committed to developing comprehensive strategies to defend against, deter, and 

raise the costs on Russian and other state actors' efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions. 

The Alliance is informed by a bipartisan, transatlantic advisory council composed of former senior officials with 

experience in politics, foreign policy, intelligence, Russia, and Europe - bringing deep expertise across a range of 

issues and political perspectives. 

AboutGMF 

The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) strengthens transatlantic cooperation on regional, national, 

and global challenges and opportunities in the spirit of the Marshall Plan. GMF contributes research and analysis 

and convenes leaders on transatlantic issues relevant to policymakers. GMF offers rising leaders opportunities to 

develop their skills and networks through transatlantic exchange, and supports civil society in the Balkans and 

Black Sea regions by fostering democratic initiatives, rule of law, and regional cooperation. Founded in 1972 

as a non-partisan, non-profit organization through a gift from Germany as a permanent memorial to Marshall 

Plan assistance, GMF maintains a strong presence on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to its headquarters in 

Washington, DC, GMF has offices in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Ankara, Bucharest, and Warsaw. GMF also 

has smaller representations in Bratislava, Turin, and Stockholm. 

Photo Credits: Unsplash.com/ Shutterstock.com 
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Executive Summary 

In 2014, Russian government operatives began 

attacking American democracy through a multifaceted 

operation, a campaign that followed years of similar 

activity across Europe. A core component of this 

operation was the Russian government's aggressive 

interference in the 2016 presidential election, according 

to the unanimous conclusion of the U.S. intelligence 

community. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's February 

16 indictment of the Internet Research Agency 

and related individuals, as well as the Senate Select 

Committee on Intelligence investigation, provided 

further details on the extent of Russia's interference 

in American democracy. Through e-mail hacks and 

leaks of information on politicians and campaigns, 

cyber-attacks against U.S. electoral infrastructure, and 

the injection of inflammatory material into the U.S. 

political and social ecosystems, the Kremlin sought to 

undermine the integrity of democratic institutions and 

amplify growing social and political polarization within 

and between the left and right. This campaign sought 

to damage Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign 

and boost Donald Trump's profile during the election. 

It also targeted prominent members of both parties, 

including members of the Trump administration, and 

average American citizens through political ads and 

disinformation on social media, a trend that continues 

to this day. 

The Kremlin's operation to undermine democracy 

weaponized our openness as a nation, attempting to 

turn our greatest strength into a weakness, and exploited 

several operational and institutional vulnerabilities in 

American government and society: 

A government that was - and remains -

unprepared to address asymmetric threats of this 

nature; 

Insufficient cyber defenses and outdated electoral 

infrastructure; 

Tech companies that failed to anticipate how 

their platforms could be manipulated and poor 

cooperation between the public and private sector 

to address technological threats; 

AISID June2018 

A highly polarized media environment which 

amplified Russian disinformation without regard 

for the credibility of the information they reported 

or the ethics of doing so; 

A porous financial system that allowed dirty 

or anonymous money to enter the country and 

facilitate the aims of corrupt foreign elite; 

The polarization of American citizens and the 

American political system; and, 

A general decline of faith in democracy and the 

media. 

The Kremlin's playbook takes advantage of 

vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the societies it 

targets. In the United States, the vulnerabilities that 

the Kremlin exploited included operational and 

structural weaknesses in governance, legislation, 

and corporate policy. But they also exploited 

existing institutional and societal shortcomings in 

America. A hyper-partisan climate, declining faith 

in the ability of government to do its job, festering 

racial divisions, growing economic disparities, and 

the increasingly polarized media environment and 

prevalence of echo chambers, all provide fertile 

ground for adversaries who seek to do America 

harm. Addressing the threat of foreign interference 

requires closing both sets of vulnerabilities. 

The tools the Kremlin has used to wage these 

operations include information operations, cyberattacks, malign financial influence, support for 

political parties and advocacy groups, and state 

economic coercion. In a world increasingly 

interconnected by technology, state and non~state 

actors alike will be able to conduct malign 

interference operations of varying scales and 

sophistication. Other authoritarian regimes, such 

as China, have already adopted and begun to 

deploy asymmetric tools for their own interference 

operations. Some U.S. partners like Qatar and 

the United Arab Emirates are now even adopting 

similar tools as they attempt to influence American 

debates. As other foreign actors enter the field 

and as technology continues to rapidly advance, 

Western institutions, such as the EU and NATO, 

and democracies worldwide will face additional 

challenges. 
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A New Strategic Approach for Government and Society 

Successive U.S. administrations of both parties 

neglected a threat once thought by many to be 

confined to Russia's periphery and not seen as a 

direct threat to U.S. national security. Tackling 

this challenge requires a new strategic approach 

for government and society to defend democracy 

against malign foreign interference, one that puts 

the problem at the forefront of the U.S. national 

security agenda and brings the public and private 

sectors together to complement each other's efforts. 

Rather than emulating the tactics used against us by 

authoritarian regimes, our responses should play to 

our strengths and be rooted in democratic values -

respect for human and civil rights, including freedom 

of speech and expression and the right to privacy. 

There must be a bipartisan response by the Executive 

Branch and Congress to improve our resilience, 

strengthen our deterrence, and raise the cost on those 

who conduct these operations against us. Defending 

against and deterring the threat also requires greater 

transatlantic cooperation at NATO and between the 

United States and the EU. Finally, Americans must 

rise above the polarization and hyper-partisanship 

in our media and civic discourse that exacerbated 

social and political divisions the Russian government 

exploited. 

This report, representing the consensus of the 

Alliance for Securing Democracy's Advisory 

Council. a bipartisan, transatlantic group of national 

security experts, makes recommendations not only 

to government, but also to the various pillars of 

democratic society civil society organizations, 

the private sector, including the tech companies, 

and media organizations that all have important 

roles to play in defending democracies from 

foreign interference. 1 The report also outlines the 

asymmetric tools and tactics that authoritarian 

regimes use to undermine democracy, the types 

of influence operations that have been conducted 

across the transatlantic space over the past two 

A!SlD June 2018 

decades, and the overall strategic approach that 

government and society should adopt in order to 

protect our democratic institutions from malign 

foreign influence. 

Recommendations 

The effort to tackle the authoritarian interference 

challenge will need to be as expansive and sustained 

as the threat, but there are immediate actions that 

Congress, government, and nonwgovernment actors 

can begin immediately: 

I. Raise the cost of conducting malign influence 

operations against the United States and its allies. 

The U.S. government at the highest level should 

publicly articulate a declaratory policy that makes 

dear it considers malign foreign influence operations 

a national security threat and will respond to them 

accordingly. The Executive Branch and Congress 

should also impose a broader set of sanctions and 

reputational costs against individuals and entities 

that conduct these operations, facilitate corruption, 

and support authoritarian regimes' destabilizing 

foreign policy actions. The Executive Branch 

should also employ cyber responses as appropriate 

to respond to cyber-attacks and deter future 

attacks, and consider offensive cyber operations 

using appropriate authorities to eliminate potential 

threats. Authoritarians that attempt to interfere 

in democracies' domestic politics must know that 

the repercussions for doing so will be severe and 

sustained. 

2. Close vulnerabilities that foreign adversaries 

exploit to undermine democratic institutions. 

From conducting cyberattacks against outdated 

electoral infrastructure to exploiting legislative 

loopholes to move money into the United States 

for covert political influence, foreign actors take 

advantage of our weaknesses in government. The 

administration and Congress should take several 

steps to ensure the integrity of our electoral process 

ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, as well as the 

integrity of our political system by closing off illicit 

finance and covert political influence from abroad. 

Government should also organize itself to respond 

to these threats more effectively by appointing a 
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senior·level Foreign Interference Coordinator ideally 

at the level of Deputy Assistant to the President 

at the National Security Council and establish a 

Hybrid Threat Center at the Office of the Director 

of National Intelligence to coordinate policy and 

intelligence across the U.S. government respectively. 

3. Separate politics from efforts to unmask and 

respond to foreign operations against the U.S. 

electoral process. An incumbent government must 

be able to respond to an attack on our electoral system 

without being susceptible to accusations of political 

machinations. Congress should institute mandatory 

reporting requirements so that an administration 

must inform lawmakers of foreign attacks against 

U.S. electoral infrastructure, including individual 

political campaigns. Political parties and candidates 

running for office should also pledge publicly not 

to use weaponized information obtained through 

hacks or other illicit means. 

4. Strengthen partnerships with Europe to improve 

the transatlantic response to this transnational 

threat. 

Through bilateral relationships, cooperation with the 

EU and at NATO, and coordination between NATO 

and the EU, the United States and Enrope can do a lot 

together to better defend and deter foreign influence 

operations: strengthen the sanctions regime on both 

sides of the Atlantic; shut down channels of money 

laundering and other forms of illicit finance; improve 

NATO's capabilities to support allies in responding to 

foreign influence operations; and, increase assistance 

to civil society within EU member states and in 

the surrounding neighborhood. The transatlantic 

community, together with democratic allies and 

partners worldwide, should establish a coalition to 

defend democracies to share information, analysis, 

and best practices to combat malign foreign influence 

operations. 

5. Make transparency the norm in the tech sector. 

Tech companies have released some data about 

the manipulation of their platforms by foreign 

actors, but the entire tech sector needs to be more 

proactive in providing Congress and the public 

information about their technology, privacy policies, 

and business models. Tech companies should also 

be more open to facilitating third·party research 

AISID June2018 

designed to assist them in defending their platforms 

from disinformation campaigns and cyber -attacks. 

Congress should help foster a culture of transparency, 

for example by passing legislation that ensures 

Americans know the sources of online political 

ads. Congress should also ensure that Americans' 

personal information is protected on social media 

platforms. 

6. Build a more constructive publk-private 

partnership to identify and address emerging tech 

threats. 

The tech sector, the Executive Branch, and Congress 

need to establish a more constructive relationship 

to share information and prevent emerging 

technologies from being exploited by foreign 

adversaries and cyber criminals. New technologies, 

such as "deep fake" audio and video doctoring, will 

make the next wave of disinformation even harder 

to detect and deter. Platform companies need to 

collaborate more proactively with each other and 

with the U.S. government to mitigate threats that 

undermine democratic institutions. 

7. Exhibit caution when reporting on leaked 

information and using social media accounts as 

journalism sources. As we witnessed throughout 

the 2016 presidential campaign, hacking operations 

by states and non·state actors are now a feature of 

political life in the democratic world. But the actors 

behind the hacks have an agenda, and that agenda 

can be enabled if media are not careful about how 

they report the story. Media organizations should 

also establish guidelines for using social media 

accounts as sources to guard against quoting falsified 

accounts or state· sponsored disinformation. 

8. Increase support for local and independent 

media. 

Today's media environment is dominated by 

the cable news networks, and, to a lesser extent, 

the major papers. Local and independent media 

are dying. That is bad for a number of reasons, 

including the fact that local media are often trusted 

to a greater degree than the major national news 

outlets. Philanthropic individuals and foundations 
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should support local journalism, as well as initiatives 

devoted to countering falsehoods propagated by 

foreign actors. 

9. Extend the dialogue about foreign interference 

in democracies beyond Washington. 

Government should help raise awareness about the 

threat of foreign interference, as exposure is one of 

the most effective means to building resilience and 

combating foreign interference operations. However, 

it should also seek partners in civil society who 

can combat foreign disinformation and effectively 

message to American and foreign audiences, and 

who are devoted to strengthening democratic values 

worldwide. New initiatives should be established 

to bring together civil society organizations to 

strengthen democratic institutions and processes in 

the United States. Washington-based officials and 

experts should also engage with Americans outside 

the Beltway more often to give them the tools they 

need to distinguish fact from fiction; identify trusted 

voices in local communities to participate in crafting 

solutions; and, foster a less politicized civic dialogue. 

10. Remember that our democracy is only as strong 

as we make it. 

The polarization of American society, reflected in 

our politics, contributed to the conditions that the 

Russian government exploited. All Americans have 

a responsibility to strengthen our democracy and 

address our problems at home that malign foreign 

actors use against us. Improving governance, 

strengthening the rule of Jaw, fighting corruption, 

and promoting media literacy will help in this 

regard. Moreover, we need to instill a healthier 

respect for one another, regardless of our differences, 

by improving our civic discourse, practicing more 

responsible behavior on social media, respecting the 

vital role of the media, and calling on our elected 

officials to take action to defend our democracy on a 

bipartisan basis. 

AISID June 2018 4 
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Foreward 

"Nothing was more to be desired than that every 

practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, 

intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly 

adversaries of republican government might naturally 

have been expected to make their approaches from 

more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in 

foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our 

councils. How could they better gratify this, than by 

raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy 

of the Union?" -Alexander Hamilton, writing as 

"Publius;' Federalist 68, March 14, 17882 

In May20 16, two groups of protestors faced each other 

in downtown Houston, Texas. One side was drawn 

there by a Facebook group called "Heart of Texas" to 

oppose the purported "Islamification of Texas:' The 

other side was recruited by a Facebook group called 

"United Muslims of America'' and was there to rally 

for "saving Islamic knowledge:' The dueling protests 

in Houston led to confrontation and verbal attacks 

between the sides. What neither the protestors nor 

the authorities understood at the time was that both 

Facebook groups that spurred the protests were 

established and operated not by Houstonians, but 

by individuals posing as Americans from thousands 

of miles away. For relatively little cost, the Internet 

Research Agency (IRA), the now infamous troll 

farm in St. Petersburg, Russia, manipulated the most 

widely used social media platform to pit Americans 

in the United States' fourth-largest city against one 

another. The goal may have been to incite violence 

between these opposing groups of protestors. That 

outcome was thankfully avoided due to the presence 

of local law enforcement. 3 

Fast forward to fall 2017. Across the United States, 

NFL players were taking a knee during the playing 

of the national anthem to protest racial inequality 

and police brutality. On social media, a debate 

raged between Americans regarding whether the 

protesting players were disrespecting their flag and 

their country. Once again, Russian-linked accounts 

on social media fanned the flames and promoted 

http://evtl!on.law.yale. 

AISID June2018 

conspiracy theories.4 The Alliance for Securing 

Democracy's (ASD) Hamilton 68 Dashboard 

noticed a spike in activity from the Russian-linked 

accounts it tracks weighing in on behalf of both 

sides of the debate. 5 Over the past ten months, the 

Dashboard picked up similar trends during the 

protests in Charlottesville, Virginia over the removal 

of monuments to Confederate leaders, the «MeTod' 

movement to end sexual harassment and violence, 

debates about health care, and other hot-button 

social and political issues in the United States. 

These events did not occur in isolation. They were 

part of a large-scale campaign run over the past 

several years by the Russian government and its 

proxies to undermine U.S. democracy and destabilize 

American society - following a pattern of similar 

activity to undermine democracies across Europe 

and weaken the transatlantic community for over a 

decade. More than a year and a half after the 2016 

presidential election, this destabilization campaign 

continues. 

The core component of this operation was the 

Russian government's aggressive interference in that 

election, according to the unanimous conclusion of 

the U.S. intelligence community. 6 Special Counsel 

Robert Mueller's February 16, 2018 indictment' of 

the IRA and related individuals, as well as the Senate 

Select Committee on Intelligence investigation1

\ 

provided further details on the extent of Russia's 

attempted interference in our democratic institutions 

and society. The intelligence community continues 

to assess that Russia possesses the capabilities and 

intentions to interfere in future elections, a claim 

supported by senior members of President Donald 

5 
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Trump's administration, notably Secretary of State 

Mike Pompeo!l and Director of National Intelligence 

DanCoats. 10 

The Kremlin's playbook takes advantage of 

vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the societies it 

targets. In the United States, the vulnerabilities that 

the Kremlin exploited included operational and 

structural weaknesses in governance, legislation, 

and corporate policy. But they also exploited existing 

institutional and societal shortcomings in America. 

A hyper-partisan climate, declining faith in the ability 

of government to do its job, festering racial divisions, 

growing economic disparities, and the increasingly 

polarized media environment and prevalence of echo 

chambers, all provide fertile ground for adversaries 

who seek to do America harm. Addressing the threat 

of foreign interference requires closing both sets of 

vulnerabilities. The threat of foreign interference 

is one of several threats to 

our national security and 

This is not a question of the legitimacy of the 

2016 election outcome. Ongoing investigations 

into the election should be allowed to run their 

course and routine congressional oversight of the 

Executive Branch must continue. Debates about the 

presidency of Donald Trump will continue to divide 

Americans. Yet what should unite Americans is the 

fact that Russia interfered in the U.S. election and 

continues to attempt to undermine the core of what 

makes us American our democratic institutions. 

Left unaddressed, this threat will only grow as 

other authoritarians adopt similar tactics and use 

new technologies to make the threat even more 

persistent and potentially damaging. A divided 

response to Russia's interference plays into Vladimir 

Putin's hands and ensures that the Kremlin's original 

interference effort is successfuL 

democracy, but part of 

reducing its potency must be 

addressing the underlying 

conditions at home that allow 

these tactics to succeed. 

It is important to 

address the challenge to 

our democracy through 

That is why it is so important 

to address this challenge to our 

democracy through bipartisan 

efforts by the administration 

and Congress to improve our 

resilience, strengthen our 

deterrence, and raise the cost 

on those who conduct these 

operations against us. Rather 

than emulating the tactics used 

against us by authoritarian 

regimes, our responses should 

play to our strengths and be 

rooted in democratic values 

- respect for human and civil 

rights, including freedom of 

speech and expression and the 

right to privacy. 

Russia's actions to undermine 

U.S. democracy should 

serve as a wake-up call to all 

Americans. Our freedoms are 

preserved by a democratic 

system that is built upon 

free and open debate and the 

institutions that protect the 

rights that make such debate 

possible. Now our freedom 

and openness are being used 

by authoritarian adversaries 

of the United States to attempt 

bipartisan efforts by 

the administration and 

Congress to improve our 

resilience, strengthen 

our deterrence, and 

raise the cost on 

those who conduct these 

operations against us. • 

to undermine our unity and ultimately our power 

and ability to engage in the world. We must learn the 

lessons of2016 and address the institutional failures 

that led to the first significant foreign interference in 

an American election in the modern era. 

This report, representing the 

consensus of the Alliance 

for Securing Democracy's Advisory Council, a 

bipartisan, transatlantic group of national security 

experts, makes recommendations not only to 

government, but also to those that uphold the pillars 

of democratic society- civil society organizations, 

the private sector, including the tech companies, 

media organizations, and ultimately our fellow 

citizens who all have important roles to play 

in defending democracies from malign foreign 

AI SID June 2018 
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influence operations. 11 The report also outlines the 

tools and tactics that authoritarian regimes use to 

undermine democracy and the broader context of 

influence operations across the transatlantic space 

over the past two decades, of which the operation 

against the United States was only one of the most 

recent. It recommends a new strategic approach that 

government and society should adopt to protect 

our democratic institutions from authoritarian 

interference. 

I. The Operation against 

America 

How the Kremlin Interfered in the 

U.S. Election and Targeted American 

Political Debates 

When the Kremlin launched its operation against 

the United States in earnest in 2014, it did not start 

with an emphasis on a particular candidate for 

office. Instead, it adapted tactics out of the Soviet 

playbook. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union 

used so-called "active measures;· to attempt to 

exploit divisions in American society. In its modern 

incarnation, the Russian government's agenda was to 

further polarize American society, raise doubt about 

the integrity of the US. electoral process, undermine 

confidence in U.S. institutions, and distract the U.S. 

government from its responsibilities on the global 

stage. 

Special Counsel Mueller's indictment revealed that 

Russian operatives from the IRA began visiting 

the United States in 2014 to assess our political 

climate. This on-the-ground penetration in 2014 

and early 20 IS coincided with a flurry of online 

activity. As ASD Non-Resident Fellow Clint Watts 

testified before the Senate Select Committee on 

Intelligence, official Russian news outlets Sputnik 

and RT started pushing out stories on divisive issues 

like the Black Lives Matter protests and tensions in 

AISID June2018 

the Bundy Ranch standoff in Oregon." They also 

ran stories promoting deliberately false information 

and conspiracy theories, such as the bogus claim 

that the U.S. government would declare martial law 

during military exercises in Texas. 13 The Russian 

government established American-looking social 

media accounts that amplified these stories, giving 

them the veneer of credibility and popularity. 14 At the 

onset of the operation, the Russian government was 

preparing to undermine the 2016 election, but was 

more immediately focused on the broader objective 

of tainting democracy and democratic leaders and 

weakening the cohesiveness of American society. 

As November 2016 approached, the IRA began 

to focus more specifically on the election and 

supporting the candidacy of Donald Trump, 

who Moscow assessed would enact policies more 

sympathetic to Russia's positions.15 According 

to the Mueller indictment, part of the Kremlin's 

strategy involved "denigrating other [Republican] 

candidates, such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio."16The 

operation diversified in tools and tactics as Russian 

intelligence operatives conducted well-timed hacks 

of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and 

Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta 

and other campaign aides, hacks designed to deepen 

wounds between supporters of the two Democratic 

Party primary frontrunners, Clinton and Bernie 

Sanders, and to undermine Clinton's candidacy 

in the general election against Trump. 17 Russian 

intelligence services were also suspected of sharing 

those emails with WikiLeaks as well as setting up 

the website DCLeaks specifically to release hacked 

e-mails. Russian trolls masquerading as Americans 

on social media began purchasing political ads to 

support candidates, boost attendance at political 

o()-W/272920-us.army·)Bd€-helm/. 

14 SoottShanc,"TheFakeAmencansRussraCreatedtolnlluencetheEiection."The 

How Russ1ans Hacked the Democrats' 

'" l'3ofo01S9•4S3!l9Slo30S•BoSB30!".4. 2017, http$:/fwww.apnews com/ 
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rallies, and inflame debate around our society's most 

contentious social and political issues. 1

tl The ads not 

only supported Trump and far-right positions, but as 

the Mueller indictment showed, they also supported 

Sanders and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. 

Accounts called "Woke Blacks" and "Blacktivist" 

urged Americans to vote for third~party candidates 

or not show up to the polls. 19 

Russian operatives also probed American electoral 

infrastructure by launching cyber-attacks against 

21 U.S. states' voting systems and voter registration 

databases, targeting election officials' e-mail 

accounts, and breaking into a private election 

systems company's server and using that position 

as a launching point to send phishing emails to 

122 state and local election officials in Florida.20 

While there is no evidence to suggest these cyberattacks changed actual votes, the numerous cyber 

incursions point to vulnerabilities in U.S. electoral 

infrastructure and indicate Russian hackers may 

have been gathering information on these systems 

to exploit in the future. Or, these probes may have 

been conducted to provide a basis for raising doubts 

about the integrity of the electoral process if the 

election result had been different, to accompany 

Russian disinformation that the election would 

be rigged. There is also the question of whether 

the Russian government provided direct financial 

support to U.S. political actors and organizations, 

in addition to purchasing political ads and funding 

rallies supported by genuine U.S. political groups.11 

What many Americans may not realize is that since 

the election, the Kremlin's proxies have continued 

their offensive. On a daily basis, they are repeatedly 

injecting inflammatory material into the U.S. 

AISID June 2018 

political and social ecosystems to amplify growing 

social and political polarization within and between 

the left and right. These operations have targeted 

prominent Democrats as well as Republicans, 

including members of the Trump administration. 

The continued targeting of wedge issues that divide 

Americans, from racial equality to immigration, 

combined with continued cyber~attacks on U.S. 

critical infrastructure, is designed to destabilize 

American society and lay the groundwork for 

campaigns to undermine future elections. 22 

It is still unclear whether attempts to undermine 

the midterm elections in November 2018 and the 

presidential election in 2020 will match the scope 

and severity of the 2016 operation. However, Russia 

and other adversaries possess the capabilities and 

the motivation to interfere in future elections, 

and the overwhelming consensus among national 

security professionals, including members of 

President Trump's cabinet, is that our elections and 

democratic institutions are at risk of being attacked 

and our defenses are insufficient. 

Operational and Institutional 

Vulnerabilities: Why the United 

States Failed to Stop the Threat 

The Kremlin operation to undermine democracy 

weaponized our openness as a nation, attempting 

to turn our greatest strength into a weakness, and 

exploited several operational and institutional 

vulnerabilities in American government and society: 

A government that was and remains -

unprepared to address asymmetric threats of 

this nature; 

• Insufficient cyber defenses and outdated 

electoral infrastructure; 

Tech companies that failed to anticipate how 

their platforms could be manipulated and poor 

cooperation between the public and private 

sector to address technological threats; 
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A highly polarized media environment which 

amplified Russian disinformation without 

regard for the credibility of the information they 

reported or the ethics of doing so; 

A porous fmancial system that allowed dirty 

or anonymous money to enter the country and 

facilitate the aims of corrupt foreign elite; 

• The polarization of American citizens and the 

American political system; and, 

A general decline of faith in democracy and the 

media. 

It took significant time for the various agencies 

of the U.S. government to connect the dots and 

understand the breadth and scope of the Russian 

operation. Even now, more than a year and a half 

after the election, the full extent of Russian activities 

is still being uncovered. The Kremlin's interference 

used tools and tactics that cut across agency 

jurisdictions. No government agency had a full 

picture of the disinformation campaign unfolding 

on social media until after the election. Additionally, 

there was not a clear understanding that the 

Kremlin was using cyber~attacks against electoral 

infrastructure until approximately the summer 

of 2016, The cyber-attacks triggered alarm bells 

across the federal government the Department 

of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of 

State, the National Security Council, the Homeland 

Security Council, and the intelligence community 

but some state officials overseeing their own 

electoral jurisdictions balked at receiving federal 

assistance to secure the vote and some local officials 

still dispute the threat environment for the 2018 

elections. 23 

Politics inhibited an adequate response as well. The 

Obama administration was cautious in its public 

pronouncement regarding the unfolding attack 

because of concerns that the White House would 

be accused of trying to influence the electorate by 

unilaterally releasing information claiming the 

Russian government was conducting an operation to 

AISID June2018 

elect Donald Trump. 24 The administration's attempts 

to coordinate with Members of Congress to inform 

the public on a bipartisan basis were rebuffed, owing 

to concerns about the veracity of the intelligence 

and the possibility of influencing the vote in favor 

of Clinton. zs Democrats and Republicans each put 

out their own versions of the unfolding events, 

further confusing the electorate. In the heat of the 

campaign, Donald Trump also encouraged the 

Russians to hack and leak e-mails of his opponent, 

and praised WikiLeaks for releasing the content of 

the e-mails.2627 

Tech companies missed or ignored warning signs 

as well. None of the major social media companies 

had sufficient mechanisms in place to identify and 

shut down on a timely basis the types of falsified 

accounts or malicious bot accounts the Kremlin's 

proxies used. Twitter estimated after the fact that 

there were over 50,000 Russian-linked accounts 

during the campaign on its platform alone, while 

the Democratic members of the House Permanent 

Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) revealed 

that there were 3,841 Twitter accounts directly 

connected to the IRA, some of which were opened 

and continued to operate after the 2016 election. 2829 

The same HPSCI report noted 470 IRA-created 

Facebook pages with 80,000 pieces of organic 

content on those pages reaching more than 126 

million Americans. 0 The IRA also exploited the 

social media companies' ethos of providing open 

platforms for civic and political discourse by 

purchasing ads in support of candidates and issues. 

This was a problem that traveled across platforms: 

301010. 
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Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. YouTube, Tumblr, 

Reddit, 4Chan. and others were all mediums for 

Kremlin-linked influence operations.31 

During the 2016 campaign, social media accounts 

were rife with information for journalists working 

for traditional media outlets as a type of vox populi. 

Unfortunately, they were rife with disinformation 

as well. Thirty-two of thirty-three major American 

news outlets used information from accounts that 

were later revealed to be operated by the IRA (the 

media continued to use IRA accounts as sources for 

news stories long after the election).3233 Some of the 

outlets only used IRA-cited information once, but 

even one time is too many. In addition. media outlets 

eagerly reported on the information released by 

WikiLeaks from the DNC and Podesta hacks, often 

without confirming the veracity of the information 

or contextualizing the source of the information as 

obtained through illegal means by a foreign actor 

trying to influence the election. 

Finally, the polarization of American society, 

reflected in our politics, exacerbated the divisions 

the Russian government exploited. The rise of cable 

news reflecting a particular political agenda, rise 

of social media as a primary source of news and 

information for many Americans, the entrenchment 

of echo chambers on online platforms, the spread of 

vitriol online, and the general debasement of civic 

discourse left the United States susceptible to foreign 

interference. These problems have not abated since 

the 2016 election, nor has the threat of foreign 

interference in American democracy. Americans 

must learn from all of these institutional and 

societal failures to address this ongoing challenge 

on a bipartisan basis. 

AISID June2018 

11. New Technologies, Old 

Tactics: The Longstanding 

Threat to Democracies 

The multifaceted operation to undermine America 

brought the threat of Russian malign influence 

operations back to the forefront of the U.S. national 

agenda, but the threat is not new. Deploying various 

tools to target foreign governments and to exploit 

open, democratic societies harkens back to Soviet 

times. During the Cold War, democracy was the 

Soviet Union's ideological enemy. Moscow used 

so~called "active measures" inside the United States 

and against our allies across the globe to advance 

the cause of communism worldwide. 34 These tactics, 

however, were often costly and time consuming with 

limited reach, in stark contrast to the ease with which 

technology now facilitates remote manipulation and 

low -cost individual targeting of any American with 

a smart phone and a social media account. 

Post~Soviet Russia no longer has the same ideological 

fabric, but democracy remains the enemy of 

President Vladimir Putin and those who prop up 

his autocratic, kleptocratic regime. President Putin 

is concerned, above all, with maintaining his hold 

on power. To maintain his regime's stability and 

defuse the internal power struggles that threaten all 

autocracies, Putin ensures his control over Russia's 

levers of power by facilitating the enrichment of 

loyalists in the security services, government, and 

state-owned enterprises. The population sees little 

of the spoils of corruption - and even pays for the 

spoils. To justify its system of government at home, 

the Kremlin uses state-controlled media to push 

the narrative that the West is in decline and that 

democracy is not the superior form of government 

western officials would have them believe. The 

Russian government's operations to weaken 

democracies give Putin examples to highlight as he 

justifies his own corrupt regime to his people and 

maintains his grip on power. 

10 
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According to Russian military doctrine, the NATO 

alliance, led by the United States, represents the 

primary threat to Russian national security. 35 

From the Kremlin's perspective, NATO's mission 

to maintain peace and security in Europe and 

representation, along with the EU, of a community of 

transatlantic democratic states, runs counter to the 

Kremlin's interests. Putin employs a combination of 

low-cost tools to weaken others in order to provide 

Russia with greater relative power on the world 

stage. The Russian government's operations beyond 

its borders, especially campaigns waged in European 

countries over the past two decades, aim to fracture 

the cohesion of the EU and NATO, divide European 

allies from one another and from the United States, 

and weaken and distract the United States in order 

to assert a more aggressive posture abroad with less 

of a challenge from the West. Finally, the Kremlin 

seeks to change nations' policies towards Russia; 

through influence operations, it aspires to spread 

a more pro-Russian worldview among political, 

financial, civic, and media leaders in other countries 

that can be advantageous to Moscow's interests 

worldwide. 

The Asymmetric Toolkit 

The Kremlin employs a set of asymmetric tools to 

undermine democracy in other countries, Many 

of these tools are not new, nor are they specific to 

Russia, and they are often used in combination with 

one another to engage in political warfare. 

Asymmetric tools are low-cost, often deniable 

measures that can counter conventional military 

superiority." This toolkit includes: 

1. Information operations: The deliberate use of 

false narratives through traditional and social media 

to mislead a population, and the amplification 

or weaponization of information in order to 

increase the polarization or undermine democratic 

institutions of a particular society. 

AISID June2018 

2. Cyber-attacks: The penetration of computer 

networks to cripple critical infrastructure; disrupt 

the work of public and private sector actors; and, 

steal or alter data to inflict damage upon or cause 

confusion within a government, corporation, or 

society. 

3. Malign Financial Influence: The movement of 

money into another country to acquire political 

and economic leverage and fund other asymmetric 

activities; and, the use of corruption as a means to 

recruit proxies. 

4. Support for political parties and advocacy 

groups: The backing of politicians and groups, often 

at the extremes of the political spectrum, inside 

another country through financial, rhetorical, and 

other means, designed to promote a friendly agenda 

toward the government providing support or to 

support divisive or extremist views inside the host 

country. 

5. State economic coercion: The exploitation of 

national resources to use as leverage over another 

country's government to weaken it and force a 

change in policy. 

The use of this relatively inexpensive toolkit offsets 

conventional weaknesses, particularly economic 

limitations, and keeps adversaries off balance 

through their deniable and covert nature. The 

plausible deniability inherent in some of these 

measures presents challenges for democracies 

to respond. Often, these tools are used in the 

absence of kinetic military force, though in some 

cases, especially on Russia's periphery, they have 

been combined with hybrid warfare or kinetic 

operations, most notably in February 2014, when 

Russian soldiers masquerading as "little green men" 

in unmarked uniforms took control of Crimea, in 

Ukraine, and supported separatist forces in eastern 

Ukraine; and in August 2008, when Russian soldiers 

openly invaded neighboring Georgia. 

This toolkit is also being used by other authoritarian 

governments, most notably China, to interfere in 

democracies. Russia's successful exploitation of 

democracies' vulnerabilities in Europe and the 

United States is likely to lead other authoritarians 

to adopt the Putin playbook. Concerningly, even 

U.S. partners are now utilizing elements of this 

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interference toolkit. Countries including Qatar 

and the United Arab Emirates have reportedly 

used financial influence, cyber-attacks, and 

disinformation to attempt to influence American 

politics.37 

An Overview of Russia's Asymmetric 

Operations in Europe 

The Kremlin Russia's military interventions in 

Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 were the 

most egregious and deadly operations to foment 

instability in Europe since the collapse of the 

Soviet Union. These interventions not only sought 

a geopolitical goal - to impede the Euro-Atlantic 

aspirations of these countries but also directly 

challenged the fundamental norms and principles 

of the UN Charter governing the post-war liberal 

international order for decades, particularly 

the principle of states' territorial integrity and 

sovereignty. Along with military occupation, 

Moscow has used elements of the asymmetric 

toolkit against Ukraine: disinformation campaigns38 

spread pro-Kremlin propaganda; cyber-attacks39 

have crippled government agencies (including the 

Central Election Commission during the 2014 

presidential elections40), infrastructure, private 

companies, and military systems; energy resources41 

(and the withholding of them) have been used as 

a form of coercion; and, separatists and extremists 

who engage in violent and destabilizing activities 

have been supported. 

The Russian government's massive, three-week 

cyber~attack against neighboring Estonia in 2007 

arguably gave the threat of these asymmetric tools 

40 MarkCiayton.'Ukra•neEiection NarrowlyAWided'Wantr:m Destruct,on'from 

Hac!<1'rs," Christian Science Jvne 17, 2017, ""';ijw~.o;mooM•. 

41 Vla01m1r So!Oatkin ar1ct Nata•la Z<nets, 'Gazprom SeekS to Halt Ukra•ne Gas 

COntracts as Dispute Escalates." Reuters, March 

AISID June 2018 

a new sense of urgency for NATO and the EU. Since then, the three Baltic States have been hit 

particularly hard by Russian-originated cyberattacks42 and disinformation campaigns,43 as Russia 

seeks to take critical infrastructure offline and sow 

discord between the ethnic majorities and Russian 

minorities of all three countries. Moscow has used 

both licit and illicit means to curry favor 'With 

political and economic elites in several Central and 

Eastern European countries, attempting to reorient 

their governments, economies, and societies from 

the EU to Moscow. We are now witnessing how 

many countries in Central and Eastern Europe, 

notably Hungary and Poland, risk democratic 

backsliding; while anti-democratic forces in these 

countries initially gained strength without external 

assistance, the Russian government provides 

various forms of financial, rhetorical, and political 

support to many of them, 

European nations that aspire to join the EU or 

NATO are particular targets of Russian active 

measures. The Kremlin backed a failed coup 

attempt in Montenegro that sought to install an 

anti~NATO government in Podgorica.44 A daily 

barrage of Russian disinformation demonizing 

NATO and the United States floods the media 

space in Serbia, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 

Moscow's support for nationalist politicians 

through a variety of means helps fan ethnic tensions 

and undercuts the country's progress toward EU 

and NATO accessionY 

More recently, the countries of Western Europe, 

the bulwark of European values and the 

heavyweights of the EU, have faced destabilization 

operations as well. The transatlantic community, 

including the United States, long viewed Russian 

asymmetric threats as limited to the countries 

along Russia's periphery, such as Georgia, Ukraine, 

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and the Baltic states. Few thought Moscow would 

extend its reach into Western Europe or across the 

Atlantic to North America. But such assessments 

were short-sighted and underestimated the threat. 

Putin may have perceived a lack of transatlantic 

resistance to Russian aggression in Georgia and 

Ukraine, and ultimately set his sights westward. 

Russian disinformation campaigns have fomented 

separatism and the fragmentation of Europe. In the 

UK, Moscow targeted the Scottish independence 

referendum46 and the Brexit vote,47 while in 

Spain, Kremlin-operated and other pro-Kremlin 

online accounts boosted support for Catalonian 

secession from Spain. 48 Even a Dutch referendum 

on the EU's Association Agreement ·with Ukraine 

became a target for Russian disinformation; the 

campaign against the agreement, which ultimately 

won the vote, used pro-Kremlin narratives pulled 

from RT and Sputnik and had links to Russian 

academics parroting Moscow's position against the 

agreement.4950 

Meanwhile, in elections in France and Germany 

in 2017, Russian government operatives injected 

disinformation into the ecosystem to promote 

far-right groups supportive of the Kremlin's agenda, 

including German far-right party Alternative fur 

Deutschland (AID), the first far-right party ever 

to dear the five-percent hurdle to enter parliament 

AISID June2018 

in post-war Germany.5152 Germany also faced a 

Russian-led disinformation campaign, centered 

around false allegations that a gang of migrants 

raped a 13-year old German of Russian origin 

named Liza, that sought to increase anti-migration 

sentiments in the run-up to the country's 

parliamentary elections, arguably giving AID a big 

assist in the subsequent elections. 53 Hackers likely 

affiliated with Russian intelligence services targeted 

French President Emmanuel Macron's presidential 

campaign's e-mail servers and leaked the contents 

online in the final days of the campaign." 

Using official news organizations like Sputnik 

and RT, which are amplified by Russian-linked 

accounts on social media, the Kremlin actively 

promotes alternative theories in these targeted 

European countries, all of them dubious and 

deliberately misleading, to explain away the 

Russian government's connection to egregious 

violations of international norms in Europe. 

Moscow has waged disinformation campaigns to 

argue the Russian military is not fighting in eastern 

Ukraine on behalf of separatist rebels and to 

persuade the European public that the Ukrainian 

military, and not the Russian-controlled separatists, 

downed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, despite 

an international forensic investigation that 

unequivocally implicated the Russian military. 55 

The Kremlin has also pushed false flag conspiracy 

theories to explain the poisoning of former British 

intelligence asset Sergei Skripal and his daughter 

Yulia in Salisbury, England, an act carried out by the 

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Russian intelligence services, and to claim that the 

West deliberately staged chemical weapons attacks 

against Syrian civilians as a pretext to launch missile 

strikes against Bashar al-Assad's regime.56 These 

information operations have a singular purpose: 

by promoting falsehoods frequently and loudly 

enough, the Kremlin perpetuates a public discourse 

that denigrates the value of facts, making it more 

difficult for Europeans to maintain a united front 

in the face of Russian aggression on the continent 

and beyond. 

The Russian government has even expanded its 

activities to regions of the world in which it seeks 

to regain some of the influence the Soviet Union 

once enjoyed. In Latin America, for example, senior 

officials in the Trump administration have warned 

there is mounting evidence that the Kremlin is again 

employing its disinformation army to influence 

public opinion and potentially elections in Mexico. 57 

Ill. A New Strategic Approach 

for Government and Society 

As the Kremlin achieved success with its tools 

and tactics in the United States and across the 

transatlantic community, democratic governments 

and societies' vulnerabilities to asymmetric 

operations have been exposed for others to 

exploit. In a world increasingly interconnected by 

technology, state and non-state actors alike will 

be able to conduct malign influence operations of 

varying scales and sophistication. As other foreign 

actors enter the field, Western institutions, such as 

the EU and NATO, and democracies worldwide will 

face additional challenges. China has moved beyond 

its economic-driven approach to gain influence 

in other countries and has started adopting more 

overt forms of political interference in countries 

like Australia and New Zealand, as well as in Taiwan 

and Hong Kong. 511 Autocrats like Philippines 

President Rodrigo Duterte and Turkish President 

57 "T11ierson Warns Mex1coto Watch Russmn Elect1on MOOdl1ng." ReiJters, R>briJilr)' 

2, 2018, 

AISID June2018 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan are using these tools against 

their own citizens, with Duterte building his own 

"keyboard army" to silence dissent and Turkish 

pro-government trolls hacking, harassing, and 

threatening journalists. 5960 

Technology will continue to advance faster than 

governments and society can adapt. Today's 

disinformation operations will look amateur 

compared to what is coming in the future. Tools 

that allow for precise doctoring of audio, images, 

and video will make it even more complicated 

to discern fact from fiction. Algorithms, which 

already drive much of the operations of major 

social media platforms, will hold increasing sway 

as artificial intelligence plays a larger role in the 

technology that powers our daily lives. Cyber 

tools may allow foreign actors to penetrate more 

deeply into government and corporate networks 

to steal information, disrupt elections, and 

compromise individual privacy without much of 

a trace. The challenges we face today will grow 

by an order of magnitude. That is why all parts of 

democratic societies must be involved in exposing 

influence operations, as one of the best methods 

to preventing future attacks is to shine sunlight on 

existing ones, and in shaping our responses. The 

threat to democracies' stability is clear. But our 

focus now needs to be on not just understanding 

the problem, but defending against and deterring 

it going forward. 

Whole of Government 

Much like the 9/11 attacks demonstrated how 

government had to reorient itself to confront 

a potent, unconventional, asymmetric threat 

in global terrorism, defending against foreign 

interference operations demands a new strategic 

approach. The failure to unearth and respond 

to the operation against the 2016 election in a 

timely manner revealed how necessary it is for 

government to detect these threats in an integrated 

manner, involving all relevant players in the 

interagency, and to respond to them holistically 

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and strategically, rather than in silos. The Executive 

Branch and Congress must therefore rectify existing 

bureaucratic and structural impediments to 

improve coordination between federal agencies and 

between the federal, state, and local governments. 

In particular, the cross-cutting nature of the threat 

demands the allocation of sufficient resources to 

address it and the harnessing of expertise across 

the policy and intelligence communities under 

one roof. The national security community should 

also develop greater expertise on asymmetric and 

emerging threats. 

But bureaucratic flxes are only part of the solution. 

An effective, long-term strategy must start by 

putting the issue at the forefront of the U.S. national 

security agenda, with the public recognition that 

foreign actors' attempts to weaken the United 

States and our allies by undermining democratic 

institutions constitute a threat to national security. 

That will require clear strategic messaging from the 

top. A decisive signal from the administration at 

the highest level and from Congress that the United 

States considers these activities a threat to national 

security and 'Will respond accordingly is essential for 

making clear to adversaries and allies alike that the 

U.S. government takes the threat seriously. A united 

front by the President, the Cabinet, and leading 

Members of Congress can help facilitate better 

coordination between the federal government and 

state and local governments to bolster defenses at all 

levels. Strong leadership from Washington can also 

raise awareness and build resilience in society toward 

a threat that affects the average American just as it 

affects the political establishment in Washington. 

Through effective public messaging, the White 

House and Congress can also help transcend the 

politicization of civic discourse that malign foreign 

influence operations exploit to further divide 

Americans from one another. It is essential that 

America's enemies as well as U.S. partners that may 

be tempted to utilize similar tools in their quest for 

influence realize that there will be repercussions 

for violating U.S. laws and undermining American 

democracy. 

Distrust between the Executive Branch and 

Congress hindered the U.S. government's ability to 

respond to the Russian operation against the 2016 

election. Partisan distrust has prevented Democrats 

and Republicans, as well as the White House and 

AISID June2018 

Congress. from taking urgent action to defend 

our nation. This distrust and politicization of a 

national security threat have impeded necessary 

work by the Trump administration and Congress 

to fully secure electoral infrastructure, prevent 

foreign money from influencing public opinion 

during political campaigns, develop effective 

means to work with the technology community 

to address technological vulnerabilities, and dose 

legislative and regulatory loopholes that allow 

foreign actors to use money to peddle political 

influence. America's leaders are essentially leaving 

the country undefended against a threat that is 

only growing 

Removing partisanship from the calculus in 

responding to this threat is critical to ensuring our 

elected representatives and government officials 

take actions to secure our democracy. Legislation 

that establishes dear indicators of foreign 

interference in elections and other democratic 

institutions and processes and mandates that 

the Executive Branch report to Congress when 

those tripwires are crossed would correct two 

deficiencies from 2016: first, it would allow an 

incumbent administration to report information 

to Congress and the public without being accused 

of trying to affect the results of an election; and 

second, it conceivably would create conditions for 

Members of Congress to reach across the aisle and 

act in the public interest. 

Foreign operations to destabilize our democracy 

will continue to be a threat long into the future. 

And foreign adversaries will continue to take 

advantage of a polarized, hyper-partisan political 

climate, so long as it exists. It is short-sighted -

and indeed, emboldens adversaries like Vladimir 

Putin - when politics gets in the way and political 

leaders fail to take action to protect the institutions 

that make America what it is. 

Raising the Cost on Our Adversaries 

Raisingthe cost of conducting these operations against 

the United States must be another essential pillar of 

government's strategic approach to addressing this 

threat. Government should resist the temptation 

of responding tit-for-tat to every active measure. 

There will be times when a symmetric response is 

necessary, including proportionate cyber responses 

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to cyber-attacks and potentially offensive cyberattacks as a deterrent. But government generally needs 

to breakdown the individual silos through which it 

addresses each tool in the asymmetric toolkit. Instead, 

the administration and Congress should define and 

use our own asymmetric advantages and strategically 

deploy instruments of national power that will serve 

as the most effective deterrent. This approach will 

allow democracies to play to their advantage, rather 

than responding on an adversary's terms, and provide 

the best chance of inducing a foreign actor to change 

behavior. 

In the case of Russia, the Putin regime places regime 

survival above all other objectives and is dependent on 

the corrupt financial links that tie together the political 

leadership, security services, and business. To impose 

real consequences on the Kremlin that could lead to 

behavioral change, U.S. policy should play to our own 

strengths and focus on exploiting Russia's comparative 

economic weaknesses by using sanctions, asset 

forfeiture, and anti-money laundering tools to target 

the illicit wealth of individuals and entities that assist 

the Kremlin's destabilizing foreign policy actions, and 

by exposing the ill-gotten gains of top Russian officials, 

including President Putin himself. Such an approach 

should hit politically important elements of the elite 

hardest, increasing political pressure and heightening 

internal dissent Tracking and disrupting financial 

stocks, flows, and new investments will make it more 

difficult for the Kremlin to fund malign influence 

activities abroad and gain access to sensitive technology 

or data. Even transparency about legitimate Russian 

investments in democratic countries is important to 

limit the danger that Russian economic influence will 

inappropriately impact politicians and their decisionmaking in other countries. Such measures will also 

serve to strengthen our own democracies, rooting 

out pathways for corruption. To the greatest extent 

possible, these measures should be multilateral, taken 

together with our European allies and partners, as well 

as democratic allies and partners around the world. 

A transatlantic focus on illicit finance will deny those 

who benefit from kleptocracy the ability to enjoy its 

fruits in the West. 

Imposing reputational costs on authoritarian powers 

that employ these tools must also be part of the 

counter-arsenal. Vladimir Putin values his standing 

on the world stage. That is why it is so important that 

Russia not be allowed to reenter normal international 

AIS!D June2018 

fora until Russian behavior changes. Just as Europeans 

should halt their recent renewed engagement of 

Russia in the wake of President Trump's withdrawal 

from the JCPOA, the Trump administration should 

not encourage Russia's re-admission to gatherings 

of the world's major economic and democratic 

powers. Authoritarians need to know that democratic 

interference brings with it a cost that will not fade 

with the passage of time. This is as true for China as it 

is for Russia. The Chinese Communist Party is more 

sensitive about being exposed for illegal activity and 

interference operations abroad, as China attempts to 

sell an alternative model of governance and growth to 

developing nations. 61 Imposing reputational costs on 

Beijing must be a pillar of western deterrence strategy. 

Governments cannot reasonably expect to stop every 

type of asymmetric operation. Cyber~attacks will 

continue, as will attempts to mislead public opinion 

through disinformation campaigns. The challenge 

of responding to asymmetric threats like foreign 

interference operations is that the attackers attempt 

to exploit a gray zone - neither outright warfare that 

affects hard security assets, nor soft power that seeks 

to influence a foreign public through benign measures 

like commerce or educational exchanges. The reality, 

however, is that these tactics are a direct attack on 

democracy and should be treated as such. 

That said, the U.S. government must resist emulating 

the tactics used by authoritarian regimes when 

responding to these threats. We have learned from 

our history that when we seek to carry out covert 

subterfuge to undermine democratic processes 

abroad, including elections, it frequently backfires, 

undermining our credibility and our values on the 

global stage. 

Moreover, the measures we take to respond to malign 

foreign influence operations must not themselves 

undermine democracy. That includes ensuring the 

protection of free speech and privacy rights while 

addressing the manipulation of our information 

ecosystem. We should remain committed to 

promoting democracy abroad and supporting global 

actors who are working to make their governments 

more responsible and societies more open. U.S. foreign 

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assistance is not and never will be - equivalent to 

the covert, subversive operations run by the Kremlin 

and other authoritarian regimes. The U.S. government 

supports measures to strengthen democracy through 

transparent governance, anti-corruption, free and fair 

elections, and empowered citizen participation in all 

aspects of democratic society. These are the ideals 

we should continue to support beyond our borders, 

and we should be proud to defend them from false 

comparisons to the tools and tactics authoritarian 

regimes use overseas. And above all, we should be 

working actively to improve our own democracy at 

home, which will not only strengthen us as a nation 

but will also make our institutions and society more 

resilient to this threat. 

The American people deserve a government that 

has positioned itself to do the best possible job. 

Treating the problem as an urgent matter of national 

security, putting aside partisan strife, maximizing 

efficiency, strategically formulating policy responses, 

and adhering to the values that make democracy the 

prevailing global ideal will enable the U.S. government 

to address this challenge adequately and responsibly. 

A Transatlantic Threat Demands a 

Transatlantic Response 

The United States and its European allies make 

up an integrated, transatlantic community. For 

decades, this integration through NATO and the 

U.S.-EU relationship has provided all member 

states security, material benefit, and leadership 

in the world. Defending against threats to our 

democracies therefore requires an integrated, 

coordinated response. Democracies will rise and 

fall together. Cracks in democratic institutions in 

one country contribute to an overall weakening of 

the liberal democratic order. The United States must 

maintain its leadership role at NATO and its strong 

partnership with the EU in order to strengthen the 

Alliance's capabilities to address asymmetric threats 

and work in concert with Brussels to deter malign 

foreign influence operations. 

Both the EU and NATO have begun to address how 

they defend against asymmetric challenges like 

Russian influence operations. NATO has established 

Centers ofExcellence that analyze components of the 

hybrid toolkit, while a handful ofEU member states 

AISID June2018 

support another Center of Excellence in Helsinki, 

Finland that looks at the problem more holistically. 

Meanwhile, in Brussels, the EU's East StratCom 

Task Force counters Russian disinformation 

campaigns directly, while in April, the European 

Commission released a comprehensive report with 

policy recommendations to combat disinformation 

spread online. 62 

Theseeffortsareagoodstart,andbothorganizations 

have made the hybrid challenge a priority. Like the 

United States, European nations, along with the EU, 

will have to do more to build resilience to cyberattacks, combat money laundering and other forms 

of illicit finance from Russia and other foreign 

actors that ends up in the pockets of politicians and 

other influential Europeans. The EU should also 

guard more firmly against democratic backsliding 

within member states, which plays into the hands 

of authoritarian regimes, while also increasing 

support for independent media, civil society, and 

other democratic actors in the Western Balkans 

and Eastern Partnership states. 

We must learn lessons from each other to determine 

the most effective defense and deterrence measures 

and the most successful responses. This means 

better bilateral cooperation between the EU and 

the United States on issues like data privacy and 

protection, cyber hygiene, policies that address 

disinformation threats on social media, and 

transparency with the public on asymmetric 

threats. It also means NATO and EU member 

states must show a greater willingness to exchange 

information on new tactics that Russia and other 

foreign actors are deploying against us, in multination formats, rather than just bilaterally between 

governments. The G7's recent commitment to share 

information and work with social media companies 

and internet service providers to prevent foreign 

interference in elections could be an impetus for 

more efficient transatlantic coordination to share 

threat information and best practices.63 Finally, 

the EU and NATO, individual governments, and 

non -governmental organizations should combine 

their respective strengths and expertise and form 

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a coalition to address malign foreign influence 

operations across the full asymmetric toolkit. A 

coalition that meets regularly and provides virtual 

opportunities to share open source information 

and analysis, and to coordinate responses in real 

time will enhance our collective ability to secure 

democracies. 

The threat that foreign interference poses to 

democracies is not limited to the transatlantic 

community. Democracies around the world - from 

Latin America to Australia and New Zealand are 

increasingly facing challenges from authoritarian 

governments like China and Russia. The United 

States and European governments should work with 

all of their allies and partners to defend democracies, 

and a public~private coalition to address malign 

foreign influence operations should ultimately 

compromise officials and experts from democratic 

countries worldwide, possibly utilizing existing 

fora, such as the CommunityofDemocracies, where 

democracies gather to discuss shared challenges. 

Whole of Society Approach 

While the government's role is essential, the nature of 

these threats requires that the private sector and civil 

society be involved in the solution. The private sector, 

particularly tech companies, will have a critical 

role in addressing technological vulnerabilities 

and building resilience against malign foreign 

influence operations. The potential of social media 

companies to transform the way people around the 

globe interact with one another and how they access 

information and serve as a democratizing force is 

important. However, as with any new creation, 

these platforms have significant vulnerabilities as 

well as benefits and our adversaries identified 

those vulnerabilities before the companies or U.S. 

government did, weaponizing and turning the 

platforms against their users in ways the companies 

never envisioned. 

Tech companies thus far have responded slowly and 

without the full transparency the American people 

deserve to determine how Russian government 

operatives exploited their platforms. Much of the 

companies' response has seemed more focused 

on damage control than on transparency and a 

willingness to tackle the fundamental issues at 

hand. Self-regulation alone to try and tackle the 

A lSI D June 2018 

weaponization of social media ultimately will 

be insufficient. Congress should take narrowly 

seeped, smart steps, such as the proposed Secure 

Elections Act or introducing legislation to have 

hots identified and labeled as such, to ensure 

that foreign actors do not use social media 

platforms to interfere in U.S. elections, and 

protect Americans' personal information online.64 

However, government should avoid overreach, 

and legislation will never be able to keep pace with 

technological change. As technologies become 

more sophisticated over time, the challenge to the 

tech sector will be even greater. The companies 

will need to be much more proactive in addressing 

threats of abuse and misinformation on their 

platforms and more transparent with their users to 

detect and deter such activities in a timely manner. 

As technology continues to evolve, tech companies 

should develop processes, including through 

engagement with outside researchers, national 

security experts, and civil society, to maximize the 

upsides of new tools and platforms and minimize 

the downsides before they are used more broadly, or 

our adversaries will continue to exploit them before 

we become aware of vulnerabilities. This should 

include developing a more constructive partnership 

with government and outside researchers to share 

information on influence operations that target 

their platforms. This is particularly important as 

malign actors seamlessly move across platforms 

in order to drive influence campaigns. Meaningful 

public-private partnerships will help overcome the 

trust gap that exists between Washington and the 

tech community and foster consensus on solutions 

to existing and future vulnerabilities foreign actors 

exploit. 

Social media companies do not operate in a vacuum. 

In particular, their business models depend on 

other corporations that buy advertisements. 

Private companies can play their own part in 

demanding that tech companies address malign 

foreign influence operations more thoroughly by 

using their ad buys as leverage to force change from 

companies on these issues and threatening to pull 

their ads from platforms that do not take necessary 

steps, as several companies have already done. Not 

only would these corporations put pressure on the 

64 UllltedStatesCongress,Senate,Srn:ureE/e.;;tionsAct,S2261, 115thCong., 

1stsess .. https;jjwww.ccni!fess.gov;till/115th.J:ongress;senate-blilf2261/text. 

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tech sector by diminishing the economic value of 

extreme and highly viral, malign content, but they 

would help raise awareness among society about the 

extent of the threat we are facing. 

More broadly, American businesses are custodians 

of democracy, just as government and individual 

citizens are. Their prosperity has been built on it 

and benefits from it The business community can 

take on a larger role as custodians of democracy 

by reinforcing the importance of democratic 

institutions among the American public, investing 

in civil society organizations that address the 

problem of foreign interference, and supporting 

other pillars of democratic society, like free and 

independent journalism. Businesses have a stake in 

protecting our democracy; after all, their prosperity 

will be directly threatened by the weakening of our 

institutions. 

Addressing the societal vulnerabilities that the 

Russian government exploited is also a challenge for 

civil society. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, 

think tanks in Washington, NGOs, and researchers 

across the country rose to that challenge and began 

playing an instrumental role in monitoring and 

exposing disinformation campaigns and other forms 

of malign foreign influence in the United States, 

Canada, and Europe. Many of these organizations 

are playing a leading role in formulating policy and 

legislative solutions for the U.S. government and 

Congress, as this report seeks to accomplish. 

Civil society can also step in and fulfill functions 

that government performs less effectively. For 

example, the State Department's Global Engagement 

Center (GEC), despite its dedicated staff, budget, 

and mandate, should not be the primary U.S. 

messenger for countering disinformation abroad. 

Foreign citizens already suspicious of or hostile 

to the U.S. government will be more open to 

indigenous actors. Therefore, the GEC should fund 

local civic organizations overseas that expose and 

raise awareness about foreign influence operations 

and counter the narratives the Kremlin and other 

foreign actors spread through traditional and 

social media. Along with USAID, it should also 

support independent media and local journalism in 

countries that are particularly susceptible to foreign 

disinformation and anti-U.S. narratives. 

AISID June2018 

In the United States, civil society should play a 

prominent role in raising awareness about such 

threats and exposing and countering falsehoods 

propagated by foreign actors, while the government 

should fund watchdog groups conducting these 

activities. Across the United States, organizations are 

also working on building stronger curriculum for 

public education on the civic virtues of democracy, 

on developing media literacy programs to help 

children and adults understand how to discern 

disinformation in traditional and social media, 

and on recommending journalistic standards for 

reporting on weaponized information and using 

social media accounts as sources. Congress and 

state governments should support their efforts as 

well. 

An Urgent Call to Action to Secure 

Democracy 

The number of foreign actors waging malign 

influence campaigns against the United States 

and its allies and partners is growing. Absent a 

concerted pushback by government and the other 

pillars of democratic society, authoritarian regimes 

will continue to refine their asymmetric playbook 

and the use of these new technologies to run 

more sophisticated, insidious, and far~reaching 

operations against democracies, making this a core 

national security challenge. 

The adage that a strong national security starts at 

home has never been more true. Defending against 

and deterring the use of this toolkit demands 

urgent bipartisan action. The recommendations 

in this report represent common sense measures 

that government and lawmakers regardless 

of party affiliation - and other parts of society 

can take. They are endorsed by the Advisory 

Council of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a 

bipartisan and transatlantic group of former senior 

national security officials, and were developed in 

consultation with numerous experts, government 

officials, and civil society representatives in the 

United States and Europe. 

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IV. Recommendations for the 

U.S. Government 

1. Articulate publicly a declaratory policy on 

foreign interference in democratic institutions 

and processes. We recommend the President issue 

the following statement: 

"Malign foreign interference operations designed 

to destabilize the elections, institutions, and 

societies of the United States and its allies through 

asymmetric means constitute a national security 

threat. There will be consequences for nation 

states that conduct these covert, corrupting, and 

coercive operations. The U.S. government will 

respond utilizing all appropriate tools:' 

2. Raise the cost of conducting malign influence 

operations against the United States and its 

allies. Imposing a broader set of sanctions, 

cyber responses, and reputational costs against 

individuals and organizations that support malign 

foreign influence operations, facilitate corruption, 

and prop up authoritarian regimes conducting 

foreign interference would not only impose costs 

on adversaries, but would potentially serve as a 

deterrent against future operations. 

The Administration should: 

Employ cyber responses as appropriate to 

respond to cyber-attacks and deter future attacks, 

and consider offensive cyber operations using 

appropriate authorities to eliminate potential 

threats. 

Expand sanctions against wealthy Russian 

individuals and strategic industries that assist 

Putin's destabilizing foreign policy actions, 

as called for by congressional legislation. The 

Countering America's Adversaries Through 

Sanctions Act (CAATSA) calls for sanctions 

against a broader list of individuals and entities 

tied to Russia's intelligence and defense sectors. 

The administration, which signed CAATSA into 

law, should adopt a similarly tougher stance. In 

particular, the Department of Treasury's Office of 

Foreign Assets Control has the authority to target 

foreign persons for providing material support 

to already-sanctioned actors, as well as targeting 

AISID June2018 

foreign persons operating in Russia's energy, 

defense, financial, or mining sectors. Treasury's 

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has the 

authority to target foreign financial institutions 

"'ofprimarymoneylaundering concern" operating 

anywhere in the world. Both of these authorities 

should be used to target foreign banks that help 

facilitate illicit Russian financial activity, whether 

it stems from public corruption, organized crime, 

or state~ backed political interference. 

Impose sanctions against a wider range of 

individuals and entities not only inside Russia, 

but also inside Iran, China, and North Korea, 

who use ill-gotten gains to fund malign 

influence operations abroad. 

Congress should: 

Conductrigorousoversightoftheadministration's 

implementation of CAATSA. To date, the 

administration has failed to adhere to all aspects 

of the legislation and Congress is failing in its 

duty to hold the administration responsible for 

implementing legislation. 

Pass legislation, such as the bipartisan DETER 

Act, which would trigger sanctions on Russia if 

the Director of National Intelligence determines 

the Kremlin interferes in a future U.S. election, 

and would prohibit the purchase of Russian 

sovereign debt and any state-connected bonds by 

U.S. citizens and entities, plugging a significant 

loophole Russia could use to evade sanctions. 

3. Separate politics from efforts to unmask and 

respond to operations against the U.S. electoral 

process. An incumbent government must be able 

to respond to an attack on our electoral system 

without being susceptible to accusations of political machinations. Political parties and campaigns 

should also commit to not disseminate weaponized information illegally obtained by foreign actors. 

Congress should institute mandatory reporting 

requirements so that an administration 

must inform lawmakers of attacks against 

U.S. electoral infrastructure, including 

individual political campaigns. Reporting 

requirements should have a low threshold, so 

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administrations can present data to Congress 

and, if unclassified, to the public, without being 

accused of politicizing information to swing an 

election. 

The Democratic and Republican Parties and 

their candidates, along with other parties and 

independent candidates running for office, 

should pledge jointly not to weaponize hacked 

information during election campaigns. Without 

such a public, bipartisan promise, foreign state 

actors and cybercriminals could be emboldened 

to continue the activity they conducted during 

the 2016 presidential campaign. 

Parties, candidates, and outside political groups 

should also pledge to fully uphold existing legal 

restrictions that outlaw foreign contributions to 

the U.S. political system. 

4) Improve election security and protect other 

critical infrastructure from cyber-attacks 

immediately. It is possible to secure our electoral 

infrastructure without infringing upon states' 

control of our elections. The federal government 

must make additional resources and assistance 

available to states to ensure that Americans know 

their most fundamental right is protected. 

The Administration should: 

Maintain the designation of electoral systems as 

critical infrastructure. 

Through the U.S. Election Assistance 

Commission (EAC) and in coordination with the 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS), assist 

state and local election officials with conducting 

post-election audits of election results that 

provide a high level of confidence in the 

accuracy of vote totals, adopting cybersecurity 

standards for electoral infrastructure, and 

upgrading outdated infrastructure. 

Through the FBI and in consultation with 

DHS, inform state and local governments, 

political parties and campaigns, and companies 

that provide election-related infrastructure, 

when they have been hacked and help them 

respond. DHS should also ensure information is 

declassified quickly and appropriately to share 

AISID June2018 

with political parties and campaign staff, and 

others who may have a need to know but do not 

possess security clearances. The Belfer Center's 

Election Cyber Incident Communications 

Coordination Guide provides an excellent 

blueprint for DHS' Election Infrastructure 

Government Coordinating Council to manage 

communication on cyber-attacks with all 

relevant stakeholders in the electoral process. 65 

Through the Office of the Director of National 

Intelligence (ODNI) and in coordination with 

D HS, the intelligence community should 

notify Congress, states, and relevant local 

election officials immediately of potential 

cyber breaches of their electoral infrastructure. 

Just as the Transportation Security 

Administration conducts random checks 

of airport screening systems, DHS should 

create a mechanism for simulating red team 

cyber-attacks on state and local electoral 

infrastructure. These simulations should feed 

into a policy process involving federal, state, 

and local officials that identifies and closes 

cyber vulnerabilities and improves responses 

to cyber-attacks. 

Through DHS, build a national classified 

cyber information-sharing network that 

appropriately cleared personnel of private 

companies maintaining the nation's critical 

infrastructure can access, in accordance with 

the steps outlined in a Council on Foreign 

Relations report 66 

Congress should: 

Adopt legislation, such as the Secure Elections 

Act,toimproveinformationsharingthroughout 

government on election cybersecurity threats; 

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provide technical resources for election agencies; 

and improve information sharing between the 

federal, state, and local levels. 67 

• Enact requirements for the federal government 

to notify states and relevant local election officials 

of intrusions into electoral infrastructure, and 

for the Executive Branch to notify Congress 

- both in a timely manner. Legislation should 

also require private vendors and operators of 

electoral infrastructure to report cybersecurity 

incidents that could impact the integrity of 

voting systems and databases to the FBI and 

DHS. 

Require DHS to issue security clearances to 

senior state government officials in charge of 

securing electoral infrastructure in order to 

facilitate access to information on threats. 

Codify into law the designation of electoral 

systems as critical infrastructure. 

Prioritize federal funding for cybersecurity 

research and development. 

Pass legislation to elevate the DHS National 

Protection and Programs Directorate into a 

full-fledged operational agency under DHS 

jurisdiction; one bill has already been introduced 

and is being considered by Congress. 68 The 

agency should facilitate improved coordination 

across government on responses to cyber threats 

to all16 critical infrastructure sectors. 

State and local governments should: 

Accept federal assistance on election security. 

·while it is not a federal government competency 

to run elections, states lack the resources and 

expertise that the federal government possesses 

on cyber threats to critical infrastructure. 

AISID June2018 

Comply with EAC's voluntary voting system 

guidelines and the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology's cybersecurity 

framework for critical infrastructure. 

Make mandatory the use of electronic voting 

machines that issue a voter verified paper 

ballot, and the conduction of post -election 

audits of paper voting records to corroborate 

electronic results. 

Conduct an audit and threat analysis of voter 

registration systems, and upgrade systems 

as necessary, as recommended in a Brennan 

Center for Justice report.69 

5) Appoint a Foreign Interference Coordinator 

at the National Security Council and establish 

a National Hybrid Threat Center at the Office 

of the Director of National Intelligence. The 

Coordinator and Threat Center would direct 

policy formulation and intelligence analysis 

respectively on the range of asymmetric tools 

and interference operations designed to 

destabilize the United States and its allies. A 

policy decision should be made to elevate foreign 

interference on the list of intelligence collection 

and analytical priorities, with responsibility for 

intelligence coordination residing in the Hybrid 

Threat Center. The President, Congress, and the 

American people should have confidence in the 

intelligence community's sources of information 

that corroborate an interference operation and an 

adversary's intent to undermine U.S. democracy. 

NSC Foreign Interference Coordinator 

We recommend the President appoint a 

Foreign Interference Coordinator at the 

National Security Council (NSC) because the 

NSC is responsible for coordinating among the 

many individual agencies that handle a subset 

of these issues (DOD, State, Treasury, DHS, 

and others). 

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• The Coordinator should have sufficient staff 

from the interagency and be given the authority 

to coordinate across the NSC and to task agencies 

on policy and intelligence collection priorities 

on foreign interference. The Coordinator 

would be the primary U.S. government official 

in charge of presenting policy options to the 

President to address malign foreign influence 

operations, and for coordinating with allies and 

partners on these issues. 

To give the Coordinator significant standing in 

the interagency, the President should appoint a 

former senior U.S. official - ideally a former 

Cabinet~level official or former Member of 

Congress - to the position. 1bis official should 

ideally be a Deputy Assistant to the President 

and report directly to the National Security 

Adviser and through him or her to the President. 

The Coordinator would be responsible for 

working with Congress to ensure the proper 

laws, regulations, and authorities are in place to 

deter and respond to asymmetric attacks. 

The Coordinator and his/her staff should 

establish strong ties with the private sector -

tech companies, financial institutions, and 

corporations that manage critical infrastructure 

and civil society organizations to cultivate 

an effective working relationship with 

non ~government actors to address various types 

of asymmetric threats. 

Hybrid Threat Center at the Office of the Director 

of National Intelligence (ODNI) 

The Hybrid Threat Center at ODNI should 

bring together experts from across the 

intelligence community who are tracking 

individual elements of the asymmetric toolkit. 

Policymakersneed to be informed ofhowforeign 

adversaries use the various tools in tandem; the 

Threat Center would ensure experts on cyber, 

finance, economics, disinformation, leadership, 

and regional affairs are working in unison to 

assess influence operations holistically. 

The Hybrid Threat Center should also track 

influence operations domestically and overseas 

against the United States and its allies. When 

AISID June2018 

possible, it should make information available 

to the public regarding trends, threats, and 

tactics deployed by authoritarian adversaries. It 

would supplant existing task forces at individual 

agencies, whose mandates and resources are 

limited by their particular mission and budget. 

For example, the FBI's foreign influence 

task force is bound by the FBI's criminal and 

counterintelligence mandates within the 

United States. Combining these functions 

into a center that also has responsibility for 

overseas collection would give the intelligence 

community and policymakers greater visibility 

into nebulous, cross-border operations. 

The intelligence community and Congress 

should work together to resolve the existing 

legal limitations on parts of the intelligence 

community to monitor disinforrnation 

operations. The intelligence community and 

Congress should ensure the appropriate legal 

authorities are in place to protect the privacy 

and civil liberties of US. citizens. The very 

fact that it is often difficult to distinguish the 

sources and origins of operations and individual 

accounts necessitates strict congressional 

oversight and appropriate authorities to ensure 

intelligence agencies have the information 

necessary to protect the homeland while 

protecting American's privacy rights. Lessons 

learned from post-9/11 counterterrorism 

experiences should be applied to the foreign 

interference threat. Congress should legislate 

reporting requirements for the Threat Center 

to report on its activities and implications for 

privacy and civil liberties. 

The Hybrid Threat Center should allocate 

significant resources to monitoring open 

source information, particularly on social 

media, to analyze disinformation campaigns 

and the weaponization of information and 

ensure that open source intelligence is given 

the appropriate weight in analytic products. 

The Hybrid Threat Center should also monitor 

technological trends, particularly important in 

cyber and disinformation, so policymakers can 

adapt the government's responses accordingly. 

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6. Close loopholes that allow foreign actors to 

unduly influence our political system. Foreign 

actors exploit existing laws and regulations to move 

money into the United States that can ultimately 

affect the American political system. There are 

several measures the administration and Congress 

can take to update regulations and pass legislative 

solutions to close off illicit finance and covert 

political influence from abroad. 

The Administration should: 

Track flows of international funds transfers to, 

from, or through the United States by creating 

a centralized database at the Department of 

Treasury of all international funds transfers that 

transit the country, Large US, banks that clear 

dollars for international payments would report 

the data on a near real-time basis. The reporting 

streams could then be combined, providing a 

completeviewofU.S.dollartransactionalactivity. 

The idea has been studied by Treasury but never 

finalized, although Canada and Australia collect 

similar information. While international funds 

transfer records are available on an ad hoc 

basis, only a centralized database would drive 

the type of powerful analysis that is necessary. 

Over time, payments data could be married up 

with securities trade data collected under a new 

system called the Consolidated Audit Trail that 

is currently being put in place by the Securities 

and Exchange Commission; shipping data 

collected by Customs and Border Patrol; and 

other information sources that would facilitate 

illicit finance network analysis. 

Require title insurance companies to report to 

Treasury the beneficial owners of legal entities 

used to purchase any residential or commercial 

property nationwide. This would provide a 

defense against foreign buyers who purchase a 

house, condo, or commercial property in the 

United States without forming a U.S. company 

or opening a U.S, bank account. A temporary 

Treasury order now requires purchasers of 

high-end residential real estate in select cities to 

report identifying information and has detected 

a great deal of suspicious activity, but the order 

is neither comprehensive nor permanent. 

AISID June2018 

Use existing civil and criminal penalties 

to punish financial institutions and their 

employees involved in illicit financial activity, 

including for violations of sanctions or 

violations of money laundering statutes. 

Money laundered into the United States is also 

potentially subject to criminal or civil asset 

forfeiture. 

Congress should: 

Pass legislation. such as Honest Ads Act, to 

improve disclosure requirements for online 

political advertisements so that Americans 

understand who is funding political ads they 

see online. Furthermore, as recommend in 

a reporf0 by the Brennan Center for Justice, 

Congress should also: Ensure through 

legislation that the source information 

explaining the origins of online political ads 

remains attached to posts when those ads are 

shared on social media; and mandate that 

social media companies selling political ads use 

the credit card industry's address verification 

system to determine whether an ad buyer has a 

U.S, billing address. 

Pass legislation to have hots identified and 

labeled, 

Reform the Foreign Agents Registration Act 

(FARA) so all agents of foreign governments 

are appropriately registered in the United 

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States. There are a number of bills introduced by 

Members of Congress on both sides of theaisle 

that Congress should consider. 71 

Establish a beneficial ownership regime for 

company formation. Passing a law requiring 

beneficial ownership reporting at the time of 

company formation, such as this recent House 

bill, is essentiaL72 Importantly, it enjoys the 

support of the financial services industry.73 

Expand the jurisdiction of the Committee 

on Foreign Investment in the United States' 

(CFIUS) and provide it additional resources. 

CFIUS, an interagency body responsible for 

reviewing inbound foreign investment for 

national security risks, should be permitted 

to review a broader range of transactions, 

particularly in critical technology, artificial 

intelligence, and the media sector, and from 

countries that pose national security risks, such 

as Russia and China. 

7. Increase assistance to allies and partners to 

ensure they have the ability to withstand and 

respondtoattemptstounderminetheirdemocratic 

institutions. Due to historical and cultural ties and 

resource dependencies, some European nations 

are particularly vulnerable to Russian asymmetric 

campaigns. Others are complicit in facilitating illicit 

AISID June2018 

financial flows. U.S. allies and partners in Asia are 

also increasingly vulnerable to Chinese influence 

operations. The United States must utilize various 

forms of assistance to strengthen allies and 

partners' democratic institutions, governments, 

and societies. The U.S. government should also 

institutionalize more regular coordination with 

European allies and partners to address the threat 

of foreign interference, and should work with 

democracies in Asia to better understand the 

threats they face from Chinese interference, help 

them withstand that challenge, and learn lessons 

from other countries' experiences. 

The administration should utilize effectively 

the increase in U.S. foreign assistance to 

European and Eurasian states that Congress has 

mandated, particularly through CAATSA. 'Ibis 

assistance should be used to build democratic 

resilience throughout the region and increase 

societal resistance to the Kremlin's tactics, such 

as its support for political and social groups 

and its use of disinformation to exacerbate 

existing social divisions. 

Congress and the administration should 

ensure that they appropriate and use sufficient 

resources to strengthen democratic institutions 

and civil society in allied and partner countries 

in order to combat Russian, Chinese, and other 

forms of malign foreign influence operations. 

The administration should help our European 

allies and partners reduce energy dependence 

on Russia by continuing to press key European 

governments to oppose the Nord Stream 2 

pipeline project. 

The administration and Congress should 

reduce European energy dependence on 

Russia by updating the regulations that allow 

U.S. companies to export liquefied natural gas 

(LNG) to Europe to make the process faster and 

more flexible while maintaining environmental 

safeguards. 

The Department of Treasury should establish 

a program to provide technical assistance to 

countries, like Latvia, seeking to strengthen 

their ability to combat illicit finance. 

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The Departments of State and Treasury should 

increase diplomatic efforts to convince countries 

of key concern in facilitating illicit finance, 

such as Cyprus, to implement critical reforms. 

Incentives could include additional U.S. foreign 

investment, extended technical assistance, 

and support for the re-establishment of direct 

correspondent banking ties. 

The U.S. government should work with European 

allies and partners to establish a transatlantic 

coalition on defending democracies. 

The United States should increase efforts with 

partners, including Europe, Taiwan, Japan, 

Australia, South Korea, and India to provide 

alternatives to China's Belt and Road Initiative. 

8. Contribute to efforts to building societal 

resilience to foreign interference in the United 

States and abroad. Government should help raise 

awareness about the threat of foreign interference, 

as exposure is one of the most effective means to 

combat foreign interference operations. However, it 

should also seek partners who can combat foreign 

disinformation and effectively message to American 

and foreign audiences, and who are devoted to 

strengthening democratic values worldwide. 

This is as important domestically as it is overseas. 

Thirty years ago in his farewell address to the 

nation, President Reagan expressed concern about 

"an erosion of the American spirit" and called on 

Americans to focus more attention on "American 

history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual:'74 

This challenge is even greater today. 

Congress and the Executive Branch should 

endorse the work of civil society and private 

sector groups promoting civics education and 

media literacy programs in the United States 

and authorize the Department of Education 

to work with state governments that establish 

statewide civics and media literacy programs. 

The Department of State's Global Engagement 

Center and Office of the Coordinator of U.S. 

Assistance to Europe and Eurasia, together 

with USAID, should support civil society 

organizations in Europe that track and counter 

AISID June2018 

foreign disinformation. Similar partnerships 

should be developed to more effectively track 

growing Chinese influence operations. 

DHS or the White House, through the proposed 

NSC Foreign Interference Coordinator, should 

implement a Public Service Announcement 

(PSA) campaign that promotes smart cyber 

behavior and raises awareness about various 

types of foreign interference affecting U.S. 

citizens, businesses, and institutions. The 

federal government has had PSA campaigns 

on a myriad of issues, from quitting smoking 

to stopping pollution. Threats of foreign 

interference that affect all Americans should 

receive similar treatment. 

9. Ensure that data privacy laws protect U.S. ctizens' 

personal information on social media platforms. 

It is increasingly apparent that the United States 

needs a legal framework for protecting U.S. citizens' 

data, given repeated breaches, privacy concerns. 

and acquisition by foreign adversarial governments. 

Lawmakers and tech companies will have to find 

a balance between European-style regulation that 

potentially stifles innovation and a regulatory 

framework that protects data privacy and allows free 

enterprise to thrive. 

V. Recommendations for the 

European Union and NATO 

1. Establish an International Coalition on 

Defending Democracies. European governments, 

together with the United States, Canada, EU, NATO, 

and Five Eye allies Australia and New Zealand, 

should establish a forum for sharing information 

and analysis, exchanging best practices, and 

coordinating policy and programmatic responses to 

defend democracies from malign foreign influence 

operations. Coordination between governments is 

currently taking place on an ad hoc basis, and tends 

to be stovepiped by each element of the toolkit 

cyber experts conduct exchanges, as do experts 

on disinformation and strategic communication. 

What the transatlantic community needs is 

regular contact between governments assessing 

the entirety of the asymmetric toolkit holistically, 

so governments and international organizations 

can prepare more effective responses. There 

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should also be a formalized Track II channel for 

non-government representatives and organizations 

to enter into a dialogue with government officials 

on policy solutions. Such a channel could be 

particularly important for the public and private 

sectors to exchange best practices and lessons 

learned on data privacy and cyber issues with 

a view towards developing norms that could be 

adopted by governments. The coalition should 

eventually incorporate governments and experts 

from democracies worldwide, as transatlantic 

countries can learn much about the experiences of 

democracies in Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. 

2. Strengthen the sanctions regime to match 

measures taken by the U.S. government. The 

Kremlin is counting on European fatigue toward 

the existing sanctions regime. The best way to 

demonstrate that the EU takes Russian government 

efforts to destabilize the transatlantic community 

seriously is for member states to agree on additional 

sanctions on Russian individuals and entities that 

complement the recent sanctions imposed by 

the U.S. government. The EU should also extend 

the six-month review period for sanctions to 12 

months, reducing the opportunities for member 

states to break consensus in Brussels. It is essential 

that the Trump administration and European 

governments do not remove sanctions or reduce 

diplomatic pressure on the Putin regime until 

Russia ceases its malign activities in Ukraine and 

the rest of Europe as well as the United States. 

Imposing other reputational costs, such as halting 

rapprochement with Russia or implementing the 

European Commission's recent recommendation 

for member states to improve their capabilities to 

publicly attribute cyber-attacks, should also be part 

of Europe's strategy to increase deterrence and raise 

costs on adversaries. 75 

3. Institute a joint NATO-EU Task Force on 

Countering Asymmetric Threats. At the 2016 

Warsaw Summit, NATO and the EU agreed to 

enhance their cooperation on hybrid and cyber 

threats, relying on their respective military 

and non-military strengths and capabilities to 

A!SID June2018 

complement each other's efforts. The upcoming 

NATO summit in Brussels in july 2018 will likely 

produce more concrete actions on hybrid threats 

for the Alliance, while the European Commission, 

drawing partly on the work ofthe High Level Expert 

Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation, 

has issued recommendations on combatting 

disinformation online. 76 These are welcome steps. 

However, at the moment, each organization has 

disparate elements that monitor aspects of the 

Russian toolkit, but are not all well-funded or in 

synch with one another's efforts. A Joint Task Force 

could better coordinate these various efforts, and 

would also serve as an important mechanism to 

keep the United Kingdom integrated in European 

efforts to strengthen common defenses against 

asymmetric threats post-Brexit. It should perform 

the following functions: 

Conduct joint analysis of threats, both at 

the working level and at the North Atlantic 

Council, as well as exchanges of technical 

expertise between the relevant bodies within 

the EU and NATO, including cyber threats 

to EU and NATO member state networks. 

This would require a mechanism for sharing 

classified information, which currently does 

not exist between the two organizations. On 

threats of this magnitude, there should be a 

medium for NATO Allies and EU partners to 

exchange threat information. 

Coordinate the various lines of effort on 

hybrid threats, particularly on disinformation 

and cybersecurity, conducted by the Centers 

of Excellence at NATO, the East StratCom 

Task Force at the EU, the European Centre of 

Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in 

Helsinki, the High Level Experts Group on 

Fake News and Online Disinformation, and 

other parts of the EU bureaucracy. 

76 "CommUMIC<ttiOn from the European CommiSSion to the Et!ropean ParllamMt. 

the Counc1l, the European Ewnomlc and Soc1al Committee and the Commtttee of 

the Regions Tack.l1ng Onl1ne D!Smformat1on; A European Approach," European 

0:/mmissfon, Aprlf 26, 2018, httPS://ec.europa.eu/dig)tal.smgle-mark.eVen/ 

news;wmmvfltGatlorFtacilllng.onllnMismformatlon-european-appmach 

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Monitor disinformation campaigns on social 

media and in traditional media that seek to 

undermine the organizations or destabilize a 

member state, and coordinate responses, as 

appropriate. 

Develop norms of behavior for cyberspace that 

would guide NATO and EU member states' 

own actions, as well as their responses to cyber 

threats. 1his could serve as a model for global 

cyber norms. 

Deploy personnel at the request of member 

states for assistance in defending against, 

deterring, or responding to a malign foreign 

influence operation. 

Bolster public outreach by communicating 

to the European public within member states 

and within aspirant countries. NATO and the 

EU can jointly advocate for the benefits of the 

transatlantic community and why it represents 

a superior alternative to the geopolitical 

orientation and form of government proposed 

by authoritarian regimes like Russia. 

4. Shut down channels for money laundering 

and other fonns of illicit fmance. The Russian 

government exploits lax regulations and corrupt 

banking practices to move money into Europe 

and peddle political influence. just like the United 

States, Europe too needs to dose these loopholes. 

Establish an EU central body to combat money 

laundering. This central body should have 

the authority to examine banks, impose fines, 

revoke licenses, and/ or restrict operations of 

financial institutions without needing to wait 

for national authorities of a member state to 

submit a recommendation. 

The European Central Bank (ECB) should apply 

its existing authorities - including prudential 

supervision, approval of purchases of "qualified 

holdings" in banks, and fit and proper reviewto illicit finance matters when there is reason to 

believe that there may be ongoing anti-money 

laundering violations. 

AISID June2018 

• The EU should explore how to better utilize 

euro payments data, either via TARGET2 (the 

leading European platform for processing 

large-value payments, used by central banks 

and commercial banks to process euro 

payments in real time) or at the national level, 

to detect illicit financial activity and use such 

information as the basis for targeted reviews 

or referrals to regulators and law enforcement 

agencies. 

EU member states should continue to enhance 

information sharing to combat illicit financial 

activity. as it is planning to do under the 

Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. By 

more robustly sharing transactional data, 

supervisory information, law enforcement 

information, and classified intelligence across 

borders, member states will achieve better 

results in detecting and disrupting the activity 

of illicit financial facilitators who operate 

across member states' borders. 

The European Commission should review 

current passporting arrangements77 and 

consider whether adjustments would 

be appropriate to prevent the evasion of 

appropriate supervisory oversight. 

5. Support the pillars of democratic society 

within EU member states and in the surrounding 

neighborhood. An important way to prevent 

democratic backsliding in Europe and buttress 

resilience to authoritarian regimes' attempts to 

destabilize the transatlantic community - is to 

strengthen civil society and free and independent 

media. The EU should: 

Maintain pressure on EU member states to 

uphold European democratic values, such 

as allowing a free and independent press to 

flourish, keeping the judiciary independent 

from political influence, and supporting civil 

society. 

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Increase funding for NGOs that monitor 

and expose disinformation campaigns and 

corruption, particularly in vulnerable regions 

like the Western Balkans. 

Support programs that strengthen free and 

independent media, particularly in countries 

that aspire to join the EU but are susceptible 

to Russian disinformation and destabilization 

operations (e.g., Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 

Kosovo, Montenegro, Ukraine, and Georgia). 

Pro-Kremlin narratives easily spread through 

local media outlets through Russian statesponsored news agencies RT and Sputnik. Only 

by supporting homegrown journalism can local 

media outlets report objectively on a broad 

range of issues without having to rely on Russian 

propaganda for content. 

VI. Recommendations for the 

Private Sector 

1. Be more transparent about their technology, 

business models, and how platforms can be 

manipulated. The tech sector has reluctantly and 

belatedly released information to Congress and 

the public about the manipulation of social media 

platforms to undermine democracy, but there are 

several steps tech companies should take to be more 

transparent; 

Design platforms so that they provide 

explanations for users about how and why 

content appears for them, and make those 

explanations easy to understand for the public. 

The companies should also explain what they 

are doing to refine algorithms and counter 

efforts to exploit them. 

Make more accessible company policies that 

determine how user data is collected, and 

make privacy controls easier for users so they 

can consent or prevent their information from 

being collected, including by malevolent foreign 

actors. 

Facilitate third-party research into 

disinformation campaigns on and across social 

media platforms. Most social media platforms 

make it difficult for researchers to analyze data 

AISID June 2018 

trends, because their application programming 

interfaces (APis) are closed to the general 

public. While tech companies are engaging in 

a broader discussion about their policies and 

technologies in a limited way, they need to 

remove the blindfold and allow researchers 

to look at the data, ensure accountability 

in the tech sector, and recommend crossplatform solutions to prevent the distortion of 

information online. 

The tech companies should ensure they first 

involve legal and data protection experts, who 

can make clear to the public what should and 

should not be shared with outside experts. 

2. Create mechanisms for collaboration on 

defending against disinformation and cyberattacks. Many disinformation campaigns and 

cyber threats do not just manipulate one platform; 

the information moves across various platforms 

or a cyber-attack threatens multiple companies' 

network security and data integrity. There must 

be greater cooperation within the tech sector and 

between the tech sector and other stakeholders to 

address these issues. 

As recommended in a NYU Stern Center report, 

tech companies should conduct across-theboard internal assessments of disinformation 

threats. 78 The tech companies are too large for 

any one individual or department to have the 

answers. Bringing together engineers, business 

leads, customer support, legal, trust and safety 

teams, and policy experts from across the 

company should lead to changes that protect 

users and weed out harmful content. 

Policy changes within individual companies 

are a meaningful start, but sufficiently 

addressing these cross-platform threats will 

require multiple stakeholders. Therefore, all 

relevant tech companies should participate in 

a collaborative forum for sharing analysis and 

solutions to combat disinformation and cyberattacks. Models for cooperation already exist 

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and can be developed further: Google, Facebook, 

Twitter, and Microsoft already maintain a 

common database of digital fingerprints 

identifying violent extremist videos.79 These 

four companies also participate in a Cyberhate 

Problem-Solving Lab run by the AntiDefamation League's Center for Technology and 

Society.80 Dozens of tech companies participate 

in the Global Network Initiative, a tech policy 

forum devoted to protecting digital rights 

globally. 

3. Build a more constructive public-private 

partnership, particularly to identify emerging 

technological threats. It is imperative that the tech 

sector and government develop a more constructive 

partnership. New technologies, such as «deep fake" 

audio and video doctoring, will make the next wave 

of disinformation even harder to detect and deter. 

The tech sector and national security 

professionals should work together to identify 

potential vulnerabilities in new and existing 

technologies that can be exploited by adversaries, 

and strengthen defenses and deterrence 

measures. The two sectors should also establish 

a mechanism to share data to identify nefarious 

actors on social media platforms linked to 

foreign nation states, while ensuring protection 

of Americans' privacy and free speech. 

The data exchanged between the government 

and tech sector should also be briefed to 

Congress and made available to the public to 

maximize transparency. 

There needs to be more funding for research 

of new technologies and their potential misuse 

for disinformation. The Pentagon's Defense 

Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)'s 

own research on identifying deep fakes, 

combined with grants it has awarded outside 

researchers, is a positive development.81 

A lSI D June 2018 

As recommended by Brookings Institution 

experts, the public and private sectors need to 

be working together to assess the responsible 

design and use of decentralized applications, 

which utilize blockchain technology and other 

peer-to-peer tools.82 

4. Enact clear guidelines for verifying users and 

content and taking down accounts and content 

that violate Terms of Service (TOS). While 

some European governments have taken steps to 

regulate content on social media, the protection of 

free speech, enshrined in the First Amendment, is 

paramount in the United States. Companies bear a 

heavy responsibility to ensure that their platforms 

are not abused or used as tools to spread the type 

of disinformation intended to undermine either 

individual rights or democratic institutions. While 

European-style regulation may not be the answer in 

the United States, the companies must take action 

on harmful content consistent with their TOS. 

For example, some of Facebook and Twitter's new 

requirements for political ad purchasers to verify 

their identity are a good step, though have faced 

challenges in implementation. 83 The platforms 

face real difficulties in managing an enormous 

volume of organic content and an environment 

where malicious users and accounts linked to 

nation·state malign influence operations or 

authoritarian regimes thrive. These bad actors can 

flood the system with illegitimate TOS complaints, 

hoping the content or accounts they disapprove 

of will simply be pulled without deliberation. A 

combination of human and algorithmic review 

must be in place to monitor content and accounts. 

Social media companies should take the following 

steps: 

Devote more human resources to auditing 

complaints regarding TOS violations and 

develop dearer, more rigorous guidelines for 

removing content while protecting free speech. 

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To the best of their ability, more dearly articulate 

to users the reasons why they removed users' 

content or blocked their account, and allow for 

users to appeal the dedsion.M 

Consider ways to amplify verified content and 

marginalize suspicious content. 

Continue to refine AI tools that can spot bot 

accounts that are manipulating social media 

platforms. Many bot accounts are benign or 

beneficial, such as those that issue Amber 

Alerts and other public service announcements. 

Legislation that mandates that bots be identified 

and labeled will help provide transparency, 

as will adding additional human resources to 

managing this challenge. However, the sheer 

volume of bot accounts makes the use of AI 

essential. The foreign interference challenge 

cannot be successfully addressed solely through 

the hiring of additional personnel. 

Platforms must also permit authenticated 

accounts operated by human beings to remain 

publicly anonymous. Maintaining anonymity is 

important not only for users who wish to have 

a greater degree of privacy, but also for activists 

and political opposition figures in authoritarian 

states. 

5. Examine the implications of the business 

model that underpins these companies. The 

ad-driven, engagement-focused revenue stream 

adopted by the major social media companies has 

also created a medium for malicious actors, like 

the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburgt 

to exploit. Although platforms like Facebook and 

You Tube have taken some steps to address this, with 

Facebook requiring disclosures of political ads and 

YouTube promising to improve algorithms to keep 

advertisers' ads away from harmful content and 

vowing to remove more offensive videos, a broader 

discussion on disentangling advertising from data 

AISID June2018 

collection is worth having. 85 Less individualized, 

more contextual advertising like we see on other 

media - TV and print, for example may make 

it more difficult for nefarious actors to target 

specific segments of the population with harmful 

content (violent extremists and terrorists) or 

falsified content for political purposes (nationstate actors). A report by New America's Public 

Interest Technology program offers some guiding 

principles for thinking through this challenge."' 

6. Invest more in civil society's efforts to 

combat foreign influence operations. American 

businesses are custodians of democracy, just as 

government and individual citizens are. Their 

prosperity has been built on it and benefits from 

it, and they should play a role in protecting it from 

foreign interference. 

Corporations that have philanthropic arms, as well 

as private foundations, should be more involved 

in defending against foreign actors' attempts to 

destabilize democracies. Investing in organizations 

that run media literacy campaigns, expose 

disinformation and corruption, and conduct free 

and independent journalism, particularly on the 

local level, should be a priority for corporations 

and philanthropists, 

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VII. Recommendations for 

Media Organizations87 

1. Confirm the veracity of leaked information and 

be judicious about using it. Hacking operations 

by states and non-state actors are now a feature 

of political life in the democratic world. But the 

actors behind the hacks have an agenda, and that 

agenda can be enabled if media are not careful 

about how they report the story. The illegallyobtained information that nefarious actors steal 

and WikiLeaks and others publish can only be 

weaponized successfully if journalists publicize the 

contents of the hacks. Even after the 2016 experience 

with the DNC and john Podesta's hacked emails, 

reporters continue to traffic in material hacked 

by foreign actors, as recently shown in the QatariEmirati influence feud. 88 To report responsibly on 

weaponized information, journalists should: 

Distinguish between reporting on hacking 

operations and reporting on the content of 

the leaked information. During the 2017 

presidential campaign in France, French 

journalists covered the story of the hack of 

then-candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign 

e-mails and the online data dump. However, 

to prevent amplifying potentially falsified 

information and to avoid being a part of 

politicizing the operation, they refrained from 

reporting on the content of the data. Contrast 

that approach to U.S. media's reporting on the 

hacking and data dump of DNC and Clinton 

campaign e-mail accounts, which injected a 

foreign state's political agenda into an already 

hyper-politicized environment. 

Verify any information before it is published 

and contextualize in reporting both how it was 

obtained and the motivations behind the hack. 

87 The reoommeMat1ons m ttus section are largely derived from tM following 

report 

AISID June2018 

2. Create guidelines for using social media 

accounts as sources in stories. Looking ahead 

to future elections, media organizations can 

implement the following guidelines for using social 

media sources: 

Use two-step verification of social media 

accounts before publishing information. First, 

ensure that the social media platform has 

verified the account. And second, establish 

contact with the user on the phone. Written 

contact via direct message or e-mail is 

insufficient to establish the authenticity of a 

user account. Unverified social media accounts 

should require additional investigation to 

identify the account user. 

Citeverifiedsocialmediapostsmoreresponsibly 

by quoting them rather than embedding 

them. Furthermore, when embedding a tweet, 

consider cutting out the part that shows 

replies, retweets, and favorites. This avoids 

providing a potentially inaccurate snapshot 

of an account's popularity or legitimization of 

the information due to the account's alleged 

popularity. For example, the IRA frequently 

used bots to make these accounts appear more 

popular than they otherwise would have been. 

Media organizations used information from 

falsified accounts operated by the Russian 

government and embedded their tweets in the 

articles, showing readers that the accounts had 

a popularity. reach, and significance they did 

not deserve. s

990 

3. Build story literacy, particularly for complex, 

rapidly developing pieces of news. Throughout 

journalistic history, there have always been 

stories with many players, parts, and subtexts. But 

considering today's 24/7 media environment, the 

overwhelming volume of information an audience 

can consume, and the fact that many people do not 

follow a story from start to finish, reporters need 

to go to greater lengths to synthesize materiaL 

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Summarizing and repeating information as stories 

evolve can help an audience digest them. Some tools 

we suggest are: 

Using tirnelines and network diagrams to map 

out key players and events in multilayered 

stories. 

Create a dedicated vertical to a theme that 

encompasses many high-profile and breaking 

articles, such as Russian interference in 

democracies. This would put all relevant stories 

in one location for users to find information. 

Break down complicated stories by using Q&As 

and explainer cards. 

4. Increase transparency in reporting practice 

and reporting procedure. In an era of heightened 

suspicion towards the press, greater transparency 

can help the public better understand how 

journalism works and why journalists report what 

they do. Media organizations could consider taking 

the following steps: 

Participate in The Trust Project, a new initiative 

that is developing transparency standards 

for news consumers to assess the quality and 

credibility of journalism. Journalists would 

explain why they wrote a particular story, 

sources they used, previous versions of the 

story, etc. 

Require freelancers to disclose their sources 

of funding and any possible conflicts of 

interest This will help prevent manipulation of 

freelancers and could weed out fake freelancers. 

Write stories about journalistic procedure. 

In other words, explain to the public how 

journalists do their jobs. Entire TV series have 

been devoted to shedding light on a profession. 

Public interest stories on a reporter's approach 

to a particular story or source could generate 

interest in the news outlet while simultaneously 

increasing transparency. 

5. Anticipate future problems in journalism today. 

Today's disinformation campaign may not look like 

tomorrow's threat. The technology that is used by 

millions of people around the world - and exploited 

AISID June2018 

by a handful of state and non-state actors - will 

continue to evolve rapidly. Leaked and weaponized 

information will change over time. Campaigns 

did not have to worry about their e-mails being 

dumped onto WikiLeaks over a decade ago. Now 

they do. Media organizations need to stay on top 

of emerging trends, tools, and threats to get ahead 

of future challenges rather than having to issue 

corrections that undermine their credibility after 

the fact. 

Assign responsibility for disinformation and 

emerging threats to a C-level executive within 

the news organization. The executive would 

be in charge of finding solutions to verify 

potentially falsified information. 

Create a regular schedule for revisiting and 

updating social media verification guidelines. 

Follow BuzzFeed's lead and assign a beat 

reporter to cover disinformation trends and 

technologies to keep its audience updated on 

the latest developments. 

VIII. Recommendations for 

Civil Society 

I. Extend the dialogue about foreign interference 

in democracies beyond Washington. In 

several European countries, governments and 

non-governmental organizations are leading outreach 

about Russian active measures beyond their capitals 

in order to build societal resilience. For example, the 

Swedish government distributed pamphlets to 4.7 

million households explaining how to prepare for 

war or other national crises, including cyber-attacks 

on national infrastructure.91 Estonia and other 

governments' intelligence agencies publish annual 

threat assessments for public consumption. The US. 

government can conduct similar PSA campaigns, but 

in the United States, non-governmental organizations 

will be better positioned than government to fulfill 

different types of resilience building functions. Civil 

society therefore needs to be more active outside 

the Beltway in raising awareness, depoliticizing the 

debate about addressing this threat, and getting 

buy-in for solutions. 

91 "sweden Sends Out Leaftets Ofl How To f>repare for War, • 88C News, May 22, 

2018, hltps://W"!!W.bbc.com;newsjworld~urt>p(!..:l4208921. 

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Think tanks traditionally provide analysis and 

recommendations to dedsion~makers in the 

government. They should also advocate and act. 

Domestic outreach programs that bring policy 

experts in the think tank community in contact 

with their fellow Americans can be mutually 

beneficial. Outreach across the United States can 

accomplish the following: Steer this conversation 

away from its politicized roots in the 2016 

elections and toward the broader threat that 

malign foreign influence operations pose to our 

democratic institutions; Educate fellow citizens 

on the seriousness and urgency of solving the 

problem and on the ways their lives are affected 

by it; Identify trusted voices among local 

publics, officials, businesses, and civic leaders to 

participate in crafting solutions on the federal, 

state, and local levels. 

Non-governmental organizations should 

advance media literacy across the country to give 

Americans the tools they need to distinguish 

fact from fiction. Several European countries 

- Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, and the 

Czech Republic, among others - have robust 

media literacy programs run by NGOs and, 

in Sweden's case, government agencies. These 

programs train educators, parents, and students 

in best practices for critical consumption 

of media, and develop materials for school 

curricula. There are American NGOs like the 

News Literacy Project already dedicated to 

working on media literacy. Other organizations, 

like many of Washington's think tanks, have 

networks throughout the country and in Europe 

to leverage, including in countries that have had 

success in promoting media literacy. NGOs 

should partner together to: Conduct trainings 

for the public, particularly for students, about 

disinformation campaigns and how to avoid 

being manipulated when consuming news.; 

Advocate to state and local governments to 

include media literacy in their public education 

curriculum; Devise curriculum to strengthen 

civic education, particularly on the question of 

why democracy matters and why it should be 

protected from external attempts to undermine 

it. 

A IS] D June 2018 

2. Expand efforts to monitor and counter 

disinformation campaigns. Projects like ASD's 

Hamilton 68 Dashboard, the Atlantic Council's 

DFR Lab, and Stop Fake have been groundbreaking 

in exposing disinformation campaigns across 

the transatlantic space in real time. They should 

continue to refine their tools and their analytical 

models, and they should also be more involved 

in directly countering falsehoods propagated by 

foreign actors and perpetuated by hots and trolls 

online. There also needs to be more of these sites 

and tools, and better coordination between them 

to avoid duplication of efforts and to amplify 

each other's successes. The Atlantic Council's 

Disinformation Portal, with which ASD partners, 

is a good initial step in this direction. 

NGOs need greater funding to keep up with 

this rapidly developing space. Government's 

primary role in the disinformation field should 

be to issue grants to support NGOs' work. 

Philanthropic and private foundations should 

also increase their support for civil society 

organizations monitoring and defending 

against foreign threats to democratic 

institutions. 

3. Increase support for local and independent 

media. Today's media environment is dominated 

by the cable news networks, and, to a lesser extent, 

the major papers. Local and independent media are 

dying. That is bad for a number of reasons, including 

the fact that local media are often trusted to a greater 

degree than cable and online news outlets. 92 

Philanthropic support is essential to supporting 

local journalism. In addition to direct support for 

news outlets, individuals and foundations should 

support initiatives like the Report for America 

project, which seeks to support a new generation 

of emerging journalists reporting on undercovered topics in under-covered communities. 

With more resources, local media can indeed 

be a bulwark against foreign interference and 

disinformation. 

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4. Pressure elected officials to take this threat 

seriously and address it immediately. Americans 

across the country have the power to make their voices 

heard and demand that government in Washington 

and in their states take action to defend against 

and deter foreign interference in our democracy. 

Concerned citizens should band together to form 

advocacy groups in order to raise awareness and put 

pressure on their elected representatives. 

5. Remember that our democracy is only as strong 

as we make it. The polarization of American society, 

reflected in our politics, contributed to the conditions 

that the Russian government exploited. Americans 

have a responsibility to strengthen our democracy 

and address our problems at home that malign foreign 

actors use against us. We recommend that civil society 

organizations form partnerships with each other 

and, where appropriate, with the U.S. government 

to improve governance and the rule of law, fight 

corruption, and promote media literacy. Moreover, 

we need to instill a healthier respect for one another, 

regardless of our differences, by improving our civic 

discourse, practicing more responsible behavior on 

social media, and calling on our elected officials to 

take action to defend our democracy on a bipartisan 

basis. 

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Acknowledgements 

The authors would like to thank President of the 

German Marshall Fund ( GMF) Karen Donfried, 

GMF Executive Vice President Derek Chollet, and 

the GMF Board of"ll:ustees for their support for the 

Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) and dedication to strengthening the transatlantic relationship. 

We would like to thank the members of ASD's Advisory Council, who provided extensive feedback 

on the analysis and recommendations of this report and who so generously have devoted their time 

and expertise to our overall mission since ASD was 

founded in July 2017. We also thank ASD's principal donors - the Hewlett Foundation, Democracy 

Fund, Sandler Family Foundation, Seth Klarman, 

and Craig Newmark Philanthropies- and dozens of 

individual donors for their support and generosity. 

We are indebted to the innumerable experts whom 

we consulted for input, drawing on their experience 

in government, the tech sector, media, and civil society. We also acknowledge the vast contributions 

to the literature these experts have made, and on 

whose reports and commentary we have relied; we 

list several of these influential reports in Appendix 

A. 

European officials and colleagues in various nongovernmental organizations have been gracious 

with sharing lessons learned from their nations' 

experiences confronting Russian and other foreign interference in their democracies, even when 

Americans should have listened to their warnings 

and advice well before the United States found itself 

under attack. 

We could not have completed this report in a timely 

manner without the help and dedication of ASD's 

staff and many interns, who assisted us in all aspects 

of this endeavor. 

Finally, we thank Americans across our country and 

across multiple sectors and organizations who have 

begun to organize and collaborate to tackle this urgent challenge to our democracy. 

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Appendix A: Influential 

Publications 

The authors would like to acknowledge the substantial 

contribution of the following publications to the 

development of this report and to the furthering 

of research in the field of countering authoritarian 

influence in democracies: 

Anne Appelbaum, Peter Pomerantsev et al., '"Make 

Germany Great Again:' Kremlin, Alt-Right and 

International Influences in the 2017 German 

Elections," Institute for Strategic Dialogue, December 

6, 2017. 

Alina Polyakova and Daniel Fried, "Democratic 

Defense Against Disinformation," Atlantic Council, 

March 5, 2018. 

''Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent 

US Elections," Office of the Director of National 

Intelligence, January 6, 2017. 

Belinda Li, "The Other Immigration Crisis;' Hudson 

Institute, January 17,2017. 

Chris Meserole and Alina Polyakova, "Disinformation 

Wars;' Foreign Policy, May 25, 2018. 

Dipayan Ghosh and Ben Scott, ''Digital Deceit: The 

Technologies Behind Precision Propaganda on the 

Internet," New America, January 23,2018. 

Edward Lucas and Peter Pomeranzev, "Winning the 

Information War: Techniques and Counter-Strategies 

to Russian Propaganda in Central and Eastern 

Europe," Center for European Policy Analysis, August 

2016. 

Erica Newland et al. "Account Deactivation and 

Content Removal: Guiding Principles and Practices 

for Companies and Users;' The Berkman Center for 

Internet & Society and The Center for Democracy & 

Technology, September 20 II. 

European Commission, "Communication - Tackling 

Online Disinformation: A European Approach," April 

26,2018. 

AISID June2018 

"Harmful Content: The Role of Internet Platform 

Companies in Fighting Terrorist Incitement and 

Politically Motivated Disinformation;' Stern Center 

for Business and Human Rights, November 3, 2017. 

Heather A. Conley et al., The Kremlin Playbook: 

Understanding Russian Influence in Central and 

Eastern Europe, October 13,2016. 

Heidi Tworek, "Responsible Reporting in an Age 

of Irresponsible Information;' Alliance for Securing 

Democracy, German Marshall Fund of the United 

States, March 23,2018. 

Ian Vandewalker and Lawrence Norden, "Getting 

Foreign Funds Out of America's Elections;' Brennan 

Center for Justice, April6, 2018. 

"Joint Communication to the European Parliament, 

the European Council and the Council: Increasing 

Resilience And Bolstering Capabilities to Address 

Hybrid Threats;' European Commission, June 13, 

2018. 

Jonas Parella-Plesner, "The Chinese Communist 

Party's Foreign Interference Operations: How the 

U.S. and Other Democracies Should Respond;' 

Hudson Institute, June 20, 2018. 

Keir Giles, "Countering Russian Information 

Operations in the Age of Social Media;· Council on 

Foreign Relations, November 21, 2017. 

Lawrence Norden and Ian Vandewalker, "Securing 

Elections from Foreign Interference;• Brennan Center 

for Justice, June 29, 2017. 

"Putin's Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia 

and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security" 

(United States Senate, Committee on Foreign 

Relations, January 10, 2018). 

Robby Mook, Matt Rhoades, and Eric Rosenbach, 

"Cybersecurity Campaign Playbook;' Belfer Center 

for Science and International Affairs, November 2017. 

Robby Mook, Matt Rhoades, and Eric Rosenbach, 

"The State and Local Election Cybersecurity 

Playbook;' Belfer Center for Science and International 

Affairs, February 2018. 

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Robert D. Blackwilland Philip H. Gordon, ''Containing 

Russia: How to Respond to Moscow's Intervention in 

U.S. Democracy and Growing Geopolitical Challenge,"' 

Council on Foreign Relations, January 2018. 

Robert K. Knake, "Sharing Classified Cyber Threat 

Information With the Private Sector:' Council on 

Foreign Relations, May 15,2018. 

Tim Maurer and Erik Brattberg, "Russian Election 

Interference: Europe's Counter to Fake News and 

Cyber Attacks;' Carnegie Endowment for International 

Peace, May 23,2018. 

U.S. Department of Justice, "United States of America 

v. Internet Research Agency LLC;' February 16, 2018. 

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 

"Russian Targeting of Election Infrastructure During 

the 2016 Election: Summary of Initial Findings and 

Recommendations;' May 8, 2018. 

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Appendix B: ASD Advisory 

Council 

Mike Chertoff 

Mike Chertoff was U.S. Secretary of Homeland 

Security from 2005 to 2009. There, he worked 

to strengthen U.S. borders, provide intelligence 

analysis, and protect infrastructure. He increased 

the Department's focus on preparedness ahead of 

disasters, and implemented enhanced security at 

airports and borders. Following Hurricane Katrina, 

Chertoff helped to transform FEMA (Federal 

Emergency Management Agency) into an effective 

organization. He also served as a judge on the 

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge from 2003-05. He 

co-founded the Chertoff Group, a risk -management 

and security consulting company, and works as 

senior of counsel at the Washington, DC law firm 

Covington & Burling. 

Toomas lives 

Toomas Hendrik Ilves was elected president of the 

Republic of Estonia in 2006 and in 2011. During his 

presidency, Ilves was appointed to serve in several 

high positions in the field of information and 

communication technology in the European Union. 

He previously served as minister of foreign affairs 

and as the ambassador of the Republic of Estonia 

to the United States and Canada in Washington. 

lives was also a member of the Estonian Parliament, 

as well as a member of the European Parliament, 

where he was vice president of the Foreign Affairs 

Committee. He now co-chairs the World Economic 

Forum working group The Global Futures Council 

on Blockchain Technology and is a distinguished 

visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford 

University. 

David Kramer 

David ). Kramer joined Florida International 

University's Steven J. Green School of International 

and Public Affairs as a senior fellow in the Vaclav 

Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy 

in May 2017. Before moving to Miami, Kramer 

had worked in Washington, DC for 24 years, 

most recently as senior director for Human Rights 

and Democracy with The McCain Institute for 

International Leadership. Before that, he served 

A]SID June2018 

for four years as president of Freedom House. 

Prior to that, he was a senior transatlantic fellow 

at The German Marshall Fund of the United 

States. Kramer served eight years in the U.S. 

Department of State during the George W. Bush 

administration, including as assistant secretary of 

state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; 

deputy assistant secretary of state for European and 

Eurasian Affairs; professional staff member in the 

Secretary's Office of Policy Planning; and senior 

advisor to the undersecretary for Global Affairs. 

Kramer is a member of the board of directors of 

the Halifax International Security Forum and a 

member of the advisory council for the George 

W Bush Presidential Center's Human Freedom 

Project. 

Bill Kristol 

William Kristol is the editor at large of the influential 

political journal, The Weekly Standard. Before 

starting that magazine in 1995, Kristol served in 

government, first as chief of staff to Secretary of 

Education William Bennett during the Reagan 

administration, and then as chief of staff to Vice 

President Dan Quayle in the George H. W. Bush 

administration. Kristof has also served on the 

board of the Project for the New American Century 

(1997-2005) and the Foreign Policy Initiative 

(2009-17). Before coming to Washington in 1985, 

Kristol taught government at the University of 

Pennsylvania and Harvard University. 

Rick Ledgett 

Rick Ledgett has four decades of experience in 

intelligence, cybersecurity, and cyber operations, 

including 29 years with the National Security 

Agency where he served as deputy director 

from January 2014 until his retirement in April 

2017. In that capacity he was responsible for 

providing foreign intelligence and protecting the 

nation's most important national security-related 

networks. Rick is a senior visiting fellow at The 

MITRE Corporation, a director on the Board of 

M&T Bank, serves as a trustee on the Board of the 

Institute for Defense Analyses, and is a member of 

several corporate advisory boards. 

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Michael Morell 

Michael Morell was acting director of the Central 

Intelligence Agency in 2011 and again from 2012 to 

2013, and had previously served as deputy director 

and director for Intelligence at the Agency. In his 

over thirty years at the CIA, Morell played a central 

role in the United States' fight against terrorism, 

its initiatives to halt the proliferation of weapons 

of mass destruction, and its efforts to respond to 

trends that are altering the international landscape 

-including the Arab Spring, the rise of China, and 

the cyber threat. He was one of the leaders in the 

search for Osama bin Laden and participated in 

the deliberations that led to the raid that killed bin 

Laden in May 2011. He has been with Beacon Global 

Strategies as a senior counselor since November 

2013. 

Mike McFaul 

Michael McFaul served for five years in the Obama 

administration, first as special assistant to the 

president and senior director for Russian and 

Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at 

the White House from 2009 to 2012, and then as U.S. 

ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012-

14. He is currently professor of political science, 

director, and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli 

Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and 

Helen Bing senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. 

He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He is also an 

analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist 

to The Washington Post. 

Mike Rogers 

Mike Rogers is a former member of Congress, 

officer in the Army, and FBI special agent. In the 

U.S. House he chaired the Intelligence Committee, 

becoming a leader on cybersecurity and national 

security policy, and overseeing the 17 intelligence 

agencies' $70 billion budget. Today Mike is a CNN 

national security commentator, and hosts and 

produces CNN's "Declassified?' He serves as Chief 

Security Adviser to AT&T, sits on the board of 

!ronNel Cybersecurity and MITRE Corporation, 

and advises Next Century Corporation and Trident 

Capital. He is Distinguished Fellow and Trustee 

AISID June 2018 

at Center for the Study of the Presidency and 

Congress, and a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center 

at Harvard University. 

Kori Schake 

Kori Schake has served in various policy roles 

including at the White House for the National 

Security Council. at the Department of Defense 

for the Office of the Secretary and joint Chiefs of 

Staff, and at the State Department for the Policy 

Planning Staff During the 2008 presidential 

election, she was senior policy advisor on the 

McCain-Palin campaign. She is now a research 

fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is the editor, 

with Jim Mattis, of the book Warriors and Citizens: 

American Views of Our Military. She is the Deputy 

Director~General at the International Institute for 

Strategic Studies, a contributing editor covering 

national security and international affairs at The 

Atlantic, a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, 

and a contributor to War on the Rocks. 

Julie Smith 

Julianne "julie'' Smith served as the deputy national 

security advisor to the U.S. vice president from 

2012 to 2013, acting national security advisor to 

the vice president in 2013, and principal director 

for European and NATO policy in the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. Smith 

is currently senior fellow and director of the 

Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a 

New American Security. 

Admiral Jim Stavridis (Ret.) 

Admiral james Stavridis, U.S. Navy (Ret.) served 

as commander of European Command and as 

Supreme Allied Commander, Europe from 2009 to 

2013. He commanded U.S. Southern Command in 

Miami from 2006-09 and commanded Enterprise 

Carrier Strike Group, conducting combat 

operations in the Arabian Gulf in support of both 

Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring 

Freedom from 2002-04. He was a strategic and 

long-range planner on the staffs of the Chief of 

Naval Operations and the Chairman of the )oint 

Chiefs of Staff. He has also served as the executive 

assistant to the secretary of the navy and as senior 

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military assistant to the secretary of defense. He 

is now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and 

Diplomacy, Tufts University, and chairman of the 

U.S. Naval Institute board of directors. 

Jake Sullivan 

Jake Sullivan served in the Obama administration 

as national security advisor to Vice President Joe 

Biden and director of Policy Planning at the U.S. 

Department of State, as well as deputy chief of staff 

to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He was the 

senior policy advisor on Secretary Clinton's 2016 

presidential campaign. He is now a senior fellow at 

the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 

and Martin R. Flug visiting lecturer in law at Yale 

Law School. 

Nicole Wong 

Nicole Wong served as deputy U.S. chief technology 

officer in the Obama administration, where she 

focused on internet, privacy, and innovation 

policy. Prior to her time in government, Nicole 

was Google's vice president and deputy general 

counsel, and Twitter's legal director for products. 

She frequently speaks on issues related to law and 

technology. Nicole chairs the board of Friends of 

Global Voices, a nonprofit organization dedicated 

to supporting citizen and online media projects 

globally. She also sits on the boards ofWITNESS, an 

organization supporting the use of video to advance 

human rights, and the Mozilla Foundation, which 

promotes open internet. Nicole currently serves 

as an advisor to the School of Information at the 

University of California, Berkeley, Harvard Business 

School Digital Initiative, the Democratic National 

Committee Cybersecurity advisory board, Refactor 

Capital, and the Albright Stonebridge Group. 

AISID June2018 41 
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I I The German Marshall Fund 

G M F of the United States 

STRENGTHENING TRANSATLANTIC COOPERATION 

Washington • Ankara • Belgrade • Berlin 

Brussels • Bucharest • Paris • Warsaw 

www.gmfus.org 
89 

Chairman BURR. Ms. Rosenberger, thank you. 

Dr. Howard. 

STATEMENT OF PHILIP HOWARD, Ph.D., DIRECTOR, OXFORD 

INTERNET INSTITUTE 

Dr. HOWARD. Thank you, Chairman Burr and Vice Chairman 

Warner, for the opportunity to testify on foreign influence operations and their use of social media platforms. 

My name is Phil Howard. I’m a professor at Oxford University 

and Director of the Oxford Internet Institute, a department at Oxford. My own area of expertise includes political communication 

and international affairs. And at the institute, I’ve been leading a 

project on computational propaganda, currently funded by the European Research Council, and something that—a research initiative 

that started with support from the National Science Foundation in 

this country. 

I began working on these questions in 2010, but the project really grew in the summer of 2014, when the Malaysian Airlines flight 

was shot down over Ukraine. And in Hungary, where I was based 

at the moment, at that time, many of my Hungarian friends got 

multiple ridiculous stories about what had happened. We knew 

these came from Russian or Russian sources. 

There was one story that democracy advocates had shot the 

plane down because they thought Putin was traveling on commercial from Amsterdam to Malaysia. There was another story that 

Americans had shot the plane down because the U.S. had stationed 

troops in Ukraine. And far and away my favorite was the story of 

a lost tank from World War II that had come out of the great forests of Ukraine that was confused and had shot the plane down. 

It was at that moment that we realized the thrust of Russian 

propaganda was not so much about creating one counter-narrative 

and placing that story amongst a public, but creating multiple, 

sometimes equally ridiculous, stories and placing those stories in a 

public. What we did not expect is that Russia would turn this campaign strategy on America, on the other great democracies in the 

West. 

I’m going to say a little bit about what we’ve learned over the 

last few years about the form of these computational propaganda 

campaigns and give you a sense of what I expect for 2018 and perhaps the years ahead. 

We coined the term ‘‘computational propaganda’’ because this 

kind of disinformation is unique. It makes use of automation; it 

makes use of the social media algorithms that technology firms 

themselves have built. And it makes use of those algorithms to distribute targeted propaganda. This propaganda includes falsely 

packaged news, misinformation, illegal data harvesting, hacking. 

There’s a range of techniques that goes into backing computational 

propaganda. 

And there’s three kinds of campaigns that tend to target voters. 

There are campaigns to polarize voters on particular issues. For example, known Russian social media accounts will simultaneously 

promote political action by groups like the United Muslims of 

America and the Army of Jesus, or encourage African-American political activity around Black Lives Matter and encourage others to 

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support the Blue Lives Matter movement. The goal is to get groups 

of voters to confront each other angrily, not just over social media, 

but in the streets. 

Second, there are campaigns to promote or discredit particular 

senators, presidential candidates and other political figures. Foreign-backed rumormongering is not new, but it is strategically targeted in a way that is new. 

Third and perhaps most worrying for democracy is that campaigns, some of these campaigns, discourage voters from voting. 

Voter suppression is a common messaging technique aimed at voters whose support for a candidate a foreign government might find 

unpalatable. For example, voters are often told that voting day has 

been postponed, or that they can text message their vote in, or that 

the polling station has moved when it has not. 

In the case of the United States, these campaigns are ongoing. 

Months after the last major election in the U.S., our team demonstrated that disinformation about national security issues, including information from Russian sources, was being targeted at 

U.S. military personnel, veterans and their families. 

During the President’s State of the Union Address, we demonstrated that junk news, some of which originates from foreign 

governments, is particularly appetizing for the far right, white supremacists, and President Trump’s supporters, though notably not 

small ‘‘c’’ conservatives. 

Our team has completed recently a global inventory of the number of governments managing these campaigns and, while many of 

us talk about Russia, I would say that the original writ of our research was to track what the Russians and Chinese are doing in 

this domain. So far, we have not documented much Chinese activity. We know they spend time working on voters in Taiwan, they 

work on the Chinese diaspora. We believe they have capacity, but 

as of yet they haven’t set American voters in their sights. 

We have found in this most recent inventory that there are 48 

countries in the world with large political parties or government 

agencies running misinformation campaigns either on their own 

voters or on voters in other countries. There are seven authoritarian governments, aside from Russia, that spend money in this 

domain. 

And overall, I would say it’s time for democracies to develop their 

own cyber-security strategies. The time for industry self-regulation 

has probably passed. And I’m grateful for this opportunity to discuss the possibilities going forward. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Howard follows:] 

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Testimony of Philip N. Howard, Oxford University 

"Foreign Influence on Social Media Platforms: Perspectives from ThirdParty Social Media Experts" 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Open Hearing, August 1, 2018 

Thank you, Chairman Burr and Vice Chairman Warner, for the opportunity to testify on foreign influence 

operations and their use of social media platforms. 

My name is Phil Howard; I am a Professor at Oxford University and Director ofthe Oxford Internet 

Institute, an academic department of Oxford University. My areas of expertise include political 

communication and international affairs. 

There is a significant amount of punditry and speculation about the role and impact of foreign influence 

operations and their use of social media platforms. I tend to work with open-source information, public 

archives, and the feeds of data that the social media platforms make available. I think I can best serve 

you by sticking close to evidence that has either come (1) from my own research team at Oxford 

University or (2) from the network of academics who are evaluating foreign influence on social media 

platforms. 

OUR RESEARCH FINDINGS 

At the Oxford Internet Institute, I have been leading the Project on Computational Propaganda, which is 

currently funded by the European Research Council. I began working on this in 2010 with the support of 

the National Science Foundation, and our research team was the first large-scale, dedicated effort to 

study the role of disinformation and social media manipulation in public life. 

We coined the term "computational propaganda" because this kind of disinformation is unique: it 

makes use of automation, algorithms and big-data analytics to manipulate public opinion in targeted 

ways.' The term encompasses political content falsely packaged as news, the spread of misinformation 

on social media platforms, illegal data harvesting and micro-profiling, the exploitation of social media 

platforms for foreign influence operations, the amplification of hate speech or harmful content through 

fake accounts or political bots, hacking and social engineering, and clickbait content for optimized social 

media consumption. Computational propaganda is often illegal under the existing rules of elections 

administration that most democracies have in place.' 

1 Samuel C. Woolley and Philip N. Howard, "Political Communication, Computational Propaganda, and 

Autonomous Agents- Introduction," International Journal of Communication, Automation, Algorithms, and 

Politics Special Section, 10, no. 0 (2016): 9. 

'Philip N. Howard, Samuel Woolley, and Ryan Calo, "Algorithms, Bots, and Political Communication in the US 2016 

Election: The Challenge of Automated Political Communication for Election Law and Administration," Journal of 

Information Technology & Politics 15, no. 2 (April 3, 2018): 81-93, 

https:/ I dol .org/10.1080/19331681.2018.1448735. 

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Based on publicly available data, including the small amounts of data that the social media firms 

released last summer, there are several things we know about the strategies that Russian operators 

employ and which US voters they seek to influence. Our team has worked with data on the accounts 

that the social media platforms have exposed as managed by Russian operators. We know what 

messages these accounts sent and what advertisements these users bought and then targeted at US 

voters. 

From this evidence, we can identify several kinds of computational propaganda campaigns. 

1. Campaigns to polarize voters on particular issues. For example, known Russian social media 

accounts will simultaneously promote political action by a group called "United Muslims of 

America" and the "Army of Jesus", or encourage African American political actives around "Black 

Lives Matter" and then develop a "Blue lives Matter" movement. The goal is to get groups of 

voters to confront each other angrily, over social media and in the streets. Video content, edited 

and taken out of context, makes new immigrants seem like a threat to veterans, or tells one 

community that the police need our support while telling another that police are abusing them. 

2. Campaigns to promote or discredit particular Senators, Presidential candidates, and other public 

figures. Foreign-backed rumor-mongering is not new, but it is much more strategically targeted 

within districts and by voter demographics than before. It is safe to say that every public figure 

on the national stage is either attacked by or benefits from highly automated or fake social 

media accounts, and whether these campaigns are managed by foreign governments depends 

on the issues involved and time of the campaign season. 

3. Campaigns to discourage citizens from voting. Voter suppression is a common messaging 

strategy, aimed at the voters who might support a candidate that a foreign government finds 

unpalatable. For example, voters are often told that voting day has been postponed, or that 

they can text message their vote in, or that their polling station has moved. 

It is difficult to know how many people in the United States have seen such messages, or how many 

voters were actually influenced by them. Only the social media firms themselves could share that data 

or estimate those probabilities accurately. But, in the US context, it is safe to assume that social media 

platforms efficiently delivered these messages and advertisements to voters, and that these messages 

had an influence, in different ways, in different states, and in conjunction with all the other variables 

that shape an electoral outcome. 

THE UNITED STATES AS A TARGET 

We have demonstrated that, during the last Presidential election, there was a one-to-one ratio of junk 

news to professional news shared by voters over Twitter. In other words, for every one link to a story 

produced by a professional news organization there was one link to content that was extremist, 

sensationalist, conspiratorial or other form of junk news. Not only is this the highest level of junk news 

circulation in any of the countries we have studied, but this misinformation was actually concentrated in 

swing states.' Disinformation campaigns are often launched with highly automated accounts and fake 

users, and these kinds of accounts pushed significant amounts of content from Russian news sources, 

links to unverified content on Wikileaks, and other junk news. Our analysis demonstrates that this 

'P N. Howard et al., "Social Media, News and Political Information during the US Election: Was Polarizing Content 

Concentrated in Swing States?," Data Memo 2017.8 (Oxford, United Kingdom: Project on Computational 

Propaganda, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, 2018). 

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content does not simply flow across networks of bots-at the right volume level it can permeate deeply 

into networks of human users.• 

These operations are ongoing. Months after the last major election in the US, we demonstrated that 

disinformation about national security issues, including from Russian sources, was being targeted at US 

military personnel, veterans, and their families.' During the President's State ofthe Union address, we 

learned that junk news is particularly appetizing for the far right, white supremacists, and President 

Trump's supporters (though not "small c" conservatives). 6 Some of this junk content actually originates 

with accounts managed by foreign governments. 

INFLUENCE OPERATIONS GLOBALLY 

Our team recently completed a second global inventory of the organizational capacity of different 

governments and political parties to manipulate public opinion over social media. Around the world, a 

range of government agencies and political parties are exploiting social media platforms to spread junk 

news and disinformation, exercise censorship and control, and undermine trust in the media, public 

institutions, and science. At a time when news consumption is increasingly digital, artificial intelligence, 

big-data analytics, and "black-box" algorithms are being leveraged to challenge truth and trust. These 

are cornerstones of democracy. 

In 2017, our first global cyber troops inventory shed light on the global organization of social media 

manipulation by government and political party actors.' Now, only a year later, we find a significant 

expansion of this capacity.• 

1. We have found evidence of formally organized social media manipulation campaigns in 48 

countries, up from 28 countries last year. In each country, there is at least one political party or 

government agency using social media to manipulate public opinion domestically. 

2. Much of this growth comes from countries where political parties are spreading disinformation 

during elections, or countries where government agencies feel threatened by junk news and foreign 

interference and are responding by developing their own computational propaganda campaigns in 

response. 

4 Samuel Woolley and Douglas Guilbeault, "Computational Propaganda in the United States of America: 

Manufacturing Consensus Online,'' Working Paper 2017.5 (Oxford, United Kingdom: Project on Computational 

Propaganda, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, June 2017), 5 John Gallacher et al., "Junk News on Military Affairs and National Security: Social Media Disinformation 

Campaigns Against US Military Personnel and Veterans," Data Memo 2017.9 (Oxford, United Kingdom: Project on 

Computational Propaganda, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, March 26, 2017). 6 Vidya Narayanan et al., "Polarization, Partisanship and Junk News Consumption over Social Media in the US," 

Data memo 2018.1 (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, June 2017). 7 Samantha Bradshaw and Philip N. Howard, ''Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized 

Social Media Manipulation,'' Working Paper 2017.12 (Oxford, England: Project on Computational Propaganda, 

Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, July 2017), http:f/comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/2017/07/17/troops-trolls-andtrouble-makers-a-global-inventory-of-organized-social-media-manipulation/. 

8 Samantha Bradshaw and Philip N. Howard, "Challenging Truth and Trust: A Global Inventory of Organized Social 

Media Manipulation,'' Working Paper 2018.1 (Oxford, England: Project on Computational Propaganda, Oxford 

Internet Institute, Oxford University, July 2018), http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/2017/07/17/troops-trolls-andtrouble-makers-a-global-inventory-of-organized-social-media-manipulation/. 

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3. In a fifth of these 48 countries-mostly across the Global South-we found evidence of 

disinformation campaigns operating over chat applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram and WeChat. 

4. Computational propaganda still involves social media account automation and online 

commentary teams, but is making increasing use of paid advertisements and search engine optimization 

on a widening array of Internet platforms. 

5. Social media manipulation is big business. Since 2010, political parties and governments have 

spent more than half a billion dollars on the research, development, and implementation of 

psychological operations and public opinion manipulation over social media. In a few countries this 

includes efforts to counter extremism, but in most countries this involves the spread of junk news and 

misinformation during elections, military crises, and complex humanitarian disasters. 

RESEARCH ON VOTER IMPACT 

Some of the best evidence about social media advertising and influence comes from the platforms 

themselves. A growing number of researchers work with social media data over polling data to answer 

basic research questions about public opinion dynamics.' Social media are not only important for 

obtaining news and political content, but also as an indicator of public sentiment in elections and other 

political crises.10 No matter the platform, social media users are producing a vast amount of data that is 

collected and analyzed to generate detailed psychological profiles of users that can provide insight into 

attitudes, preferences, and behaviors. Indeed, the successful business model of these firms is to 

algorithmically connect users to content that is relevant to them individually, as well as target them with 

personalized advertising, using systems that political actors can "pay to play" in. The information users 

produce about themselves online helps craft the computational propaganda they are subsequently sent, 

influencing voting behavior and improving voter turnout11 The study of news consumption habits of 

social media users can also produce fine- grained analyses of the causes and consequences of political 

polarization." 

Social media almost certainly facilitates selective exposure, but more likely through social endorsements 

rather than simply partisan frames. On Facebook, friends share news from consistent ideological 

perspectives, rarely using diverse sources of political news and information. In a study by Bakshy et al., 

Facebook users encountered roughly 15% less cross-cutting content in their news feeds due to 

algorithmic ranking, and clicked through to 70% less of this cross-cutting content." Within the domain 

of political news encountered in social media, selective exposure appears to drive attention. However, 

the underlying driver of attention is the social endorsement that is communicated through the act of 

sharing: social media users will not pay attention simply because a piece of political news is from a 

9 Robert Bond and Solomon Messing, "Quantifying Social Media's Political Space: Estimating Ideology from Publicly 

Revealed Preferences on Facebook," American Political Science Review 109, no. 01 (2015}: 62-78. 10 Daniel Gayo-Avello, "A Meta-Analysis of State-of-the-Art Electoral Prediction from Twitter Data," Social Science 

Computer Review, 2013, 0894439313493979, https:/ /doi.org/10.1177/0894439313493979. 11 Robert M. Bond et al., "A 61-Million-Person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization," Nature 

489, no. 7415 (September 13, 2012): 295-98, https://doi.org/10.1038/naturel1421; Michael Brand, "Can 

Facebook Influence an Election Result?," The Conversation, 2016, http://theconversation.com/can-facebookinfluence-an-election-result-65541; Adam D. I. Kramer, Jamie E. Guillory, and Jeffrey T. Hancock, "Experimental 

Evidence of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion through Social Networks," Proceedings of the National Academy of 

Sciences 111, no. 24 (2014}: 8788-90, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1320040111. 

"Eytan Bakshy, Solomon Messing, and Lada A. Adamic, "Exposure to Ideologically Diverse News and Opinion on 

Facebook," Science 348, no. 6239 (June 5, 2015}: 1130-32, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa1160. 13 Bakshy, Messing, and Adamic. 

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credible source or generated by a political party, they pay attention because someone in their social 

network has signaled the importance of the content.14 Other researchers have found that when the top 

search results about a political leader are positive, people say they will vote for that person. When they 

are shown negative results, people report that they less likely to vote.15 So it should not be surprising 

that foreign governments seeking to interfere with domestic politics and shape public opinion inside a 

country would put resources into manipulating search results. 

CONCLUSION: WHAT IS NEXT? 

Disinformation campaigns will continue to be launched against voters in democracies. For every new 

social media platform, every new design idea on every platform, and every new digital device, someone 

will work to integrate the innovation with a computational propaganda campaign. 16 

First, globally, we can expect a growing number of foreign powers to develop disinformation campaigns 

for single issues and legislative campaigns, not just elections. 

Second, globally, we can expect foreign governments to apply these techniques and develop these 

messages for multiple platforms. They will to whatever social media platform has voters. 

Third, globally, we can expect advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning to be used to 

support ever more individuated campaigns. Currently, foreign influence operations take advantage of 

the algorithms built by social media firms and search engines to customize the delivery of 

dis information. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing will not only be 

used for individual targeting, but individually customized content. Videos and text can be crafted by 

knowledge of credit card purchases, and device data from our mobile phone, or from our "Internet of 

Things" refrigerator. 

Fourth, globally, we can expect regimes other than Russia to develop their capacity to influence 

domestic public opinion. We believe China has significant capacity, but have only caught their influence 

operations against Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora. Authoritarian governments tend to learn from 

each other, and we have seen more and more such regimes applying these techniques. 

Fifth, within the United States, we can expect the same kinds of voters to continue to be targets for 

misinformation. Given the disinformation campaigns which have been-and are currently- running, I 

would guess that foreign actors will continue to aim future disinformation campaigns at African 

American voters, Muslim American voters, White Supremacist voters, and voters in Texas and the 

Southern States. I expect the strategy will remain the same: push disinformation about public issues; 

discredit politicians and experts; and prevent particular types of voters from participating on Election 

Day. 

14 Bakshy, Messing, and Adamic; Solomon Messing and Sean J. Westwood, "Selective Exposure in the Age of Social 

Media: Endorsements Trump Partisan Source Affiliation When Selecting News Online," Communication Research 

41, no. 8 (2014): 1042--£3, https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650212466406. 15 Robert Epstein and Ronald E. Robertson, "The Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) and Its Possible Impact 

on the Outcomes of Elections," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 33 (August 18, 2015): 

E4512-21, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1419828112. 16 Philip N. Howard, Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up (New Haven, CT: Yale, 

2015). 

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The manipulation of public opinion over social media platforms has emerged as a critical threat to public 

life. The solution to these problems necessarily involves research and public policy oversight. 

Technology firms occasionally share small amounts of data, but providing a regular flow of data about 

public life to elections administrators, researchers, and civil society groups is the best way to ensure that 

social media firms make good decisions and design their platforms to support and defend, rather than 

undermine and expose, our democratic institutions. 

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REFERENCES 

Bakshy, Eytan, Solomon Messing, and Lada A. Adamic. "Exposure to Ideologically Diverse News and 

Opinion on Facebook." Science 348, no. 6239 (JuneS, 2015): 1130-32. 

https:/ /doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa1160. 

Bond, Robert M., Christopher J. Fariss, Jason J. Jones, Adam D. I. Kramer, Cameron Marlow, Jaime E. 

Settle, and James H. Fowler. "A 61-Million-Person Experiment in Social Influence and Political 

Mobilization." Nature 489, no. 7415 (September 13, 2012): 295-98. 

https:/ /doi.org/10.1038/nature11421. 

Bond, Robert, and Solomon Messing. "Quantifying Social Media's Political Space: Estimating Ideology 

from Publicly Revealed Preferences on Facebook." American Political Science Review 109, no. 01 

(2015): 62-78. 

Bradshaw, Samantha, and Philip N. Howard. "Challenging Truth and Trust: A Global Inventory of 

Organized Social Media Manipulation." Working Paper 2018.1. Oxford, England: Project on 

Computational Propaganda, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, July 2018. 

http:/ /comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/2017 /07/17 /troops-trolls-and-trouble-makers-a-global-inventoryof-organized-social-media-manipulation/. 

---."Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation." 

Working Paper 2017.12. Oxford, England: Project on Computational Propaganda, Oxford 

Internet Institute, Oxford University, July 2017. http:j/comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/2017/07/17/troopstrolls-and-trouble-makers-a-global-inventory-of-organized-social-media-manipulation/. 

Brand, Michael. "Can Facebook Influence an Election Result?" The Conversation, 2016. 

http://theconversation.com/can-facebook-influence-an-election-result-65541. 

Epstein, Robert, and Ronald E. Robertson. "The Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) and Its 

Possible Impact on the Outcomes of Elections." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 

112, no. 33 (August 18, 2015): E4512-21. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1419828112. 

Gallacher, John, Vladimir Barash, Philip N. Howard, and John Kelly. "Junk News on Military Affairs and 

National Security: Social Media Disinformation Campaigns Against US Military Personnel and 

Veterans." Data Memo 2017.9. Oxford, United Kingdom: Project on Computational Propaganda, 

Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, March 26, 2017. 

Gayo-Avello, Daniel. "A Meta-Analysis of State-of-the-Art Electoral Prediction from Twitter Data." Social 

Science Computer Review, 2013,0894439313493979. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439313493979. 

Howard, P N., Bence Kollanyi, Samantha Bradshaw, and lisa-Maria Neudert. "Social Media, News and 

Political Information during the US Election: Was Polarizing Content Concentrated in Swing 

States?" Data Memo 2017.8. Oxford, United Kingdom: Project on Computational Propaganda, 

Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, 2018. 

Howard, Philip N. Pox Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up. New Haven, 

CT: Yale, 2015. 

Howard, Philip N., Samuel Woolley, and Ryan Calo. "Algorithms, Sots, and Political Communication in 

the US 2016 Election: The Challenge of Automated Political Communication for Election law and 

Administration." Journal of Information Technology & Politics 15, no. 2 (April3, 2018): 81-93. 

https:/ I doi.org/10.1080/ 19331681.2018.14487 35. 

Kramer, Adam D. 1., Jamie E. Guillory, and Jeffrey T. Hancock. "Experimental Evidence of Massive-Scale 

Emotional Contagion through Social Networks." Proceedings of the National Academy af 

Sciences 111, no. 24 (2014): 8788-90. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1320040111. 

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Messing, Solomon, and Sean J. Westwood. "Selective Exposure in the Age of Social Media: 

Endorsements Trump Partisan Source Affiliation When Selecting News Online." Communication 

Research 41, no. 8 {2014): 1042-63. https://doi.org/10.1177 /0093650212466406. 

Narayanan, Vidya, Vladimir Barash, John Kelly, Bence Kollanyi, lisa-Maria Neudert, and Philip N. Howard. 

"Polarization, Partisanship and Junk News Consumption over Social Media in the US." Data 

memo 2018.1. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, June 

2017. 

Woolley, Samuel C., and Philip N. Howard. "Political Communication, Computational Propaganda, and 

Autonomous Agents - Introduction." International Journal of Communication, Automation, 

Algorithms, and Politics Special Section, 10, no. 0 (2016): 9. 

Woolley, Samuel, and Douglas Guilbeault. "Computational Propaganda in the United States of America: 

Manufacturing Consensus Online." Working Paper 2017.5. Oxford, United Kingdom: Project on 

Computational Propaganda, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, June 2017. 

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Chairman BURR. Dr. Howard, thank you very much. 

I am reminded, after listening to all of the testimony, that the 

1960s strategies of Russia were simple: If it’s bad for America, it 

must be good for us. And it seems like this is rooted in the same 

foundational strategic vision that they had then. 

The Chair would recognize himself for five minutes. I’m going to 

ask all of you to follow my chart over there. I just want to get your 

comments relative to whether this is accurate or not. 

[The material referred to appears in the Supplemental Material 

on page 163.] 

Chairman BURR. The red line represents the Russian activities 

of the IRA Twitter activity relative to outside the United States. 

The blue line is U.S.-focused IRA Twitter activities. What that 

shows is a huge spike up in the 2014–2015 timeframe, which was 

the invasion of the Ukraine. 

The next two jogs of the lineup are between 2015 and 2016, and 

that’s the Crimea propaganda, and the regional politics in Belarus 

specifically. 

And then all of a sudden you see this spike in the blue line in 

the United States. I think the fascinating thing here is that the 

spike is in 2017 and 2018, which tells us—and correct me if I’m 

wrong—the effort in 2017 and 2018 was much more intense than 

the effort in 2015 and 2016 in the lead-up to an election. Am I 

misreading that? 

[No response.] 

So, Dr. Kelly, let me ask you this: Is it possible for the mainstream media today to run a story that was the creation of an effort by the IRA, that had no factual basis, but over the transition 

of how their strategies work, it gained enough coverage, belief that 

people had read it, that it got so big that it had to have been real? 

Is that possible? 

Dr. KELLY. I believe it is possible. I think the goal of these information operations over the long term is to condition the public and 

to weave the network, so to speak, that later you can use it to move 

any sort of story. 

Remember, a key feature of propaganda—you know, if you’re 

running a propaganda outfit, most of what you publish is factual, 

so that you’re taken seriously, and then you can slip in the wrong 

thing at exactly the right time. I believe that’s what they’ve done, 

is cultivate a set of sources as authoritative with content that’s 

often just about Kim Kardashian. And then those people become 

credible, they become cited in the mainstream media. And then at 

that point, they can start to move anything they want through it. 

Chairman BURR. And is it the individuals that contribute to that 

theme that’s on a social media platform, in many cases Americans 

responding, that gives it credibility? And are they knowing or unknowing as to what they’re participating in? 

Dr. Helmus, have you got a strategy on that? 

Dr. HELMUS. Certainly I agree that there’s no borders on social 

media. There’s no borders on media today. So certainly content 

that’s disseminated by one source could easily get picked up by another. It’s our observation from looking at Eastern Europe that 

there’s fundamental issues with journalism training and quality 

that can certainly lead to and exacerbate that type of issue of, you 

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know, bringing viral content that is otherwise false or untrue into 

perceptions of reality. 

Chairman BURR. Ms. DiResta, you said, and correct me if I’m 

wrong, IRA pages stay active today. 

Ms. DIRESTA. Yes, sir, I believe that’s true; and Twitter accounts 

that were associated with IRA botnets also appear to be dormant 

today with the potential to be able to be turned back on at some 

point. 

Chairman BURR. So with all the efforts by the Justice Department at targeting by the public acknowledgement and indictment 

of individuals, the IRA has not gone away? 

Ms. DIRESTA. No, sir. 

Chairman BURR. Their capabilities—and comment on it if you 

will—their capabilities relative to Facebook’s latest disclosure may 

have gotten significantly better. 

Ms. DIRESTA. One thing that’s a very big, significant challenge 

is attribution. So we can attribute this to the IRA, perhaps. I also 

read the same news that you read yesterday and don’t have any 

inside information there. My understanding is they believe it was 

the IRA based on image similarities, tactical similarities. 

What they did change was they paid in, I believe, U.S. dollars 

and Canadian dollars. So they are no longer paying in rubles. They 

are probably no longer using IP addresses that are tied to Russia; 

slight increases in operational security that will make them more 

difficult to detect. 

The other thing that is going to go along with that, though, is 

as attribution is so difficult, particularly for outsiders who don’t 

have access to that kind of account level, what we call metadata, 

is that other people will be able to run the same playbook, perhaps 

making it look like an IRA operation when it was conducted domestically. 

Chairman BURR. Individual or a nation state? 

Ms. DIRESTA. Individual or nation state, yes, sir. 

Chairman BURR. Great, thank you. 

Vice Chairman. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. Thank you all for your testimony. I 

think a couple of things. One, we’re still mostly just talking about 

the IRA activity, as opposed to what we don’t know in terms of 

other Russian services’ activities. And we do know the IRA, with 

the revelations of yesterday, has gotten better. 

And we’re going to still need to figure out their tradecraft. And 

one of the things we need from expertise like you is I feel like even 

when the platform companies are moving in the right direction, 

they’re only doing it looking at their own universe, their own platform, not the interrelationship. 

I think, Mr. Kelly, you said something that was maybe the single 

most stunning line of all the testimony, that in terms of the political content, particularly on the extremes, that 25 to 30 times more 

of that content is being generated by bots and automated accounts 

rather than individuals. Is that correct? 

Dr. KELLY. Yes, Senator, that’s correct. If you look at the American political spectrum and, say, array a set of politically oriented 

Twitter accounts along an axis where on one side you’ve got those 

that only talk to people of their own, you know, stripe, and on the 

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other it’s the other stripe, and most Americans are in between, connected to some on the right and the left, those on the either extreme of that network are shouting with automated amplification. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. So with a lot of that automated. 

Let me state for the record, we had some of this—I’ve had conversations with you in the past. There are very appropriate and effective roles for automated accounts and bots in certain cases. But 

I guess what I would ask—I’ll start with Ms. Rosenberger and Dr. 

Kelly on this: Shouldn’t we as human beings have a right to 

know—maybe not make a judgment, but a right to know whether 

the content that we’re receiving is coming from a human being 

versus an automated account; recognizing that there is good value 

in some of the automated accounts? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Yes, Senator. I believe that context about information is absolutely critical for consumers of that information to 

be able to evaluate it. When we talk about critical thinking in 

media literacy, this takes on wholly new characters when we talk 

about online content. And so having information about the origin 

of information, about whether or not that content is being served 

up through an automated process, why users are seeing that kind 

of information, I absolutely believe that’s critical. 

One thing I do think is important in this conversation is that we 

ensure we protect the anonymity online, which is essential for 

democratic activists in authoritarian states. But I believe very 

deeply that there are ways to identify automation without compromising the ability for users, real users, to be anonymous. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. Dr. Kelly, do you want to? 

Dr. KELLY. Well, we have to recognize that automation is performing a lot more functions online that simply supporting Russian 

propagandists. And the fact that it’s doing so many different 

things, some of which are, you know, call them green things we 

like and some of which are red things we don’t like, makes it extremely hard, without being able to know who’s running that robot, 

to know who’s using it for good or bad. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. Dr. Howard, did you want to weigh in 

on this? 

Dr. HOWARD. No. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. Could we analogize to the markets 

where, with the huge advances around HFT and high frequency 

traders—the markets, in terms of trying to make sure that things 

didn’t get totally away, put certain speeds bumps in place. And if 

the market jolts one way or another, there are these speed bumps 

that then allow in a sense human activity. 

With the, again, 25 to 30 times automation, if there are stories 

that are trending at an enormously rapid rate, that might be 

trending because they’ve got this enormous amount of automation 

driving that story, you know, could there be some kind of time out 

so that you could, a company, or some entity, could evaluate whether this is actual, not actual? Something looks phony here, fishy 

here? Any of you on that comment? 

Ms. DIRESTA. I think that the parallel to HFT is spot on. I think 

that it’s an issue of information integrity. And one of the challenges 

that the platforms have had is believing that they need to address 

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the core of the narrative. And what we should be looking for is addressing the dissemination patterns that you’re mentioning. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. I think that’s really—go ahead, Mr. 

Kelly. 

Dr. KELLY. Well, one thing to keep in mind is that, again, automation is running all kinds of things. So it’s not just pushing Russian propaganda. It’s pushing legitimate American political speech. 

It’s also pushing pop music elements in, you know, marketing 

around music. So automation is doing a lot of things in different 

places. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. And I’ll make the comment that it 

doesn’t come with good or bad attached. But I guess I just think 

as a human being, I ought to have that knowledge of whether that 

message is being promoted to me by a human being or by automation. 

And I know my time’s up. I just want to come back, asking Ms. 

Rosenberger on the next round of, you know, could we deal with 

that protection of anonymity, but still put some geocoding so that 

if somebody says Richard Burr from North Carolina, but it’s actually come from a different location? 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman BURR. Dr. Howard, did you have something you wanted to add to that? 

Dr. HOWARD. I just wanted to add that the other possibility is 

to have these accounts self-identify with B–O–T, bot, in the name. 

That kind of disclosure is what helps users separate the good content from the bad. 

Chairman BURR. Great. 

Senator Risch. 

Senator RISCH. Well, thank all of you for coming here today. 

I think the takeaway from this, after listening to all of this, is 

something that’s troubled me from the beginning and that is how 

difficult this is. We know the problem. We have bad actors putting 

out bad information. The difficulty is how do you segregate those 

people who are doing this from Americans who have the right to 

do this? 

I’ve looked at the stuff that—that, as everybody has, that is part 

of this. But yet, if you took one of those pieces, any one of them 

individually, and looked at it and said, we just discovered who’s 

doing this, it’s John Doe in East Overshoe, New Jersey, there’s 

nothing illegal about it. It may be disgusting. It may be untrue. It 

may be with a bad motive. But there’s nothing—indeed, it’s protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. 

So how do you separate that person from someone who is doing 

the same thing, but coming from Russia, but whose motives are to 

enhance Russia by pulling down America? How do you police that? 

And I think, probably, the question that Senator Warner asked 

about putting a speed bump in so that somebody can evaluate this. 

I mean, that kind of puts—I want to be the evaluator, and I think 

most everybody does, and that’s the problem. 

And then you talked about protecting anonymity. How do you— 

how can you protect anonymity if you’re going to actually do something against someone who is doing something that we don’t want 

done? 

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These are extremely difficult questions. And I appreciate all the 

kind things you’ve said about this is bipartisan, we all need to 

come together, et cetera, et cetera. We all agree with that, but how 

in the world do you do this? I mean, the takeaway here has got to 

be that this is just an enormous, if not an impossible, thing. 

Mr. Helmus, your thoughts? 

Dr. HELMUS. Yes, I absolutely agree. I think that is the fundamental question. 

In our research, we identified upwards of 40,000 accounts centered around Ukraine that are putting out vociferously antiUkraine content. And ultimately, the crux is are these bad actors 

that are doing this? Or is this a free—other actors practicing what 

might otherwise be their free speech? 

So, that’s challenged our bot detectors. So, there are some ways, 

and I’ll defer to others on the Committee who can speak to these, 

but there are bot detectors that are available that can detect some 

types of content that mimic the characteristics of bots. But it is an 

arms race. As developers develop ways to detect bots based on either inhuman levels of content, the timing of their tweets, or what 

have you, the producers of those bots will then identify other ways 

of circumventing that and staying covert. So, it’s an arms race and 

I think it will just require constant research and evaluation to develop and update new techniques. 

Senator RISCH. Ms. DiResta. 

Ms. DIRESTA. What you’re describing is a significant problem for 

researchers as well. And we look at information operations, trying 

to gauge, again, attribution or whether this is organic or not. 

Senator RISCH. But what do you do about it when you do get the 

attribution? 

Ms. DIRESTA. We try to look at the content. Has it appeared elsewhere? Is it affiliated with past IRA operations? Or is it coming 

from somewhere else? So, we look at the origin. 

We look at the voice; the actors that are pushing the content. Are 

they bots? Are they humans? Is there something off about the bio 

related to past tweets? There’s a number of signatures there. And 

then, we look at the dissemination pattern. Does it look like it’s 

been artificially amplified? Is it being run through accounts, or 

groups, or pages that seem a little bit dubious? 

We try to flag things for the social platforms as well. We believe 

firmly in transparent communication, where we’re saying, this is 

what we’re seeing, what are you seeing? They have access to 

metadata and to account information and to e-mail addresses, 

phone numbers, things that people have registered their accounts 

with. That is also a significant part of the investigation of the operation. 

There is no easy answer to this question. This is the primary 

challenge and this is where we see even influence operations going 

towards laundering narratives, either through the unwitting or 

through participants. That’s a hard problem. 

Senator RISCH. The analysis that you’re talking about is you’re 

looking for all of these things. But you’ll find, I assume, some actors that are, what we would consider, bad actors, but yet, some 

actors that we would consider good actors, whether it was a U.S. 

government operation or something. 

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Who makes the determination as to who’s a good actor and a bad 

actor? That’s what I really, really struggle with. 

Ms. DIRESTA. And I think the—— 

Senator RISCH. Dr. Kelly, why don’t you get your two cents worth 

in? 

Dr. KELLY. Thank you, Senator. 

So it’s tractable to tell what’s fake. It’s harder, but doable, to figure out who is behind it. And then you need to understand who’s 

behind it, tracking the landscape of threat actors. That’s where 

somebody is making a determination who’s against our interests 

and who doesn’t matter. Then, once you have that, you know, it’s 

up to government and other appropriate folks to figure out the response. 

I think to do that detection in the first place requires an enormous amount of data and sophisticated methods of analysis. And 

it’s not just data from one platform, so, it can’t happen only internally. It has to happen with data from multiple sources, which then 

gets to your, I think, extremely important questions about who 

makes these determinations and who has the right to see that private data. 

I think we have to look at a model that’s like cyber-security 

firms. So there are trusted industry partners that everybody trusts, 

that they know are going to be secure in the way they handle that 

data. We need some sort of a facility like that where these advanced—— 

Senator RISCH. Of course, this is different than cyber-security, in 

that with cyber-security you don’t want anybody entering a private 

space, whereas with this you want everybody entering. That to me 

differentiates the two. 

My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Chairman BURR. Senator Feinstein. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank Facebook for their move yesterday to delete 32 

pages and 290,000 accounts on the basis that Russia and other outside actors are continuing to weaponize social media platforms. I’m 

very pleased that Facebook took this action, and I hope that all social media platforms continue to actively counter Russia’s foreign 

influence campaign. I have no question that it’s going on, and I 

have no question that it is related to more than just election interference. 

Let me ask this question: Since the 2016 election ended, how 

many IRA accounts have any of you found that are still active? 

Dr. Kelly. 

Dr. KELLY. We’ve been doing some work on this. We went and 

looked—I mean, that list of accounts is extremely valuable. We 

looked for live accounts on other platforms using open source research tools and we found a great deal of accounts directly connected to the closed accounts, which were active across numerous 

platforms. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Can you put a number on it? 

Dr. KELLY. Of the sample we’ve looked at so far, it’s roughly 28 

percent of those accounts are connected to at least one live account 

on a different platform. We also know that those accounts were 

connected to numerous other Twitter accounts and where—we 

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think of this as what we have here is the tentacle of an octopus, 

and we don’t know how far out on the arm of that octopus that tentacle has gotten. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. How about Russia’s accounts? 

Dr. KELLY. The Russian accounts evident in this data? 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Right. 

Dr. KELLY. Well, presumably these are IRA accounts too and presumably they have their own—you know, they’ve got a tentacle 

wagging in Russia as well and I don’t know how much of their effort this represents. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Does anybody else on the panel have a comment on this subject matter? 

Yes. Please, doctor? 

Dr. HOWARD. Thank you, Senator. My comment would be that 

it’s the social media firms who have that information. We do our 

best juggling probabilities and percentages to make best guesses 

about what kinds of account. Some of these accounts occasionally 

slip into Cyrillic and then slip back. There are some giveaways. 

But it’s actually the social media firms that have the best data on 

this. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Well, let me ask you this question. Facebook 

has alleged that IRA activity on its platform alone reached 126 million people and that doesn’t include Instagram or Twitter. What 

can you say about the extent to which the IRA activity reached real 

Americans? 

Dr. HOWARD. I can say that it was significant, yet also concentrated in swing states. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. I’m sorry? Concentrated in? 

Dr. HOWARD. Swing states—— 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Swing states. 

Dr. HOWARD [continuing]. During the 2016 election. So particular 

states got more of this kind of content than other states. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. And what was the time that you looked at 

that to draw that conclusion? 

Dr. HOWARD. It was from the beginning of the presidential debates until through to a few days after Election Day. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Have you looked at it now? 

Dr. HOWARD. Not in the last few months, no. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Can you estimate the number of Americans 

touched by Russian-linked activity in this area? 

Dr. HOWARD. No. That is very difficult to do. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Can anybody? 

Yes, please go ahead. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. No, I just wanted actually to add a small 

data point to this, which is we spend a lot of time talking about 

Facebook and Twitter but as Renee highlighted and others have 

noted, this is a problem of the entire information ecosystem. This 

is cross-platform. Reddit confirmed hundreds of IRA-created accounts. Tumblr did it and in particular on Tumblr, that platform 

was used to target the African-American community particularly. 

So, I think this is why it’s so really difficult to quantify in any 

meaningful way the reach of these activities, because this is across 

the entire ecosystem, not to mention, as others were highlighting, 

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how this information gets picked up and then transmitted and amplified through mainstream media outlets. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Let me ask you, when information becomes 

a weapon, does anybody see any need to change the environment 

to prevent this from happening? 

Ms. DIRESTA. I believe that many of us were advocating doing 

that when it became clear that ISIS had turned the information 

ecosystem into a weapon. I believe that, unfortunately, the dialogue 

between the government, the platforms and researchers was not 

necessarily where it needed to be. There were a handful of 

convenings that tried. There was the Global Engagement Center 

that was established, that’s now tied up in some funding morass 

and we’re not really clear what the status of that is. 

The tech platforms, about two years after the extent of the ISIS 

operation became known, established the Global Internet Forum to 

Counter Terrorism. To the best of my knowledge, that’s not staffed 

so much as it is a repository of hashed content so that platforms 

can participate in takedowns. 

To answer your earlier question with one other point, we did see 

in the public House data set, when the House released the ads, 

that the ads were both demographically and geographically targeted. The number of people who saw that content, only the platforms have access to that information, but we could also gauge the 

number of followers that did follow the Russia pages. And that was 

in the neighborhood of a couple hundred thousand on the largest 

pages. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Thanks. My time is up. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Chairman BURR. Thank you. 

Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Kelly, you have a very profound statement in your testimony. 

You said: Russian efforts are not directed against one election, one 

party, or even one country. What are Russia’s ultimate goals? Is it 

to undermine the public’s faith in Western democracies and so 

weaken the bonds that unite us, that there are opportunities for 

Russia? 

Dr. KELLY. Yes, Senator, I believe that’s exactly correct. I think 

they have long-term strategic goals, which include weakening 

Western institutions and faith in democracy and traditional sources 

of information and authority. That’s the strategic goal. And then 

they have a lot of near, short-term tactical goals, things like injecting hacked information to sway a particular event or election, and 

they’re doing that activity all around their periphery and now here. 

Senator COLLINS. Ms. DiResta, this is a question for both you 

and Dr. Kelly. Both of you emphasized that Russian manipulation 

did not stop in 2016. In fact, you, Dr. Kelly, said that Russia 

stepped on the gas and increased its activity. And Ms. DiResta, you 

said that Russian efforts increased postelection to promote racial 

tensions in our country. 

We imposed sanctions on Russia. They seem to have done no 

good when it comes to this kind of activity. What can we do beyond 

educating the public to counter Russia more effectively? 

Ms. DiResta, I’ll start with you. 

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Ms. DIRESTA. I would say that one of the things that we need 

to do is to evaluate our information operations doctrine, JP 313. I 

believe Senator Warner alluded to this in his recent policy proposals. I think that addressing the scale and sophistication of information operations is something that as a government we’ve not 

really looked at that in quite some time and perhaps that would 

be a good place for us to start. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Dr. Kelly. 

Dr. KELLY. I think there’s a technical component, which is to be 

able to effectively detect and attribute this activity so you can authoritatively prove it’s happening, and then you have a more traditional toolkit of foreign policy measures to take action. 

Senator COLLINS. Dr. Howard, I want to get to something you 

said, and that was you gave us several compelling examples from 

your Hungarian experience where they received clearly false stories 

that were intended to explain the downing of the Malaysian airline. 

And what’s interesting to me is, based on Dr. Kelly’s testimony, it 

isn’t just the Hungarian press that is being manipulated or infiltrated or controlled, but we’ve seen evidence where America’s 

media is also being targeted. 

Dr. Kelly pointed out that the Russian persona of Jenna Abrams, 

who had accounts on multiple platforms, was cited by more than 

40 U.S. journalists before being unmasked. How can the media be 

more sensitive or more aware, more on guard to being manipulated 

in this way? 

Dr. HOWARD. Thank you, Senator. The United States actually 

has the most professionalized media in the world. It’s learned certainly to evaluate their sources and no longer report tweets as 

given. So I would say that in this country, the most professional 

news outlets are already on the defense. They already have ways 

to ensure that the quality of the news product isn’t shaped by these 

constant disinformation campaigns. 

I would say that the greater concern would be amongst the 

media institutions in our democratic allies. I believe that the Russians have moved from targeting us in particular to Brazil and 

India, other enormous democracies that will be running elections in 

the next few years. And while we still see significant Russian activity, those countries have the media institutions that need to learn, 

need to develop. 

Senator COLLINS. Ms. Rosenberger. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Thank you, Senator. I would just add that 

this is not a problem that we’ve overcome. We have one example, 

for instance, of an IRA-created Twitter account, the hash—sorry, 

the handle was ‘‘wokeluisa,’’ that was tweeting in particular to African-Americans, focused on the NFL take-a-knee debate. There 

were IRA-created accounts tweeting on both sides of that debate. 

But that Twitter account in particular, which was active through 

earlier this year, appeared in more than two dozen news stories 

from outlets such as BBC, USA Today, Time, Wire, The Huffington 

Post, and BET. 

So, this was about four months ago. So, we really do need to 

make sure that this information is not getting laundered into the 

broader ecosystem, which is part of the strategy here. 

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Senator COLLINS. And the issue there is when we read it in a 

credible source, we’re likely to believe it. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. That’s exactly right. It gives it that much 

more credibility. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman BURR. Senator Wyden. 

Senator WYDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank all of you. 

It seems to me for now and the foreseeable future, protecting 

America’s private data is going to be a national security issue. 

Cambridge Analytica, like the Russians, exploited Facebook’s lax 

protections to abuse Americans’ information. I believe a significant 

part of the failure is the fact that the Federal Trade Commission 

doesn’t have the authority or the resources to be a tougher cop on 

the beat. And I’m going to be rolling out a plan to fix that in the 

weeks ahead. 

Now let me go to questions. Ms. DiResta, your testimony referenced the Russian Facebook pages in 2016, targeting both the 

right and the left. But you noted it was the pages targeting the left 

that included not only content intended to appeal to its audience, 

but also content intended to suppress the vote and be critical of 

Secretary Clinton. 

In your view, does the apparent Russian content released yesterday by Facebook resemble the content the Russians used last time 

to attract an audience on the left and among racial minorities, 

which the Russians then used to suppress their vote? 

Ms. DIRESTA. Yes, sir, it does. There’s a strong component of cultural posts that appear in communities and pages targeting minority voters: a lot of pride, pride-related content, less news, more 

memes and that reflects what we saw yesterday. 

Senator WYDEN. I appreciate that, because content targeting I 

think is clearly going to be a big part of the challenge. The public 

has got to be aware of it, because not all Russian propaganda is 

going to get caught. And Americans are inevitably going to read 

some of it, particularly if it’s consistent with what they already believe. 

So I gather what you’re saying, Ms. DiResta, is the public has 

got to be alert to a repeat of the 2016 Russian playbook, which was 

to attract an audience on the left, discourage them from voting. 

And that could mean attacking Democratic candidates, pushing the 

line, in effect so that the Russians are trying to make it possible 

that our votes don’t matter. Is that essentially your concern? 

Ms. DIRESTA. Yes, sir. There’s a lot of efforts to push intraparty 

divisions on the left. 

Senator WYDEN. Good. 

Let me ask you now, if I could, maybe for you, Ms. DiResta, Ms. 

Rosenberger, Dr. Kelly, about this concept known as down ranking. 

My interest here is that for the social media companies there’s just 

a mismatch of incentives. The social media companies, they want 

users and clicks and impressions, and inflammatory and often false 

content creates that. So even when the companies can’t or haven’t 

decided to identify a certain account as either foreign or nefarious, 

they can still downgrade the posts to limit their exposure. This is 

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an equal or worse problem with conspiracies and junk news as it 

is with foreign influence. 

So my question here would be for the three of you: Do you think 

these down-ranking programs are effective? Are they the kind of 

thing that ought to be considered part of the kind of toolbox as we 

look to deal with this problem, Ms. DiResta and the rest of you? 

Ms. DIRESTA. Sure. So I think that there’s sort of three facets to 

the toolbox. There is remove, reduce, or inform. Inform means to 

add additional context to a post. This is Facebook’s framework 

right now. 

Reduce would be to do something like down-rank it, per the question earlier about is it possible to inject just a little bit of friction? 

This is where down-ranking could potentially be used as a tool, as 

attribution and authenticity and integrity are established, to reduce the reach of content. 

And then remove is, of course, the more—the most extreme. 

Senator WYDEN. Would any of you like to add anything? Yes? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. I’d just like to note that we talk about downranking, but we forget that up-ranking is also part of the process. 

These platforms are not—— 

Senator WYDEN. You’re being way too logical. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. These platforms are not neutral pipes. 

Senator WYDEN. Right. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Information is not being served up without 

some kind of algorithm deciding, for most of the platforms, without 

an algorithm basically deciding what is served up at the top. So 

when we talk about down-ranking, we have to start from the 

premise that up-ranking is baked into the cake. And so then the 

question becomes: are these platforms actually somehow 

prioritizing bad, malicious information, right? That, as we know 

and as others mentioned in their testimony, gaming these algorithms, whether that’s on trying to get certain content to trend or, 

frankly, getting certain content to rise to the top of Google 

searches, something that we know that Sputnik and RT—— 

Senator WYDEN. I’m over my time. I just want to be clear, as the 

author of Section 230, the days when these pipes are considered 

neutral are over. Because the whole point of 230 was to have a 

shield and a sword. And the sword hadn’t been used and these 

pipes are not neutral. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BURR. Senator Blunt. 

Senator BLUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So much of the activity we’re looking at on the charts and today 

is largely of the IRA. What percentage of Russian-linked activity 

would you anticipate that the IRA represents? Is this half of everything they try to do, 90 percent, 10 percent? Who would have a 

sense of what we’re not looking at when we’re looking at the IRA 

activity? 

Dr. KELLY. We’ve looked at a number of different known 

disinformation campaigns and we think these are—the IRA folks 

are involved in a minority of them. 

Senator BLUNT. In a minority of them. Do you think that would 

be the case here as well? 

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Dr. KELLY. I do. The only thing—the thing we don’t know, 

though, is how much of the IRA this is. 

Senator BLUNT. Ms. Rosenberger, do you want to comment on 

that? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. I would just only add that we know from Special Council Mueller’s indictment actually of the GRU, there is one 

section of that that notes that GRU operatives utilize social media 

accounts and fake Web sites that they created in order to spread 

hacked information and other kinds of weaponized information. 

So we certainly know that there are other actors. GRU is probably better at hiding their tracks than the IRA is, and so I think 

that just speaks to again how this is probably just one tip of the 

iceberg of what we’re looking at. 

Senator BLUNT. So, the early discussion clearly has moved from 

what the Russians were paying for, which appears to be a very 

small fraction of the impact they were having. Does anybody disagree with that? That is clearly—and this IRA activity may—is 

some fraction of the Russian activity in 2016, 2017 and into 2018. 

That would be—so I think the indictment, the Mueller indictment, 

said that there were probably at least 80 IRA employees involved 

and millions of dollars involved in that effort. 

I don’t know what—is that 5 millions of dollars or hundreds, 

hundred million dollars? What kind of—what amount of money do 

you think the Russians invested in this effort that was covered by 

the Mueller indictment? He uses the term ‘‘millions of dollars.’’ 

That could mean a lot of different things. Any idea of the activity 

you’ve looked at, what kind of investment of money and how many 

people that may have been involved in this? 

Dr. HOWARD. We’ve done that audit globally. We believe that half 

a billion dollars have been spent by the 40 governments that we’ve 

studied since 2010. In the Russian case, we think it’s around $200 

million U.S. over this extended period for the full set of organizations behind the various campaigns. 

Senator BLUNT. Dr. Howard, on that topic, in the other countries 

you’ve looked at, who should we be looking at after Russia that are 

likely impacting our daily conversation in the country, in some 

ranked order? Who would be the top three or four countries that 

you would believe would be most actively out there doing what 

Russia is also doing? 

Dr. HOWARD. Well, in our research we look at Turkey, China, 

Hungary and Iran. 

Senator BLUNT. Dr. Kelly, have a thought on that? 

Dr. KELLY. We believe there’s a growing black market for people 

skilled in the—who have these dark arts, and they’re employing 

them in their own countries and they’re also starting to get hired 

to work in other countries. So, this is a critical challenge, because 

the Russians may have been the first to effectively do this, but 

they’re not the only players; and you’ll have a black market of players who are mobile and can be hired by any actor. 

Senator BLUNT. Well, just to be sure I understand, doctor, the 40 

countries, are these 40 countries you’ve looked at for outside activity or 40 countries that are participating in this kind of activity? 

Dr. HOWARD. These are 40 countries that have organized 

disinformation campaigns in the sense of stable personnel with 

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telephones and family benefits. These are formal organizations that 

do this work. 

Senator BLUNT. And how many countries do you think they, 

those 40 countries, would be trying to influence activity in? 

Dr. HOWARD. Seven countries. 

Senator BLUNT. Seven countries? 

Dr. HOWARD. There’s seven authoritarian regimes that have 

dedicated budgets for disinformation campaigns targeting voters in 

other countries. 

Senator BLUNT. And how many other countries, again? 

Dr. HOWARD. Our audit of government expenditures covers 40 in 

total. It’s usually the United States, Canada, Australia, the U.K. 

that are the—Germany—that are the targets. 

Senator BLUNT. That are the targets. 

On Dr. Kelly’s comment about determining the attribution, you 

know, we have—in our country, we are focused on defense. No administration has yet figured out what our offense should be, and 

I think one of those reasons is we have not figured out with certainty how we would determine where a cyber attack came from as 

opposed to even cyber misinformation, which is a different kind of 

cyber attack, but vulnerable infrastructure. What we’re seeing here 

is a vulnerable social media infrastructure that may be every bit 

as critical infrastructure as any of the other infrastructure we’re 

trying to protect. 

Ms. Rosenberger, I’m going to let you have the last answer to my 

questions. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Senator, I would just note on that, that Russia is playing to its asymmetric advantage. This is a low cost, high 

reward kind of tactic. We need to also evaluate: what are our own 

asymmetric advantages and sometimes that’s not responding symmetrically or in the same domain. 

So, for instance when it comes to Russia, I think this is why imposing costs in the financial space in particular—we know that 

Putin cares most about his power and his power rests on his 

money. And I think that looking at ways that we can dry up the 

sources of funding both for these activities as well as for the regimes that are using them is incredibly important. When it comes 

to China, things like reputational costs are very important. 

So I think, this is why it’s important that we put this conversation on the national security front in a broader strategic frame to 

identify our own asymmetric advantages so we can go on offense. 

Senator BLUNT. Thank you, Chairman. 

Chairman BURR. Senator Heinrich. 

Senator HEINRICH. Ms. Rosenberger, I believe it was you who 

said, and I may be paraphrasing here, but we’ve moved from a failure of imagination, to a failure to act. Do you find it troubling that, 

despite the current risk, despite the quickly approaching 2018 midterms, that concrete responses like the Secure Elections Act, like 

the Honest Ads Act, have not been scheduled for a vote in the 

United States Senate? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Yes, Senator. I do believe that, while this is 

a complex problem, there are some clear steps that we can take in 

particular on the defensive side, as well as on the deterrent side, 

that we need to be taking urgently. 

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Senator HEINRICH. I share that concern, because I think some of 

these things are sitting right in front of us and we just need to 

make it a priority. 

For Ms. DiResta and Dr. Kelly: The Committee’s analysis shows 

that the Internet Research Agency’s campaign focused heavily on 

socially divisive issues, but fanning racial division in particular 

was the single most targeted category of effort. Are Russian information warfare operations using unresolved racial tensions here as 

a weapon to weaken the United States? 

Ms. DIRESTA. Yes, I believe they are. 

Dr. KELLY. Absolutely. 

Senator HEINRICH. Do you see that ongoing exploitation of racial 

tensions as a direct threat to our national security and, for that 

matter, our cohesiveness as a country? 

Dr. KELLY. You could think of this as a social cohesion attack to 

try and drive wedges into the American public where maybe a little 

wedge or a piece of history in our past is being exploited to make 

21st century America look more like 1950s America than it ought 

to. 

Ms. DIRESTA. I would agree. 

Senator HEINRICH. So, we now know much more about the Russians’ 2016 campaign than we did before we started this investigation, and we know it was far broader than we originally thought. 

We know that it’s highly active today, as many of you have testified to, and we know that no single entity by itself—not the government, the social media companies, not civil society—can effectively 

stop foreign influence operations on social media. 

But, Ms. Rosenberger, in your view have we as a Nation extracted the sort of price or penalty for this behavior that would 

defer—deter Vladimir Putin from acting in this way? Or has the 

Russian Federation simply gotten a pass so far in terms of the 

price that we have chosen and that this Administration has chosen 

to extract? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. So, I think it’s evident by the fact that this 

kind of activity continues, that we have not yet effectively deterred 

it. One thing I would note is that in classic deterrence theory, deterrence relies on two prongs: one is credibility and one is capability. 

And I think it’s incredibly important, number one, that on the 

credibility front we have very clear, consistent messages from 

across the government, starting with our leadership and all the 

way down, that they’re—— 

Senator HEINRICH. Including the White House? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Including the White House—that this behavior will not be tolerated and that there will be consequences for it 

going forward, and articulating what those consequences will be. 

And I think that there is a role for Congress to play here in terms 

of teeing up triggers that would be automatic, and I know there is 

consideration of such measures and I welcome that. But I think 

that it also has to start—the credibility piece has to be very, very 

clear. 

Vladimir Putin cannot see from one place that there is a potential for consequences, but then over here be getting a very different 

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mixed message. We have to have consistency; that has to be credibility coupled with the capability to act. 

Senator HEINRICH. I could not agree more. 

You mentioned financial cost as one of our asymmetric advantages. What would you foresee as a potential cost that we might 

extract for this kind of ongoing misbehavior? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. I think there’s two different ways of looking 

at it. One is, of course, very targeted sanctions and other kinds of 

designations; the other is thinking more broadly about how our financial system, the Western financial system, frankly, is used for 

Putin and his cronies to hide the money that they have stolen, by 

the way, from the Russian people. 

And just as we have vulnerabilities in our information domain, 

we have vulnerabilities in our financial system. I think steps like 

providing transparency around beneficial ownership, extending and 

legislating the geographic targeting orders that the Treasury Department has been using—there’s a whole suite of steps that we 

outline in our report that I mentioned earlier, that I think—— 

Senator HEINRICH. I will read those in the report. I want to hit 

one last thing and then my time is up. 

You all mentioned the broader ecosystem. Can you just confirm 

so that people understand, this isn’t just a couple of platforms? 

This is music apps, this is video games, this is meme sharing. It’s 

much broader than Twitter and Google. 

Dr. KELLY. I would expect that they have people whose job it is 

to figure out how to exploit every small new platform that comes 

along. 

Senator HEINRICH. Thank you all. 

Chairman BURR. Senator King. 

Senator KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank— 

thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this, what I think is a very 

important hearing. 

And thank you all for all the information that you’ve shared. I’ve 

been listening and came up with a couple of conclusions. Tell me 

if I’m right. One is: there is a massive, sophisticated, persistent 

campaign on multiple fronts to misinform, divide and ultimately 

manipulate the American people. Is that accurate? 

Dr. KELLY. Yes. 

Senator KING. I wanted to hear ‘‘yes’’ because nods don’t go in 

the record. 

[Laughter.] 

Dr. HOWARD. Yes. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Yes. 

Senator KING. Let the record show everybody nodded. 

Dr. HOWARD. Yes, Senator. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Yes. 

Senator KING. I think that’s incredibly important because in all 

of this whole Russia active measures thing, a lot of the space and 

energy has been going into campaigns and elections and collusion 

and those kinds of questions. This is an enormous part of what’s 

going on, and it worries me that we’ve sort of lost sight of this. 

The second thing I’ve learned from you is, number one, it’s still 

happening; is that correct? 

Dr. KELLY. Yes. 

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Ms. DIRESTA. Yes. 

Senator KING. Absolutely, still happening? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Yes. 

Senator KING. It’s way beyond elections. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Yes. 

Dr. HOWARD. Yes. 

Senator KING. Secondly, it’s more sophisticated than it was in 

2016. They’re learning to hide their tracks, not paid in rubles. I 

would have thought they would have figured that out before. But 

more sophisticated. 

And then finally, it seems to me what you’ve been suggesting is 

we’re asymmetrically vulnerable because of the First Amendment 

and democracy. We believe—our whole system is based on information. And we have this principle of opening access to information. 

Thomas Jefferson said, ‘‘We can tolerate error as long as truth is 

free to combat it.’’ Thomas Jefferson never met Facebook, I might 

add. 

But would you agree that we are particularly vulnerable because 

of the nature of our society? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Yes. 

Senator KING. Now, this one is for the record because I think it’s 

a long answer. It seems to me there are three ways to combat this. 

And the first—and this is what I would hope you would supply for 

the record—technical solutions. Things that have been mentioned 

today that we could do, and that Facebook could do, or Google, or 

Reddit, or Twitter, whoever. Technical solutions: identifying bots, 

for example, those kind of things. 

Please give us some specificity and things that you think we 

might be able to do without violating the First Amendment. I shudder when I hear the words ‘‘regulate the internet.’’ I don’t want to 

do that, but there may be things that we can do that could be helpful. 

The second thing, it seems to me—and, Doctor Helmus, you mentioned this in your testimony—we need to do a better job of media 

literacy. I had a meeting just before, in the fall of 2016, with a 

group of people from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. And I said, 

‘‘What do you do about this problem with the Russians’ propaganda? And you can’t unplug the internet, you can’t unplug your 

TV.’’ 

They had a very interesting answer. They said: ‘‘The way it 

works over here is, everybody knows it’s happening and therefore 

when something like this comes online, people say, ‘oh, it’s just the 

Russians again.’ ’’ We haven’t gotten to that point. 

Doctor Helmus, is that what you mean by ‘‘improve media literacy’’? 

Dr. HELMUS. Yes, precisely. To be able to recognize these instances when they appear, and to be able to process those in a way 

that can minimize the impact. 

Senator KING. But that goes—it’s deeper than just having a 

hearing. This has got to be—you know, our kids are growing up 

with these devices, but not necessarily being taught how they can 

be manipulated by their devices. I think there ought to be standardized courses in high school called ‘‘digital literacy,’’ and increasing the public’s awareness that they are being conned, or that at 

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least they’re potentially being conned, and how to ask those kinds 

of questions. 

Ms. Rosenberger. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Senator, I think that that’s right; it has to include online literacy as well as just your standard media literacy. 

But it also can’t just be in the schools. One of the things we know 

from research is that, in fact, it may be that older populations who 

are not growing up with technology may, in some cases, be more 

vulnerable to manipulation by this kind of activity. 

Senator KING. I would argue that’s because they grew up with 

newspapers and they have this unspoken assumption about editors 

and fact checkers. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. I think that’s probably right, sir. 

Senator KING. And if you do your website in Times New Roman, 

people will give it some credibility. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Especially if it’s your friend sharing it, or 

somebody you believe to be your friend, someone—— 

Senator KING. And your friend may be sharing something which 

they got from somebody that they didn’t know where it came from. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Absolutely, absolutely. 

Senator KING. A final point, and I think you’ve touched on this, 

is deterrence. Ultimately, we cannot rely exclusively on defense. 

The problem thus far, it seems to me, is that the Russians in this 

case and others see us as a cheap date. We are an easy target with 

no results. Nothing happens. 

And I would—that would be something I hope you all again could 

take for the record because of a lack of time, to give us some 

thoughts about deterrence. And I think it’s important. It doesn’t 

have to be cyber. It could be deterrence in a number of areas, including sanctions, as we’ve discussed. 

But it has to be—there has to be some price to be paid. Otherwise, as we now know, it’s going to continue. 

So give me some thoughts on deterrence for the record. I appreciate it. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BURR. Thank you, Senator King. 

Senator Manchin. 

Senator MANCHIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank all of you for coming today to help us. This is 

a critical topic, which I hope all Americans are watching. 

We, as an open voting society need to be informed. A properly informed voter population is the key to a sound democracy. Unfortunately, Russia is trying to undermine that foundation. 

A quick look back through American history shows that our allies and adversaries have changed over time. The Soviet Union, 

specifically Lenin and Stalin, openly criticized the capitalist West 

before World War II. During our mutual fight against Nazi Germany, President Roosevelt called Stalin ‘‘Uncle Joe’’ and the U.S. 

and USSR fought a mutual enemy. After the end of the war, we 

found ourselves in an adversarial relationship, known as the Cold 

War that lasted decades. 

We saw a brief thaw in relations during the 1990s. But now Russia, specifically Vladimir Putin, and the U.S. seem to be adversaries again. 

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I would ask, I think Mr. Howard, in your written testimony you 

describe Russian computational propaganda aimed at everything 

that we’ve heard today, pulverizing voters, discrediting certain political candidates, discouraging citizens to vote. 

So I would ask, which country—we know Russia—poses the 

greatest threat to our democracy using social media platforms? And 

which countries are making strides to do the same? 

Dr. HOWARD. Thank you, Senator. I agree that Russia has been 

the most innovative in developing these kinds of techniques. Unfortunately, I think it’s safe to say that dictators learn from each 

other. So as they see successful campaigns run in particular countries, they emulate. They sink their own resources into developing 

similar capacity. Some of these countries have re-tasked small military units to do entirely social media campaigning. 

So as I mentioned earlier, there are now seven different countries that are—who are, most would agree—— 

Senator MANCHIN. Actively involved? 

Dr. HOWARD [continuing]. Authoritarian regimes that are actively developing these kinds of—— 

Senator MANCHIN. Which ones do you think—which one has the 

greatest potential to do harm? Russia is unquestionably the absolute greatest violator. 

Dr. HOWARD. I believe China has the next best capacity in 

this—— 

Senator MANCHIN. If they want to turn loose on us? 

Dr. HOWARD. If they want to. 

Senator MANCHIN. And you haven’t seen that yet? 

Dr. HOWARD. Not directly in the U.S. sphere. 

Senator MANCHIN. I would ask this to any of you all. Is there any 

country that has been successful at deterring Russia or any other 

attackers from other countries? 

Dr. KELLY. Not that I’m aware of. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. It’s hard to know the counterfactual of what 

would have happened in different cases in some of these instances. 

There is some evidence that in the German and French elections, 

that deterrent messaging from the top, from the leadership there 

about the consequences for this kind of activity, may have reduced 

in some ways the kind of activity. 

Senator MANCHIN. How about Macron’s election in France? We 

saw that he fought back. As soon as they saw the attacks being 

made by Russia, they were actively involved. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. There are some interesting lessons that we 

may be able to learn from—— 

Senator MANCHIN. Dr. Kelly. I’m so sorry—— 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. No, please, absolutely. 

Senator MANCHIN. Our time is very limited. 

Dr. KELLY. No, I answered too quickly before. I think the Macron 

case is a perfect example of how being aware of it, that kind of situation awareness, as well as quick and decisive action to counter 

it in terms of public—you know, speech by the leadership—had an 

effect. 

Senator MANCHIN. And let me just ask—I’ve got one final question here. I have a little bit of time here, but I wanted to see your 

all’s opinion. In West Virginia, you know, people are having a hard 

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time deciding where to get the facts. And fake news seems to be 

the real news, depending on where they get it from, social media 

and sometimes on networks, if you will. 

Can I ask each one of you all, where do you receive your news 

that you believe is factual? Where do you go to? Where could I help 

a West Virginian find some real news and not have to rely on trying to decipher themselves was it fake or not? Is it made up, real 

or not? 

And I’ll start Dr. Howard and go right down. 

Dr. HOWARD. I go to PBS, BBC, and the Canadian Broadcasting 

Company. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. I’m old-fashioned and I tend to still like 

newspapers as my sort of major sources. I like having publishers 

involved and editors who are able to fact-check content. 

Dr. KELLY. I’m a New Yorker, and I’ll go with the Old Gray 

Lady. 

Ms. DIRESTA. New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street 

Journal. 

Dr. HELMUS. Major newspapers. 

Senator MANCHIN. Not one of you mentioned social media. Not 

one of you all mentioned what we’re here talking about as where 

you get you news or where you trust your news to come from. I 

think that speaks volumes of what we’re dealing with today. 

I have no further questions after that. Thank you very much. 

Chairman BURR. Thank you, Senator Manchin. 

And I just might add to his comment about what happened in 

France. France also did some things that constitutionally we can’t 

do. So let’s recognize the fact that they had a very loud message 

and they had a very big stick that they used. And we might not 

get the same results, though that doesn’t change for the loud voice. 

Senator Rubio. 

Senator RUBIO. Thank you. 

No one mentioned TMZ. There is some good stuff on TMZ. 

[Laughter.] 

And I’m on as often as I can get on there. 

Anyway, so I want to talk about the terminology that we use because I think it’s one of the things that’s really impeding the way 

forward, and get your insight on all of this. The first is, I’ve had 

people come up to me and say: Well, everybody spies on everyone. 

But this is not really about espionage, certainly not in the traditional sense. This is not—I mean there may be elements that involve espionage, you know hacking a computer, getting into a system network and stealing e-mails and the like. But this is not really an espionage situation. 

The other term that’s always thrown around is collusion. And 

there’s ongoing efforts to answer all those questions. But this sort 

of thing doesn’t really involve, or doesn’t really require collusion. 

You don’t need the cooperation of a political candidate or party to 

be able to do any of this. 

In fact, many of the ads that were pulled down yesterday have 

nothing to do with a candidate or a party in the short term. And 

it isn’t even quite clear what the psychology behind it is, other 

than to get us to fight against each other. 

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So if you can just put—if people would just put aside the whole 

espionage focus and put aside, you know, the collusion focus, and 

let that be dealt with the way it’s being dealt with, we’d get left 

with the term ‘‘interference.’’ And that’s become such a generic 

term that it’s almost become benign. You know, ‘‘interference’’ 

sounds like everything from the leadership of another country had 

a preference about who won the election, to actually like actively 

engaged in helping somebody get elected. And I would hope—and, 

maybe you disagree—I hope you agree, this is more than that. 

This is really, no, nothing less than informational warfare. This 

is just another type of warfare to weaken an adversary. And that’s 

how Vladimir Putin views the United States of America. So, for example, if he conducted a kinetic strike, a military strike to take out 

anti-air defenses, he would do so to weaken our air defenses. And 

if they conducted a cyber attack to knock out our command and 

control, he’s there to weaken our communication systems or our 

electrical grid. 

And if you do this, you do it in order to weaken our society, our 

willingness and capacity to fight, to work together, to come together as a Nation. This is part of their broader doctrine on how 

to confront an adversary. 

And on the escalation scale, it costs very little money, you can 

do it with limited attribution, and it works because the fact of the 

matter is, with all of the things happening in the world today, the 

United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has spent 

an inordinate amount of time on this important topic and there are 

so many other issues we could be focused on. So, it’s worked to 

some extent. 

Is this assessment of it right? Isn’t this—this is not interference. 

This is information warfare designed to sow division and conflict 

and doubts about—because whether it involves changing voter registration databases in the future at some point, potentially, or the 

stuff we’re seeing now, all of that is designed to sow chaos, instability, and, basically, to get us to fight against each other. 

We’re already fighting against each other in this country. All this 

does is just, sort of, stir that up even more. Is that an accurate assessment? Is this informational warfare? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Yes. 

Dr. KELLY. I agree 100 percent. 

Ms. DIRESTA. Yes. 

Dr. HOWARD. Yes. 

Senator RUBIO. So to the extent that it is—and I think 

everybody’s already asked you this question—but wouldn’t one of 

the best things that could happen is that—we can focus all day on 

Facebook and Twitter, and Instagram. These are ultimately platforms who are being used for informational warfare. I don’t believe 

they invited them in and there are things they can do to improve 

their processes, and I wish their disclosures were a little faster, but 

by and large, they’re a platform that’s being used. It would be like 

blaming the road builders because some enemy used that road that 

they built to put their tanks into your country. 

So there are things these folks can be doing to improve the way 

they operate, no doubt about it. But ultimately, we really should 

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be focused on what’s being done and not only who they’re using to 

do it. 

And so my question is, why wouldn’t these social media pages be 

in a position to potentially alert all of their users? Not just a public 

disclosure like they did yesterday in their press conference but actively send out to all of its user’s alerts about every time they remove something, so that people can become conditioned to the sort 

of messages that are being driven by these informational warfare 

operations? 

Ms. DIRESTA. I believe they can. I believe Senator Blumenthal 

requested that they do so in response to the—back in September 

after the first set of hearings. They did push notifications to people 

saying that they had seen content, they had liked a page, they had 

engaged. I believe Twitter sent out e-mails to users who were affected. 

That kind of disclosure is absolutely necessary, because one thing 

that it does is it comes from a platform that is at least seen as 

somewhat trustworthy, whereas if they hear it from the media you 

see these polarized echo chambers where some people don’t even 

believe this is happening. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Senator, I would just add that one of the 

things we know from looking at both the history of active measures 

as well as their use across Eastern Europe and Central Europe is 

that sunlight is one of the most effective antidotes. Transparency, 

exposure of this activity, is critical for both building resiliency and 

deterring it going forward. And so, I absolutely concur that the 

more information and the more transparency that the platforms 

can be providing to their consumers, to the users of information 

about these activities is absolutely critical. 

Senator RUBIO. I don’t have a question, Mr. Chairman. I just 

want to say that it’s great that Facebook put this stuff out there 

and that we’re having this hearing. I promise you, the vast majority of people that I know back home will never see a single one of 

these images because there’s a lot going on in the news every day, 

constantly, by the hour. 

Chairman BURR. Senator Harris. 

Senator HARRIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I’d like to put what I believe is a context in which 

we should be thinking about what happened in 2016. First, I think 

we’re all clear that Russia attacked our country during the 2016 

election and that they are continuing to attack us today. Russia not 

only attacked one of our most sacred democratic values, which is 

a free and fair election, but also I believe our very American identity. 

I often say that we, as Americans, no matter our race, religion, 

or region, have so much more in common than what separates us. 

And among what we have in common is a love of country and a 

belief that we as Americans should solely be responsible for the 

choosing of our elected leaders and the fate of our democracy and 

who will be the President of the United States. 

And I think of us then as being a large and diverse family, the 

American family. And like any family, we have issues and fissures 

that are legitimate and run deep and provoke potent reactions. We 

have a history of slavery in this country. We have a history of Jim 

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Crow, of lynchings, of segregation, and discrimination. And, indeed, 

we have a lot to do to repair and to recover from the harm of the 

past and some harm that continues today. 

But let’s be clear. Someone else came into our house, into the 

house of this country, the family of who we are as Americans, and 

they manipulated us; and they are an adversary, and they provoked us and they tried to turn us against each other. The Russian 

government came into the house of the American family and manipulated us. 

And we must take this seriously in that context and understand 

that when we debate, as we did in 2016, one of the most important 

debates that we have, which is who will be leader of our country, 

the Russians exploited our Nation’s discourse to play into our deepest fear. 

And as leaders I believe then it is incumbent on us to speak to 

the American people about how we can solve this urgent national 

security threat. I believe, first, we must act urgently to bolster our 

country’s defenses like our election infrastructure and cybersecurity, a bipartisan issue that we have been working on in a bipartisan way—I thank Senator Lankford and many of our colleagues— 

throughout the work that we’ve been doing on the Secure Elections 

Act. 

But second, I believe we need to make sure that the American 

public recognizes who is trying to sow hate and division among us, 

so that the American public can rightly identify and see it for what 

it is: an attempt to exploit our vulnerabilities for the purpose of 

weakening our country and our democracy. 

And with that, I’d like to ask, Ms. DiResta, in your written testimony you say that the Russian Internet Research Agency, IRA, efforts targeting the right-leaning, quote, ‘‘right-leaning and leftleaning Americans was unified in its negativity towards the candidacy of Secretary Clinton’’; and that, quote, ‘‘in pages targeting 

the left, this included content intended to depress voter turnout 

among black voters.’’ 

This seems to corroborate the intelligence community’s finding 

that Russia was trying to hurt the campaign of one candidate in 

the 2016 United States election and help the other. Can you tell 

us more about what your research has found regarding the nature 

of the political content that the Russian IRA was pushing toward 

Americans on social media during the 2016 campaign? 

Ms. DIRESTA. It was unified on both sides in negativity toward 

Secretary Clinton. It was not unified in being pro-President Trump. 

So the pages targeting the left were still anti-candidate at the time 

Trump. 

On the right, we did see an evolution in which evidence of support for candidate Trump continued during the primaries. There 

was some anti-Senator Rubio, anti-Senator Cruz content that appeared. And there was a substantial amount of anti-Secretary Clinton content on both the right and the left. 

On the left, that included narratives that either African Americans should not vote, should vote for Jill Stein, which was not a 

wasted vote, and during the primary there was support for candidate Sanders. 

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Senator HARRIS. And then quickly, Ms. Rosenberger, you recently 

published a report policy blueprint for countering authoritarian interference in democracies. You described an event on May 21 of 

2016 where two groups were protesting in Houston, Texas, and one 

was called the Heart of Texas that opposed the purported 

Islamification of Texas. On the other side, the United Muslims of 

America, who were rallying to purportedly save Islamic knowledge, 

and these protests were confrontational. 

Can you tell me, at the time were law enforcement or the protesters aware of who had manufactured the conflict? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. No, our understanding is that they were not. 

One thing we do know is that, fortunately, law enforcement was 

present at the demonstrations and therefore was able to keep them 

separate. But one of the things that we believe may have been part 

of the intent of organizing simultaneous rallies—same day, same 

place, opposite sides of the street—was probably to attempt to provoke violence. 

Senator HARRIS. And then just quickly, if we can follow up in any 

writing with the Committee, but I’d be interested in knowing what 

your recommendations are for how we can inform law enforcement, 

because obviously this is a matter that is about public safety and 

frankly also officer safety. As we know, many of these disruptions 

end up resulting in violence and harm to many individuals. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Absolutely. I would just point very quickly to 

the announcement from Facebook yesterday, which actually seems 

like it may have been something intended to be along similar lines 

with a protest attempting to gin up very high emotions. 

Chairman BURR. Senator Lankford. 

Senator LANKFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To all of you, in your research and the data that you’re putting 

together to be able to help us in this and be able to expose some 

of the issues, thank you. You all have done a lot of hours at a computer and running a lot of data to be able to get to this point. And 

we appreciate that very much. 

Ms. Rosenberger, I want to ask you about some of the recommendations that your team has made and to follow up on one 

of the questions that Senator Blunt had started. You made some 

very specific recommendations that, when we discover attribution, 

which is not easy to do, but when we discover it and see it as a 

foreign actor, three main sets of responses you seem to have recommended: sanctions; making sure there’s a reputational cost for 

the country that’s doing it; and considering offensive cyber operations. I want to take those in reverse order. 

What would you consider an offensive cyber operation that would 

be effective in this means? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Well, Senator, as you know, the use of offensive cyber operations is itself a very complex problem. 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. So I’m just going to kind of boil it down to 

be specific within this context. 

What I would say is, I think that there are instances in which 

when we are able to—when the U.S. government is able to identify— for instance, the servers that are being used to carry out 

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ments, et cetera, I do think that there are instances in which that 

might be an appropriate course of action. 

Again, as we know in offensive cyber, this can often lead to a 

challenge of whack-a-mole. You set up a new server, et cetera. It 

does impose a cost. Of course, one of the things that we know that 

creates challenges is sometimes for these transnational operations 

they may, for instance, be using a server in the United States, or 

in the country—or in the domain of one of our allies. So that introduces complications. 

So it’s not a super-simplistic answer. But I do think that there 

are instances in which we should consider it. 

Senator LANKFORD. So you also mentioned reputational costs. I’m 

not sure there’s anyone left on the planet that doesn’t understand 

that Russia does propaganda on their own people and does offensive propaganda against everyone else. 

What kind of reputational cost could you put on Russia, trying 

to expose their activities? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Senator, the reputational cost recommendation is a little bit more specifically aimed at China, where I think 

that, as others have alluded to, China has the capabilities and 

we’re seeing them test these things in their neighborhood. China 

has a longer-term strategic interest that’s much more about generating affinity toward it and its model. So I think that reputational 

costs would be more effective with China. 

I concur with you that, when it comes to Russia, reputational 

costs are difficult, although I do believe that it is important for the 

American people to hear clear and consistent messages from our 

leadership that Russia and Vladimir Putin are an adversary and 

a threat to our Nation. 

Senator LANKFORD. It was one of the areas that I was pleased 

with Facebook’s announcement yesterday that this Committee had 

talked to Facebook about multiple times. It’s one thing to be able 

to say that they are being used by an adversary; it’s another thing 

to actually show the images. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Yes. 

Senator LANKFORD. Yesterday Facebook was rapid to not only 

say there’s an outside entity, we’re not saying it’s Russia, it looks 

like it is, but here’s the images they’re putting out, here are the 

events they’re putting out. And they put out a tremendous amount 

of data yesterday. That’s much improved from where we were two 

years ago, where they were still saying, ‘‘We’re not sure if they 

used us or didn’t use us.’’ Now they’re being very forward-facing on 

that. That’s helpful to be able to get information around faster. 

Traditional media multiplied that message by putting it out as 

well. That helps us to be able to get the message out. That’s one 

of the things that we heard on this Committee multiple times: European allies have faced from Russia those attacks, that they’ve 

been able to get that and have that pushback immediately. So that 

was helpful to be able to see it yesterday. 

I have one other question to relate to this as well. You had mentioned a comment here in one of your recommendations on making 

sure that there is transparency, passing legislation that ensures 

Americans know the source of online political ads. Much of what 

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happened with this was not an ad. It was just a profile that was 

set up that they did a tremendous amount to be able to develop it. 

How do you separate out being aware where an ad is coming 

from and just a profile that’s a free profile, that’s developed quite 

a following? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. I completely concur that the political advertising piece of this effort was a small one. My own view, coming 

from a national security perspective, is when we identify a vulnerability we should close it off. And so even if it was not the most 

significant avenue that was utilized, I absolutely believe that applying the same standards to political advertising online that apply 

offline is absolutely essential. That being said, that will not solve 

the problem and we can’t be in any way convinced that it will. 

And so that’s why we also recommend a number of transparency 

measures about providing greater context for users, about the origin of information, about whether automation is involved, about requiring some kind of authenticity confirmation while protecting anonymity. I think these are the kinds of steps that can help mitigate 

some of these broader concerns that you’re raising. 

Senator LANKFORD. I look forward to that conversation. We also 

need to have a conversation on is there a level of cooperation needed between the internet service providers, cell phone companies, 

and others that have a different level of information about where 

that information is coming from, and their cooperation with some 

of the providers of content. 

Right now we’re leaning mostly on providers of content to say, 

help us with the data and help police yourself on it. But there’s another whole level of information coming from the ISPs and from the 

cell phone companies and such, as well, of where that data is actually originating from. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Absolutely. And when you combine that with 

information that the intelligence community can provide, I think 

that that is how we begin to put together different pieces of this 

puzzle to create better identification processes. 

Senator LANKFORD. I look forward to that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BURR. Senator Reed. 

Senator REED. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you all for your excellent testimony. 

We all here appreciate what Facebook did yesterday. I think it 

was a very appropriate and timely response. But there was a comment that you made, Dr. Howard, that I think is very important 

and bears repeating, which is basically that companies are beyond 

self-regulation. Could you elaborate on that, and then I’ll ask the 

panel if they concur? 

Dr. HOWARD. I think much of what we’ve discussed today has 

come from evidence that has been released very slowly over a twoyear period, often after prodding from you, multiple kinds of Committee investigations and multiple governments. When I say that 

I think the social media industry is past the point of self-regulation, I mean mostly that the more public, open data there is about 

public life, the faster we can catch these moments of manipulation. 

For the most part, we’ve been speaking about American citizens 

and us as individuals and the impact on our—on our democracy, 

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but democracies have civil society groups, faith-based charities, 

civic groups, prominent hospitals and universities that are also 

under attack. And these are also distinct to democracy and these 

are part of—these are the organizations that I think can help defend us. 

Senator REED. But I think, again, we have and we have gotten— 

and Chairman and the Vice Chairman have done a remarkable job. 

We’ve gotten, as you say, slowly and surely we’ve gotten a little bit 

more response. But I think the time is running out, frankly, and 

I think we have to move legislatively to set in motion a framework 

of disclosure. 

Someone mentioned, you know, options to remove information, 

reduce information, or inform the participant. I don’t think that 

will happen voluntarily. It’s the prisoner’s dilemma. I’m sure they 

would all love to do it, but unless everyone does it it’s not cost-effective or it’s not culturally consistent with their corporation. 

So, let me just go with Ms. Rosenberger and down the line about 

this comment about do we have to move very quickly to set up the 

framework, consistent with the First Amendment obviously, that 

allows us to deal with this issue? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Senator, one thing I would note is that, while 

the United States has not taken any steps like this, other countries 

or international institutions have. So the European Union has been 

moving out, not just with GDPR but other conversations about regulation of social media and online platforms. China is using its 

market access as enormous leverage over these companies in order 

to basically set the terms of the debates. 

By being absent from this conversation and not taking steps to 

figure out some of these very thorny issues, but right now what’s 

happening is other countries, other governments, are setting the 

rules for this space. And that is in many cases not in the interest 

of the United States. I think some of the ideas that Senator Warner put forward in his paper earlier this week are absolutely worth 

very, very serious conversations and the kind of things we need to 

be doing. 

Senator REED. I think one of the ironies, as you point out, is that 

we could be disadvantaged because not only don’t we get to make 

the rules, but our companies, our international companies, will follow the rules in China, follow the rules in Europe, and not follow 

the rules here, leaving us much more vulnerable. 

Dr. Kelly. 

Dr. KELLY. I believe that it’s critical to have access to data from 

all the platforms in order to detect this kind of activity. And that 

is a sophisticated analytic capability that needs to be created, and 

it’s going to be a lot of time and effort from a lot of smart people. 

Where does that data then sit? Who is it that gets to look at it? 

And I think that our concerns about privacy and the First Amendment lead us to at least suggest we ought to think about industryoriented consortiums or things that allow a kind of—without moving it too far from industry—let them at least have the first crack 

at the detection piece. 

Senator REED. Well again, I think your instincts are very consistent with the views of most Americans. But this now has been 

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sponse. Perhaps the Facebook example yesterday is a good sort of 

sign that the industry is coming around, but—— 

Dr. KELLY. Yes, Senator. I think that the proactive transparency 

we saw yesterday from Facebook shows real leadership in the field. 

And I think we need more of that. 

Senator REED. We do, and my concern is that, again, there are 

other incentives, disincentives, profit, culture, et cetera, that could 

inhibit that. 

My time is expired, but ma’am, please. 

Ms. DIRESTA. I think the key is to have oversight. We spoke 

about finance a little bit earlier, high frequency trading in particular. There were two sets of regulators. There were self-regulatory bodies that stepped in, there were the exchanges. There’re 

some parallels there, where the exchanges are able to see what’s 

happening and immediately, before the regulatory process happens, 

step in and say: Not on our platform. 

I think that that’s actually an interesting model; this combination of regulatory, self-regulatory, the exchanges acting independently, and an oversight body looking to make sure the entire ecosystem remains healthy. 

Senator REED. You’re talking about the security exchanges? 

Ms. DIRESTA. Correct. 

Senator REED. Yes. 

Doctor, comment? 

Dr. HELMUS. I’ll just say our research certainly shows the importance of tagging this information so that audiences can know the 

source of it. The appropriate legislative mechanism for that I can’t 

speak to. 

Senator REED. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BURR. Senator Cornyn. 

Senator CORNYN. I can’t help but recall the words of H.L. Mencken, who said that for every complex problem, there’s a solution 

that is clear, simple, and wrong. And so I think we need to be a 

little bit—demonstrate a little humility when we begin to approach 

this from a public policy perspective, what our response should be. 

But I also want to ask you about my impression, which is, it 

would be a mistake to think this is just about elections. And one 

of the reasons I say that, I came across an article recently entitled 

‘‘When A Stranger Decides To Destroy Your Life,’’ where somebody 

used a fabricated story about a woman and posted it online on a 

website called ‘‘She’s A Homewrecker,’’ and basically ruined this 

woman’s life, or at least challenged it in a dramatic way. 

And then I thought, well, this is a tool that could also be used 

by somebody who wants to tank a stock price by disparaging the 

reputation of a company and then perhaps sell it short and reap 

a significant reward. Or, if you’re a Chinese telecom that wants to 

get rid of some of the competition, particularly when it comes to 

developing 5G technology or some other cutting edge technology, 

this is also a pretty useful tool, using this information warfare. 

So all of this leads me to wonder if by focusing solely on the election, which is dramatic and of tremendous concern—and I share 

the concerns of all of you and all the Committee—that if we just 

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focus on that and not the rest of the picture, whether we are missing the right picture. 

Ms. DiResta, do you have any observations? 

Ms. DIRESTA. Yes sir. We look at—at New Knowledge, we do look 

at misinformation and disinformation targeting corporates. On the 

state actor front, we have seen evidence of campaigns targeting agriculture and energy as two industries of interest to foreign powers. 

On energy, we’ve seen anti-fracking narratives, anti-fracking bots, 

by countries affiliated—countries with strong oil interests. In agriculture, that’s taken the form of spreading fear about GMO’s. 

Senator CORNYN. Yes, Ms. Rosenberger. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. I’d also note that in the case of Russia, we 

know that they use these operations to try to shape our conversations and views on geopolitical issues, especially those of interest 

to Russia. 

So for instance, one IRA-sponsored post on the fake—the 

inauthentic account ‘‘Blacktivist’’ asked, how would we feel if another country bombed us for the poisoned water in Flint and for police brutality? That was posted in the immediate aftermath of the 

Trump Administration’s strikes on Syria after the chemical attack 

in March of 2017. So a clear instance of that account actually criticizing an action by the Trump administration, using emotional 

issues like the Flint water crisis and police brutality as an avenue 

in, to try to shape views on a geopolitical issue of interest to Russia. 

Senator CORNYN. Dr. Kelly. 

Dr. KELLY. So I completely agree that there’s a commercial dimension of this which is underreported, and there’s a lot more 

going on in the commercial space in terms of these attacks than is 

reported. Renee discussed some of them. 

We’ve seen others with our customers. And sometimes they’re 

tied, these political attacks and the attacks on corporations, where 

corporations will be basically punished with falsely amplified boycott campaigns and similar measures for doing something which is 

politically not what Russia would like to see. 

Senator CORNYN. Dr. Helmus, the psychologist Jonathan Haidt 

gave a speech I saw online recently called ‘‘The Age of Outrage’’ at 

the Manhattan Institute, where he basically describes a narrative 

where there’s a lot of things conspiring to manipulate us and invoke outrage for whatever is going on, whether it’s cable news, social media or the like. 

What can regular Americans do to protect themselves against 

those, whether they be state actors, whether they be individuals, 

whether with malicious intent? What can they do to protect themselves? There’s one thing for the government to do what we can do 

from a policy standpoint, but what can average individuals, consumers of social media online, do to protect themselves from being 

manipulated by fake information or misinformation? 

Dr. HELMUS. You know, our work, our work in Eastern Europe, 

as was mentioned earlier, suggests that people in those areas are 

very well aware of Russia’s intentions. Russia lurks very closely to 

those nations, and people know what’s going on. 

I think obviously the way to apply that to the United States is 

understanding the need to know the sources of your information, 

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be able to adjudicate and assess the truthfulness of that information, the potential biases of that information, and then try to make 

your own decisions on that. Ultimately, it’s about being a careful 

consumer of information. 

Senator CORNYN. Thank you. 

Chairman BURR. Thank you, Senator Cornyn. 

The Chair’s going to recognize himself for just a question, and 

then I’m going to recognize the Vice Chairman. We’ll see if we’ve 

got any members that return after that second vote starts. But it’s 

my intention to try to wrap up as close to noon as we can. 

You know, I’ve heard a lot of phrases to describe what went on 

just in the last few minutes—disinformation campaign, misinformation campaign, societal chaos campaign. Dr. Howard, I think 

you used one that struck me earlier—computational propaganda. 

And my suggestion is that we not come up with a single one, because we’re dealing with a generational issue. And I think somebody alluded to it earlier, that it’s much easier to take a generation 

that grew up with these devices and accomplished some type of 

change than it is for somebody that struggled, like me, to learn 

how to use the device and found the most useful TV ad, when 

somebody defriended somebody they took their picture off the wall, 

if you remember that Post-It note? That struck home to me. 

So I think it’s important that we speak to as many languages on 

this, because the task that we’ve gotten before us is to penetrate 

the entire population. And it’s not limited to the United States. As 

you have described today—and, you know, I hope if there’s a 

takeaway for the media—this is going on everywhere. It’s not limited to politics. It’s much more intrusive in the economic, global 

economic picture today, than it is in the political landscape. 

It’s just we like to write about politics. And so, I want to point 

you to this chart I’ve got over here. It looks like something that 

would be used at the psychiatrist’s office, to have you describe what 

it was. And I’m going to ask you, Dr. Kelly. In our analysis, we 

went through and we tried to connect the dots: Who generates it, 

where does it go, does it go to the right, does it go to the left? And 

what my staff determined—and I’m looking for your agreement or 

disagreement—is that in a lot of cases, at least in the ’16 cycle, the 

same person sitting somewhere in the world generating, initiating 

this propaganda, both initiated the part on the right and the part 

on the left, that it wasn’t two different individuals. Therefore, this 

was a very well-orchestrated, very choreographed plan that they 

carried out. 

What’s your comment on that? 

Dr. KELLY. Well, this is very interesting and it tells a deeper part 

of the story that the Clemson—recent Clemson paper tells, which 

is that you don’t just have, you know, one room full of people who 

are running right-wing trolls and another room full of people running left-wing trolls. It’s actually the same people at the same computers. So, I think that is a real lesson in how we need to worry 

about the way they’re trying to play us like marionettes, right and 

left. 

Chairman BURR. And is it safe to say that it’s so easy that Russia uses existing views inside of American society; all they do is try 

to make the gap bigger between the two by inflaming both sides? 

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Dr. KELLY. I agree. I think that they’re not creating these divisions. They’re not—you know, and they’re doing the same thing in 

Europe and elsewhere. They find in a society what are the 

vulnerabilities, what are the groups that oppose each other, and 

they’re basically arming them. It’s kind of like arming two sides in 

a civil war so you can kind of get them to fight themselves before 

you go and have to worry about them. 

Chairman BURR. So, Ms. Rosenberger, is this any different than 

really what we faced in the 1960s in the campaigns by the Soviet 

Union against their adversaries in the world of propaganda? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. It is and it isn’t. I think the playbook in some 

way is the same, but the tools that they can use to run those plays 

are very different. And what we have seen is that digital platforms 

have supercharged the ability to take that playbook and to really 

reach a much broader audience more quickly and in a much more 

targeted kind of way than what we would have seen in the 1960s. 

There’s a difference between hand-cranking out leaflets in a 

basement and passing them around under covert means than there 

is from putting information online using automated techniques, 

inauthentic personas, to watch it go viral. 

Chairman BURR. I will say that the Vice Chairman has been one 

of the most outspoken about how technology allows this plan to be 

on steroids. Words like bots, and he comes up with some new ones 

every day, that many on the Committee and most in the country 

either didn’t understand at the beginning of this or still don’t understand. 

So I’m not sure that we can emphasize enough the intent, but, 

more importantly, the capability, and he deserves a tremendous 

amount of credit for raising this to the level that it is. 

I recognize the Vice Chair. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That’s the 

nicest thing you’ve said about me and you said it with no members 

here. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman BURR. I can repair the record. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. You can repair it. 

Well, I want to start with what Senator Cornyn and you just 

said. I think the political piece of this is really going to be relatively small compared to the overall threat. And I think one of the 

things we’ve not talked about yet today is the marrying of cyber 

attacks with misinformation and disinformation. 

So, if somebody goes out, and let’s say, for example that the 

Equifax hack was actually done by a foreign actor, and it’s got personal information on 146 million Americans, then that actor contacts you with your personal financial information, you’re going to 

open that, open that message. And then, if behind that messages 

comes a live-stream video of what appears to be Mark Zuckerberg 

or Jay Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the ability to 

wreak havoc in the markets, it really almost overwhelms what 

we’ve seen on the political front. So this cyber-misinformation combination is one that’s important. 

I appreciate when we were talking earlier and recognize the rest 

of you—you really helped me recently—that even something that 

seems so obvious as should we have the right to know whether 

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we’re being contacted by a human being or a bot has layers of complexity to it. But I think we ought to continue to explore that. 

Ms. Rosenberger, I’ve got two points I want to make. One is: you 

have rightfully said we want to make sure that we protect anonymity, particularly, you know, the foreign journalists in Egypt or the 

female journalists in Egypt, and the ability to hide sourcing gets 

easier and easier with the use of virtual private networks. 

Even with those challenges, shouldn’t we have some ability, 

though, to say if—should an American have some ability to put 

some kind of geocoding location so that if somebody says they’re 

posting a message from Michigan or North Carolina and it’s originating in Macedonia or Russia, you ought to at least have that information? Again, you can still—we don’t have to get to content, 

but we can just know that there ought to be a second look, because 

the origin of that post may not be what is described in the post. 

Is that a possible tool? 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. I think that there are ways that can be— 

that’s one thing can be investigated. I think there are a variety of 

ways to require authenticity without requiring disclosure, sort of 

frontally, right? So a platform—in fact, some of them actually do 

require confirmation of authenticity. 

Some of them require—some of them include a verified check 

that then sort of puts another label of—another level of sort of authenticity on top of that. 

But I think that there are ways that authenticity can be confirmed or at least we can do a lot better to try to confirm it, while 

still ensuring that we do have anonymity protected and—sorry. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. Let me follow up on that, because we’ve 

heard today some members talk about Section 230. We’ve heard 

some members talk about GPDR and the whole privacy bucket. 

You know, I’ve raised some issues about humans versus bots. We’re 

talking here about geocoding. 

One of the areas that we haven’t talked so much about—and I’ll 

appreciate the Chairman giving me this extra time—but are there 

market forces that could help regulate if we ensured more competition? For example, I was an old telecom guy and it used to be really hard to move from one telco to another until we implemented requirements of number portability. 

You know, the Facebooks, the Googles, the Twitters dominate the 

markets. There may be, as people increasingly have concerns about 

the safety of their data, the ownership of their data, fake accounts 

being used—and this doesn’t completely work as an analogy; let me 

state that up front. But the notion of data portability, the notion 

that would say: if you want to take all of your content off of 

Facebook, including your cat videos, they have to make it in a userfriendly form to move to NewCo, because NewCo as part of their 

business model is going to have much higher levels of authentication. 

I mean, is this—is that a possible avenue to look at, as well? And 

I’ll take anybody on the panel. Now, and when you get into data 

portability, you’ve also got to get into interoperability issues, which 

makes it again not a perfect analogy. But is there a nub of an idea 

there? Anybody? 

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Dr. KELLY. I don’t have an answer on that exactly, but I think 

as you’re thinking about that it’s important to think that, in these 

kinds of disinformation campaigns, two of the most powerful things 

are a combination of anonymity and atomization. You know, those 

two things together allow you to run very large bot armies, so to 

speak, that are able to effect your objectives. It’s important—so 

those two pieces are something you have to think about, how that 

concern weaves through this. 

The other thing to realize, though, about that is that the bots are 

only part of the army, so to speak. So by solving that problem, even 

if you force them to identify, you’ve basically forced a medieval 

army to, you know, put a flashing light on the archers. There’s a 

lot of other folks out there that are playing more direct roles that 

you still have to worry about. And I think that those more highvalue assets in this kind of cyber social battle are a little bit harder 

to find. And they’re the ones that, you know, you can’t just fire up 

another—another hundred of them if you shut—if you shut the 

first one—— 

Vice Chairman WARNER. We’ve done a lot of recognition of 

Facebook today. I think we should also recognize Twitter, which in 

the last two months has, you know, even counter to their business 

model, has taken down lots of fake accounts, lots of fake bots. 

But is there any, you know—is there any possibility here about 

trying to add more competition into the marketplace as a way to 

help us sort through this? Not so much just a regulatory approach, 

but a competitive approach? 

Ms. DIRESTA. I’d say one of the challenges is if you fragment the 

platforms and fragment where people are, then there are more 

platforms to watch, since this is a systems problem and it does 

touch everything. That’s not to say that that’s not an appropriate 

course of action, because one of the reasons why this is so effective 

is there is this mass consolidation of audiences as the internet, 

which was originally much more decentralized, kind of came to 

have mass standing audiences on a very small handful of platforms. 

The challenge there is also, though, that people like that consolidation. They like having a lot of—you know, all of their friends on 

one platform. So this is a—it’s kind of a chicken-egg problem to 

think about it in those terms, but happy to continue the conversation. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. I would just—if anybody wants to add, 

my last comment would be: I think one of the earlier statements 

that were made was that each of these platforms, even as large as 

they are, really only look after their own content or their own usages. So that ability to see across the whole ecosystem is mostly 

lacking. 

And I think the Chairman and I—and we spent a lot of time trying to learn up on this—feel like the U.S. government is trying to 

get a handle on this, but has got a lot of work to do, as well. 

So I really want to thank all of you. And one of the things that 

we might be able to find consensus on, you know, is there more 

ability for us to urge, force, nudge the platforms in an anonymous 

way to share more data with independent researchers? Because 

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you guys actually can give us that system-wide view that, for all 

the size Facebook has, Facebook can’t give us the complete picture. 

Ms. ROSENBERGER. Senator, I think that that’s exactly right. I 

think we need two different kinds of information sharing, and 

ideally, they can somehow be combined. One is greater data-sharing between the public sector and the private sector, bringing together the capabilities of the U.S. government and the intelligence 

community, with the capabilities and what the platforms are able 

to see happening in their own ecosystem. Of course, that needs to 

be with privacy and speech protected, but I think there are mechanisms to do that, number one. 

Number two is cross-platform information sharing. So I would 

think about this as both a vertical and a horizontal challenge. And 

then you have the question of outside researchers, which is absolutely critical. I think that Renee mentioned earlier the Global 

Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. I think that’s one model to 

look at in this space. 

There’s other models, including from the financial integrity world 

as well as from the cyber security world, where you have been able 

to bring together different parts of industry, academics and the 

government to ensure that the full picture is put together to best 

go at this problem. 

Vice Chairman WARNER. Well I just want to again thank all of 

you, but I also particularly want to thank the Chairman, his notional idea. He did get this beyond taking the Post-It note off the 

refrigerator. But he has been a great ally, has moved this Committee forward on a whole host of technology issues. 

This is one where there is no Democratic or Republican answer, 

since clearly the goal of our adversaries was not to favor one party 

over the other. It was to wreak havoc and split divisions. And I 

think this Committee, under your leadership, is trying to take this 

issue on in an appropriate way. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BURR. And I thank the Vice Chairman. 

You know, I was just sitting here thinking a lot of good has happened since we started this drumbeat over a year ago. A lot of 

changes have happened that I think 12 months ago at some of the 

companies we would have said ‘‘Never do.’’ 

A big ship is not turned around overnight. It takes a while. But 

I think that they have now given us an opportunity to work with 

them. And I hope that in a month, when we have at least three 

of the platforms in, that we will see a willingness to collaborate 

with us, to come up with a solution that fits both legislatively and 

from a standpoint of their corporate responsibilities. 

So I’m optimistic that we’re headed—that we’re started on that 

pathway to a solution. You know, I remind people that it was this 

Committee that took on legislation for cyber security when everybody said it couldn’t happen. Is it perfect? No. Was it a good first 

step? Yes. 

And part of the challenge, because we’re the filter for technologies changes in the world—there’s no Committee of Technology 

in Congress, there’s no Agency of Technology in Washington. It all 

sort of dumps in our lap, and we have a perspective that nobody 

else has. And technology will drive, for the next 10 years, the way 

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132 

we do things, the way we communicate, where we go, how we do 

it. Everything in life is going to be driven by technological change. 

So, this is very appropriate that we would be talking about a new 

architecture, not necessarily a new architecture for social media, 

but a new architecture for the relationship between government 

and the private sector. 

And I hope that if there’s a takeaway from today’s hearing, it’s 

that this is the last time we’re going to associate the propaganda 

effort that we see, with an election cycle. There’s been no interruption since 2016. There was no interruption from 2014. This was 

planned out well before we knew who two candidates were, we 

knew the differences between two parties, or where the American 

people’s hot button was. It’s flexible enough and it’s nimble enough 

that it’s going to attack whatever the hot button is at a given time 

that they want to initiate. 

I can’t thank all of you enough for your candid and insightful testimony. You’ve given us a lot to think about as we wrestle with 

how to counteract the problems of foreign influence and its use on 

social media. 

I want to summarize what we’ve heard today for the American 

people. The Russians conducted a structured influence campaign 

using U.S.-based social media platforms and others to target the 

American people, using divisive issues such as race, immigration 

and sexual orientation. That campaign is still active today. They 

didn’t do it because they have political leanings to the right or to 

the left, but because they—or because they care about our elections—but rather because a weak America is good for Russia. 

Some feel that we as a society are sitting in a burning room, 

calmly drinking a cup of coffee, telling ourselves this is fine. That’s 

not fine, and that’s not the case. 

We should no longer be talking about if the Russians attempted 

to interfere with American society. They’ve been doing it since the 

days of the Soviet Union and they’re still doing it today. The pertinent question now is: what are we going to do about it? And it 

won’t be an easy answer. The problem requires all of us—government, private sector, civil society, the public—to come together and 

leverage our distinct strengths and resources to develop a multipronged strategy to counteract foreign attacks. 

We’ve heard about the problem today and have considered some 

potential recommendations and solutions. The next step is to hear 

from the leaders of social media companies themselves. And I’m 

certain that they, too, learned a fair amount today while watching 

this hearing, and I look forward to their responses. They owe it to 

the American people to communicate clearly and transparently 

what they view their role to be, and what they’re doing to combat 

these foreign influence operations. 

As I mentioned previously, this issue goes far beyond elections. 

We’re fighting for the integrity of our society. And we need to enlist 

every person we can. 

With that, I want to thank you for your time today. I think I’ve 

hit within about a minute of what I told you our target would be. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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Supplemental Material 

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Testimony 

Russian Social Media Influence 

Understanding Russian Propaganda in Eastern Europe 

Addendum 

Todd C. Helmus 

CT-496/1 

Document submitted August 30.2018. as an addendum to testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on August 

1. 2018. 
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For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT496zl.html 

Testimonies 

RAND testimonies record testimony presented or submitted by RAND associates to federal, 

state, or local legislative committees; government-appointed commissions and panels; and 

private review and oversight bodies. 

Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. 

© Copyright 2018 RAND Corporation 

RAND® is a registered trademark. 

Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights 

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of 

RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of 

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W\Vw.rand.org/pubs/permissions.html. 

www.rand.org 
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Russian Social Media Influence: Understanding Russian Propaganda in Eastern Europe 

Testimony of Todd C. Helmus 1 

The RAND Corporation2 

Addendum to testimony before the Select Committee on Intelligence 

United States Senate 

Submitted August 30, 2018 

Following the hearing on August I, 2018, the congressional committee sought additional 

information and requested answers to the questions in this document. The answers were 

submitted for the record. 

Questions from Senator Tom Cotton 

Question 1 

As most people are aware, the most detailed accounting of Russia's past activities is the 

Mitrokhin Archive. On page 243 of the Mitrokhin Archive, as detailed in The Sword and the 

Shield, it states, 

It was the extreme priority attached by the Centre (KGB Headquarters) to discrediting the 

policies of the Reagan administration which led Andropov to decree formally on April 12, 1982, 

as one of the last acts of his fifteen-year term as chairman of the KGB, that is was the duty of all 

foreign intelligence officers, whatever their "line" or department, to participate in active 

measures. Ensuring that Reagan did not serve a second term thus became Service A 's most 

important objective. 

On February 25, 1983, the Centre instructed its three American residences to being planning 

actives measures to ensure Reagan's defeat in the presidential election of November 1984. They 

were ordered to acquire contacts on the staffs of all possible presidential candidates and in both 

party headquarters ... The Centre made clear that any candidate, of either party, would be 

preferable to Reagan. 

1 The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are the author's alone and should not be interpreted as 

representing those of the RAND Corporation or any of the sponsors of its research. 

2 The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make 

communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, 

nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. 
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Residences around the world were ordered to popularize the slogan "Reagan Means War!" 

The Centre announced five active measures "theses" to be used ... his militarist adventurism; his 

personal responsibility for accelerating the arms race; his support for repressive regimes around 

the world; his responsibility for tension with his NATO allies. Active Measures "theses" in 

domestic policy included Reagan's alleged discrimination against ethnic minorities; corruption 

in his administration; and Reagan's subservience to the military-industrial complex." 

So, in 1982, over thirty-five years ago, we had the KGB using active measures in the United 

States to sow racial discord, try to create problems with NATO, discredit our nuclear 

modernization, undercut military spending, highlight corruptions, and try to encourage the U.S. 

to retreat from the world stage. Aren't the themes the KGB used in 1982, similar to those we're 

seeing the Russian Intelligence Services use on social media in 2018? 

Answer 

The focus ofthe RAND research used as a basis for my testimony before the committee was 

on Russia's propaganda efforts directed at Eastern Europe. The research for this study was 

conducted in 20173

• That study, as well as my other research, did not review this historical 

analog in great detail, and thus I cannot compare Russia's campaign against the Reagan 

presidency, as articulated above, and Russia's modem political warfare campaign against the 

United States at this time. 

Question 2 

Isn't this Russian social media campaign really just old wine in new bottles, with perhaps a 

different distributor? 

Answer 

It is true that Russia has historically worked to meddle in the internal affairs of various 

foreign countries. For example, a recent RAND Corporation study highlighted a Russian political 

warfare campaign in Estonia known as the "Bronze Night," when Russia, in an effort to respond 

to the Estonian government's quest to move a statue commemorating the Soviet victory in World 

War II, launched cyber attacks against the country's web domains and possibly organized a 

major protest that left one dead and 150 injured.5 According to a recent Center for Strategic and 

International Studies report, Russia has also cultivated "an opaque web of economic and political 

patronage" that sought to influence internal politics, state institutions, and economies of 

3 Todd C. Helmus, Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, Andrew Radin, Madeline Magnuson, Joshua Mendelsohn, William 

Marcellino, Andriy Bega, and Zev Winkelman, Russian Social Media Influence: Understanding Russian 

Propaganda in Eastern Europe, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-2237-0SD, 2018. As of August 30, 

2018: www.rand.org/t/RR2237 

5 Linda Robinson, Todd C. Helmus, Raphael S. Cohen, Alireza Nader, Andrew Radin, Madeline Magnuson, and 

Katya Migazheva, Modern Political Warfare: Current Practices and Possible Responses, Santa Monica, Calif.: 

RAND Corporation, RR-1772-A, 2018. As of August 30, 2018: www.rand.org/t/RRI772 

2 
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Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Serbia.6 Russia has most certainly sought to assert 

influence in other nation states as well. 

As the question suggests, what is clearly unique about recent Russian political warfare 

activities is its use of social media. The Kremlin initially developed its army of trolls (fake social 

media accounts managed by Russian agents) and social media bats (automated social media 

accounts) in order to influence the Russian domestic audience.7 With some apparent success, the 

Kremlin then began to train these capabilities on foreign audiences, most immediately against 

Ukraine, and then beyond. 

These social media operations, which have also included the use ofFacebook ads and pages, 

are particularly unique and potentially powerful because of their ability to link specific messages 

with specific target audiences. A simple review of Facebook's capability for ad-targeting 

illustrates its power as a potential tool for political warfare. Specifically, the medium allows 

advertisers access to "powerful audience selection tools" that can be used to "target the people 

who are right for your business."8 Such tools can increase the efficiency and potential efficacy of 

messaging campaigns that had, prior to the social media age, not been available at scale to 

government propaganda campaigns. The social media campaigns can also mimic popular 

conversations and debates and so exert a kind of peer influence on American audiences. 

Ensuring that malign actors like Russia do not have easy access to such tools will prove a critical 

challenge to technology companies and policymakers in the years ahead. 

Question 3 

We've heard from open testimony before this Committee that the Russians are using active 

measures to undermine our missile defense deployments, nuclear modernization efforts, and to 

try and drive a wedge between the U.S. and NATO on these issues. Additionally, we know from 

Mitrokhin and Bob Gate's memoir "From the Shadows" that this was part of their playbook in 

the 1980s as well. 

To what extent have you looked for and seen Russian activity on this front on social media? 

Answer 

The focus of the RAND research used in my testimony before the committee was on Russia's 

propaganda efforts directed at Eastern Europe. 9 As part of that work, we identified and reviewed 

Russian efforts to drive a wedge between Russian speakers in the Baltics and their home states, 

the European Union, and members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, 

6 Heather A. Conley, James Mina, Ruslan Stefanov, and Martin Vladimirov, The Kremlin Playbook: Understanding 

Russian Influence in Central and Eastern Europe, Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

2016. 

7 Keir Giles, Russia's "New" Tools for Confronting the West: Continuity and Innovation in Moscow's Exercise of 

Power, London: Chatham House, Russia and Eurasia Programme, March 2016. 

8 Facebook, "Choose Your Audience," webpage, 2018. As of August 30, 2018: 

https:/ /www. facebook.com/business/products/ads/ad-targeting 

9 Helmus eta!., 2018. 

3 
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we did not look for or identify Russian efforts to drive a wedge between the United States and 

NATO. 

Questions from Senator Joe Manchin 

Question 1 

What modifications would you recommend to the large social media companies that would 

enable users to identifY the source and potential funding of items posted on social media? 

Answer 

It seems logical to conclude that if consumers were able to determine whether particular 

social media content was the direct product of a foreign disinformation or influence campaign, 

then that content would potentially lose much of its influence value. If an intriguing social media 

post was outed as a social media bot or identified as coming from a known Russian troll, then 

that content would seem to lose all credibility. Consequently, the report I co-wrote on the topic, 

Russian Social Media Influence, identified several ways that technology firms or other external 

entities, such as governments, could inform audiences quickly and directly of Russian 

propaganda content. 

We have previously noted that it is critical to highlight Russian propaganda in ways that are 

fast and that target at-risk audiences. Thus, our study highlighted several new approaches that 

could possibly take advantage of advances in modem information technology. For example, our 

study highlighted the potential use of Google Ads. This approach uses videos and other content 

embedded in Google search results to educate populations who search for Russian-created fake 

news on Google and other search engines. The report also highlighted the potential value of 

viewpoint bots. A viewpoint bot can, in theory, use advanced algorithms to identify Russian hots 

or trolls engaged in hashtag campaigns. Once it identifies a bot or troll, the viewpoint bot posts 

messages to the offending hashtags, informing audiences of Russian influence efforts. 

However, there may be a need for some caution in the implementation of any disinformation 

tagging campaign. In 2017, Facebook implemented a campaign to mark inaccurate posts with a 

"Disputed" tag. However, less than a year after its implementation, Facebook terminated the 

program because the effort was deemed ineffective. 11 In particular, Facebook's testing revealed 

that marking some content "false" or "disputed" did not necessarily change some audience 

members' opinions about the accuracy of the content. And Facebook cited research suggesting 

that strong language or visualizations, such as the "Disputed" marker, can actually "backfire and 

further entrench someone's beliefs."12 Other researchers show what they call an "implied truth" 

effect, by which "false stories that fail to get tagged are considered validated, and thus are seen 

11 Tessa Lyons, "Replacing Disputed Flags with Related Articles," Face book, December 20, 20 I 7. As of August 30, 

2018: 

https:/ /newsroom.fb.com/news/20 17 I 12/news-feed-zyi-updates-in-our-fight-against-misinformation/ 

12 Jeff Smith, Grace Jackson, and Seetha Raj, "Designing Against Misinformation," Medium, December 20, 2017. 

As of August 30, 2018: https://medium.com/facebook-design/designing-against-misinformation-e5846b3aale2 

4 
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as more accurate." 13 Consequently, it will be critical to ensure that any new efforts that tag false 

content undergo empirical evaluations to ensure that the regimens achieve their intended effect. 

Question 2 

Should there be disclaimers on anything other than personal information? 

Answer 

Unfortunately, our study on Russian social media operations in Eastern Europe did not 

address this type of policy response, so I will refrain from answering this question. 

Question 3 

Should everything posted on social media have a "tag" that allows users to determine who 

posted information, even if it was re-posted or shared by another person, so you can always 

determine the actual source? 

Answer 

Unfortunately, our study on Russian social media operations in Eastern Europe did not 

address this type of policy response, so I will refrain from answering this question. 

Question from Senator Angus King 

Question 1 

Atthe hearing on August 1, 2018, I asked each witness to submit written policy 

recommendations to the Committee. Specifically, please provide recommendations on the 

following topics: 

• Technical solutions, such as requirements to label bot activity or identifY inauthentic 

accounts; 

• Public initiatives focused on building media literacy; 

• Solutions to increase deterrence against foreign manipulation; and 

• Any additional policy recommendations. 

Answer 

While we were conducting field research in Estonia and Latvia and having phone 

conversations with numerous other regional activists, the recommendation we heard most 

frequently was the need for media literacy training. 

13 Gordon Pennycook and David G. Rand, "The Implied Truth Effect: Attaching Warnings to a Subset of Fake 

News Stories Increases Perceived Accuracy of Stories Without Warnings," working paper, December 8, 2017. As of 

August 30,2018: https:i/papers.ssrn.com/so13/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3035384 

5 
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Several such efforts in Eastern Europe are currently under way. For example, the NonGovernmental Organization, Media Baltic Centre, with some international funding, provides 

training to journalists in the Baltics and conducts media literacy training in the region. In 

addition to helping journalists avoid becoming "unwitting multipliers of misleading 

information," the organization works with school teachers in the region to help them "decode 

media and incorporate media research into teaching." The program also works to guide school 

children with media production programs and help raise awareness of fake news on social media. 

In addition, the U.S. embassy in Latvia was looking to initiate media literacy programming. A 

local tech entrepreneur in Latvia is interested in creating a nongovernmental organization startup that would advocate for broader media literacy training and develop a Baltic-focused, 

crowdsourced, fact-checking website along the lines of the popular English-language factchecking site Snopes. 14 Beyond these disparate efforts, we recommended establishing media 

literacy training as part of a national curriculum. Both Canada and Australia have developed 

such curriculums. In addition, Sweden, based on concerns of Russian fake news and propaganda, 

has launched a nationwide school program to teach students to identify Russian propaganda. 155 

Given that a curriculum-based training program will take time to develop and establish 

impact, we recommended that authorities in Eastern Europe launch a public information 

campaign that teaches the concepts of media literacy to a mass audience. This campaign, 

disseminated via conventional and social media, could be targeted to the populations in greatest 

need. It is likewise possible to meld public information campaigns with social media-driven 

training programs. Facebook has also launched its own media literacy campaign, most recently 

marked by distributing tips to users for spotting fake news stories. 15 As we noted, it would 

certainly be possible to develop such efforts for an East European and Ukrainian audience. 

In theory, helping audiences, including those in the United States, better access, analyze, and 

evaluate media messages and their accuracy can help reduce the plague of fake news and limit 

the ability of Russia to blindly influence the U.S. public. However, the scientific evidence for 

media literacy training to help audiences detect the types of content produced by propagandists 

remains limited. Consequently, for both U.S. and European media literacy initiatives, it will be 

critical to scientifically evaluate the impact of such initiatives and determine the types of 

trainings (e.g., online versus offline, short course versus long course) that are suitable for specific 

audiences, mediums, and content. 

14 Helmus et al., 2018. 

15 See, for example, Facebook, "Tips to Spot False News," webpage, 2018. As of August 30,2018: 

https://www.facebook.com/help/188118808357379 

6 
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UNCLASSIFIED 

Questions for the Record Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Foreign Influence 

Operations and Their Use of Social Media Platforms August 1, 2018 

Questions for the Record for Renee DiResta 

[From Senator Cotton] 

As most people are aware, the most detailed accounting of Russia's past activities is the 

Mitrokhin Archive. On page 243 of the Mitrokhin Archive, as detailed in The Sword and 

the Shield, it states, 

It was the extreme priority attached by the Centre (KGB Headquarters) to discrediting the 

policies of the Reagan administration which led Adropov to decree formally on April12, 

1982, as one of the last acts of his fifteen-year term as chairman of the KGB, that is was 

the duty of all foreign intelligence officers, whatever their "line" or department, to 

participate in active measures. Ensuring that Reagan did not serve a second term thus 

became Service A's most important objective. 

On February 25, 1983, the Centre instructed its three American residences to being 

planning actives measures to ensure Reagan's defeat in the presidential election of 

November 1984. They were ordered to acquire contacts on the staffs of all possible 

presidential candidates and in both party headquarters ... The Centre made clear that any 

candidate, of either party, would be preferable to Reagan. 

Residences around the world were ordered to popularize the slogan "Reagan Means 

War!" The Centre announced five active measures "theses" to be used ... his militarist 

adventurism; his personal responsibility for accelerating the arms race; his support for 

repressive regimes around the world; his responsibility for tension with his NATO allies. 

Active Measures "theses" in domestic policy included Reagan's alleged discrimination 

against ethnic minorities; corruption in his administration; and Reagan's subservience to 

the military-industrial complex." 

1) So, in 1982, over thirty-five years ago, we had the KGB using active measures in the 

United Stat to sow racial discord, try to create problems with NATO, discredit our nuclear 

modernization, undercut military spending, highlight corruptions, and try to encourage 

the U.S. to retreat from the world stage. Aren't the themes the KGB used in 1982, similar 

to those we're seeing the Russian Intelligence Services use on social media in 2018? 

Thematically there is some overlap between present day and past KGB active measures 

messaging; wars and corruption figured in prominently in the content on several Internet 

Research Agency (IRA)-Iinked sites. However, the themes that the IRA prioritized in 2018 were 

primarily internal societal struggles designed to create rifts between subsets of Americans. The 

tensions the IRA sought to exploit included racial discord (which appeared in numerous forms 

such as black and white militant and separatist content, Confederacy nostalgia, black culture 

content, police-violence related content), immigration status, cultural differences, religious 
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freedom, and hot-button political issues such as gun ownership rights and LGBT rights. 

2) Isn't this Russian social media campaign really just old wine in new bottles, with 

perhaps a different distributor? 

The difference is, indeed, the distributor -- and this is a critically important difference. Social 

networks afford an opportunity for speaking directly to people without the intervention of a 

gatekeeper; older active measures strategies often included the goal of laundering sympathetic 

content into a respected publication, but now the distrust in mainstream media affords 

subversive foreign propagandists the ability to simply market their content as "citizen 

journalism". In addition, the relatively low cost of online publishing, coupled with the availability 

of fraudulent social media accounts to share and otherwise elevate that content on 

highly-trafficked social media platforms, provides for nearly limitless experimentation. 

Adversaries can test market thousands of divisive narratives simultaneously using 

state-of-the-art tools for measuring already provided to marketers by the social media 

platforms. 

There is an intersection of three factors at work: consolidation of hundreds of millions of users 

onto a handful of platforms, gameable algorithms, and the ability for precision targeting of 

content (designed to facilitate targeted ads in support of the advertising business model). The 

combination of these factors make it possible to distribute computational propaganda across a 

dense social ecosystem to those most likely to be receptive to it, and the content often 

receives an algorithmic assist. User-created content is for the most part treated equally; when 

it achieves a sufficient number of likes or shares, the platform algorithms may begin to promote 

it as "trending" or "recommended" content. Social platforms are built to drive user 

engagement; they are made to facilitate virality, and the ease of sharing ensures a velocity of 

transmission that makes stopping the spread of disinformation a significant challenge. 

This new distribution model enables an unprecedented scale for influence operations and 

serves as an asymmetric advantage to any mildly sophisticated actor intent on pursuing these 

goals. 

We've heard from open testimony before this Committee that the Russians are using 

active measures to undermine our missile defense deployments, nuclear modernization 

efforts, and to try and drive a wedge between the U.S. and NATO on these issues. 

Additionally, we know from Mitrokhin and Bob Gate's memoir "From the Shadows" that 

this was part of their playbook in the 1980s as well. 

3) To what extent have you looked for and seen Russian activity on this front on social 

media? 

With the caveat that attribution is complex, there are ongoing narratives that attempt to 

discredit NATO being spread and amplified in Kremlin-linked social media communities. This is 
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not a new phenomenon; there was press coverage in the New York Times 

(https://www.nvtimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-sweden-disinformation.htmO 

and The Guardian 

(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017 /jan/11/russia-waqing-information-war-in-sweden-st 

udy-finds) about Swedish audiences being targeted with anti-NATO messaging in 2016 when 

Sweden was debating a military partnership with the alliance; the Swedish government 

identified Russia as the source of the false narratives. 

There are also potentially abnormal patterns in the creation data of user accounts on Twitter 

that are focused on the topic. Among accounts currently discussing NATO on Twitter, we have 

observed an increase in the number of Twitter accounts brought online over time since the 

Swedish operation began. Further, the English-language accounts that we have observed 

sharing broader pro-Russia or Russian-origination messaging are also posting negative things 

about NATO and the US relationship with NATO allies. This is an ongoing investigation, but it 

appears that Russia and its surrogates are targeting Americans with messaging meant to call 

our role in NATO into question. 

[From Senator Manchin] 

4) What modifications would you recommend to the large social media companies that 

would enable users to identify the source and potential funding of items posted on social 

media? 

There is an information war happening, and multiple types of actors are participating. This 

includes hostile state and non-state actors, but also includes coordinated attempts to spread 

disinformation by groups of real American ideologues. The platforms face a challenge in 

balancing cultural First Amendment expectations and allegations of censorship against the 

potential damage resulting from the unfettered spread of manipulative narratives designed to 

cause harm to individuals, society, and businesses alike. We believe that transparency about 

both the content itself (attribution) and the financial motivations behind it serve the interests of 

an informed citizenry. However, the ease of anonymous content creation on the internet -

anyone can start a blog or make a meme - make identification of the source a significant 

challenge, and political dark money makes disclosing funding an unwinnable battle in the 

current legal environment. 

What is possible, however, is for social media companies to take dubious distribution patterns 

into account when deciding what content their algorithms will recommend. Similarly, it is 

possible to assign quality indicators that factor in past behavior of the accounts sharing it (a 

'spamminess', or quality quotient) and to the domain the content resides on. There is 

precedent for this in the effort to mitigate spam. Platforms should look to the history of 

anti-spam efforts for inspiration on managing computational disinformation as well. 

Recognizing that this is an ongoing information war, we do anticipate an evolution in 

disinformation tactics from simple botnets to far more sophisticated narrative laundering 
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through authentic American accounts. Therefore, information sharing between third party 

researchers and technology platforms provides the best framework for ongoing protection of 

the information ecosystem. 

5} Should there be disclaimers on anything other than personal information? 

6} Should everything posted on social media have a "tag" that allows users to determine 

who posted information, even if it was re-posted or shared by another person, so you 

can always determine the actual source? 

To answer both 5 and 6: content provenance is technologically extremely complex to 

implement at the scale described in the question, and also not terribly difficult for a determined 

adversary to evade. Visual image memes in particular often evolve slightly as they spread from 

user to user, so it's unclear what the attribution would or should link to. Repurposing and 

amplifying existing content is a tactic we have seen used by both the Internet Research Agency 

and the newly discovered Iranian social media manipulation operation; much of what they 

shared came from legitimate American news articles and meme pages, so even precise 

labeling of the content would not have made a significant impact in uncovering the operation. 

[From Senator King} 

7) At the hearing on August 1, 2018, I asked each witness to submit written policy 

recommendations to the Committee. Specifically, please provide recommendations on 

the following topics: 

• Technical solutions, such as requirements to label bot activity or identify inauthentic 

accounts; 

• Public initiatives focused on building media literacy; 

• Solutions to increase deterrence against foreign manipulation; and 

• Any additional policy recommendations. 

The technologies underpinning the social media platforms have evolved in such a way that the 

interplay between three key phenomena -- mass consolidation of audiences onto a handful of 

platforms, gameable algorithms, and the ability to easily and precisely target people -- have 

created a problematic information ecosystem. 

Legislating technological solutions for feature-level tactics leveraged by the IRA is fighting the 

last war. The specific features of social networks evolve rapidly; a Facebook ad today looks 

very little like an ad did a few years ago. Twitter has already diminished the ability for blocs of 

fully-automated accounts to easily game trending, so requiring that bots be labeled will have 

much less of an impact in 2018 than it could have had in 2016. The platforms already have 

policies in place for taking down inauthentic accounts; public pressure and pressure from 

financial stakeholders has begun to incentivize them to do so much more proactively. We 
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advocate avoiding the Maginot line of feature-focused legislation and instead prioritizing: 

1) Implementation of cross-platform computational propaganda and algorithmic 

manipulation detection solutions to enable more rapid discovery of the signatures that 

indicate an emerging influence operation 

2) Establishing oversight mechanisms empowered to keep the social media platforms 

acting in the interest of the public 

3) Creating global economic and military deterrence strategies to raise the cost and risk of 

conducting influence operations for the malign actors involved. 

Senator Warner introduced 20 policy proposals in a whitepaper immediately preceding the 

August 1 hearing that inspired this inquiry. In line with several of his proposals, we advocate 

for: 

• The granting of rulemaking authority to the FTC as a significant step forward in the 

creation of a system of social platform oversight 

• The establishment of an interagency task force, the creation of a formal deterrence 

strategy, and a re-evaluation of the Information Operations Doctrine 

• The establishment of a public-private standing body to support threat information 

sharing between government, platforms, and researchers. 

There is currently no disincentive to dissuade anyone, foreign or domestic, from undertaking a 

mass manipulation campaign ahead of an election. It is easy, it is inexpensive, and -judging by 

the fact that Russian and Iranian operations are still ongoing - past consequences have not yet 

created a perception that attacking the United States in this way will results in severe 

repercussions. 

The United States presently faces extreme difficulties countering influence operations online 

because of laws such as US Law 50 U.S. Code§ 3093(1), which prohibits the government from 

counter-messaging or engaging out of fear that such activity might violate the provision that 

prevents action "intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, 

policies, or media." Similarly, there is concern that gathering information, or collecting and 

analyzing the posts of suspect foreign social media accounts, could potentially violate the 1974 

Privacy Act that governs the gathering of information about individuals if an American citizen's 

infonmation was also inadvertently gathered. These challenges were identified in 2015 while 

establishing the Global Engagement Center inside the State Department; engaging with 

presumed-foreign extremist accounts in anything other than an overt attributed capacity was 

deemed impossible because of the chance that an American digital bystander might see it, or 

that the pseudonymous extremist was perhaps themselves an American citizen. Therefore, at 

the moment, the overseas-partner model of the GEC provides the best option for countering 

foreign propaganda, and it should be fully staffed and funded. 

Within the United States, the responsibility for coordinating investigations and responses to 
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influence operations is presently fragmented across the intelligence community. The CIA and 

NSA are constrained, leaving the FBI in charge of investigations. In contrast, several of our 

allies, including Germany and France, have dedicated cybersecurity organizations devoted to 

defense against these sophisticated attacks. These organizations are technically skilled 

agencies that are integrated and share intelligence with the rest of the country's national 

security entities; they have the technological expertise to engage with tech companies around 

threat information. The United States needs a similar whole-of-government approach to 

information operations, and must treat the threat as a cybersecurity issue. 

Presently, oversight of threats to American democracy by way of private social platform 

infrastructure might fall under the purview of the Federal Trade Commission or the Federal 

Election Commission. The FTC has broad consumer-protection responsibilities but has neither 

deep expertise in internet manipulation, nor rulemaking authority. And since disinformation on 

the internet includes malign narratives outside of electoral or political concerns, FEC oversight 

would likely be insufficient. We need to more clearly assign responsibility and ensure that the 

agency chosen (or created) has the necessary tools to ensure that social networking 

companies take responsibility for addressing influence operations on their platform. 

Domestic efforts must be complimented by an updated globaiiO doctrine and international 

detection and deterrence strategy, with the goal of mitigating foreign influence targeting our 

allies. We need a clear delegation of responsibility for this activity within the U.S. Government. 

Empowering law enforcement with updated legal tools to investigate and prosecute 

sophisticated foreign propaganda is essential; we should consider legislation that defines and 

criminalizes foreign propaganda that targets not just our political process but also addresses 

the targeting of commercial industry. 

To address the final suggested policy area in the question: public initiatives to build media 

literacy are worth exploring in the interest of helping American citizens better understand how 

social media works, from the basics of the fact that there is an algorithmic ranking to the 

specifics of how misinformation and disinformation spread. We believe that any such program 

would have to apply not only to younger individuals currently enrolled in formal schooling, but 

to all Americans. One option for this might be a government-sponsored public service media 

literacy campaign, perhaps sponsored and disseminated on the social platforms in question. 
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Graphika 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD 

For Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Foreign Influence Operations and Their Use of 

Socia/ Media Platforms 

Dr. John W. Kelly, Chief Executive Officer 

August 30, 2018 

Answers for Senator Cotton 

Dear Senator Cotton, 

I fully agree that current Russian propaganda leverages tactics and themes familiar to history 

professors. In that regard, it is indeed "old wine." What is new is that in 2018, we manufacture 

and distribute the bottles. And we do so with a distribution system that is far more effective at 

delivering tailored Russian messages to specific American audiences. 

Contemporary Russian propaganda is distributed to US audiences on American social media 

platforms, and through American companies. There are both new risks and new opportunities 

in this scenario. The primary risk is that, as these Russian manipulation strategies are exposed 

and denounced, American businesses suffer the cost of having been so blatantly manipulated. 

The opportunity is that, properly harnessed, we can leverage platform data to achieve 

unprecedented insight into the details of operations designed to manipulate American 

audiences. As Facebook's recent proactive disclosures show, the current state of affairs 

enables the ability to detect and disclose influence campaigns before they have an opportunity 

to further spread. 

Answers for Senator Manchin 

Dear Senator Manchin, 

Foreign influence campaigns on social media are rarely constrained within a single platform, 

and sophisticated actors are adept at covering their tracks. There is no Russian team with a 

"Facebook" assignment: rather, we now know (thanks to the excellent academic efforts and 

investigative journalism in this space) that teams are empowered to influence specific topics 

(such as the efficiency of vaccines) or audiences (such as African-American activists), and to 

leverage a// necessary channels and platforms in doing so. 

As a result, large social media companies must cooperate with one another and also empower 

external experts to detect manipulations and help them understand how they are being 
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"gamed" by foreign actors and others leveraging similar techniques. This is a problem for the 

entire technology industry, and it won't be solved in silos constrained by each platforms' 

specific features and products. 

Digital watermarking and other techniques for creating audit trails for content origin might 

provide some value within a larger strategy, but these alone would prove little more than a 

speed-bump to manipulators. Alone, these are lightweight "tree solutions," forensics 

assessments that focus on only one simple aspect of the problem. is this tree real or plastic? 

In the coming arms race for 21st Century cyber-social warfare, we require "forest solutions," 

approaches that employ sophisticated large-scale data analysis to detect manipulation at scale 

across multiple channels and platforms. 

We believe that an investment in research and development in this space will yield efficient 

methods for the detection of foreign manipulation and that those methods will be - as they 

must be- consistent with American values regarding the protection of user privacy. 

Answers for Senator Kina 

Dear Senator King, 

Thank you for raising this question, which is focused on the many solutions needed to tackle 

foreign disinformation. Allow me to reply primarily on the technical front, which is my principal 

area of expertise. 

Leveraging Federal research grants, academic partnerships, and private partnerships with the 

best and brightest in Silicon Valley, Graphika has already made significant headway in 

developing frameworks to detect and identify inorganic coordination and messages amplified 

by both automated and human (bot and troll) online armies. This is not a simple problem, and 

solving it requires significant investment in network science R&D. 

For many years, the detection problem was solely focused on "bets": automated scripts 

posting social media messages with minimal human intervention. Today, we recognize the 

problem is more complex than simple automation. Foreign actors, and a growing black market 

serving their efforts, have developed many techniques to inorganically amplify social media 

signals in manners more subtle (and harder to detect) than simple bots. This is what Graphika 

and our partners are mostly focused on now. 

Doing this work properly will require that the platforms continue to facilitate access to the types 

of data needed for researchers and innovators to conduct these analyses and generate new 

detection models, while ensuring user privacy remains protected. 

2 
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Questions for the Record 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 

Foreign Influence Operations and Their Use of Social Media Platforms 

August 1, 2018 

Submitted by Laura M. Rosenberger 

1) So, in 1982, over thirty-five years ago, we had the KGB using active 

measures in the United States to sow racial discord, try to create problems 

with NATO, discredit our nuclear modernization, undercut military spending, 

highlight corruptions, and try to encourage the U.S. to retreat from the world 

stage. Aren't the themes the KGB used in 1982, similar to those we're seeing 

the Russian Intelligence Services use on social media in 2018? 

The Russian government - through its intelligence services and proxies like the Internet 

Research Agency (IRA) -manipulates the information ecosystem to attempt to influence 

American public opinion and undermine U.S. foreign and domestic policy. These influence 

operations, which include seizing on hot button or divisive political and social issues, seek to 

accomplish several objectives: amplify and deepen existing polarization in American politics and 

society in attempt to weaken the institutional and social fabric of the nation; inject pro-Kremlin 

geopolitical narratives into public discussion and garner sympathy for them from an American 

audience; and, weaken and distract the United States from its global responsibilities. While some 

of the specific issues these operations exploit have evolved since the Cold War- for instance, 

immigration is a newer divisive issue on which these operations play -- overall the Russian 

government's objectives in conducting these influence operations are consistent with its Soviet 

predecessors' aims. 

In many instances, Russian influence operations seek to accomplish all three of these 

objectives simultaneously. The Russian social media campaign around the war in Syria provides 

a good case study. SevcrallRA-purchased ads on Facebook attempted to influence American 

public opinion against U.S. military activity, specifically targeting the Trump administration's 

May 2017 strikes on Syria. 1 Other ads targeted American liberals frustrated with U.S. military 

actions in Syria by calling for more focus on domestic issues and describing U.S. leaders as 

"high-powerful warmongers."2 One ad purchased by the fake IRA page "Blacktivist" targeted 

1 U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 1262," 

Social Media Advertisements, accessed July 30, 2018, https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-mediacontent/social-media-advertisements.htm: U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on 

Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 3023," Social Media Advertisements, accessed July 30, 

2018, https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/social-media-advertisements.htm. 2 U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 2426," 

Social Media Advertisements, accessed August 20, 2018, https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-mediacontent/social-media-advertisements.htm. 
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African Americans by asking, "How would we feel if another country bombed us for the 

poisoned water in Flint and for police brutality?"3 Others emphasized social issues to criticize 

U.S. actions in Syria, with one ad using anti-war quotes from Martin Luther King Jr to target 

civil rights supporters.4 On Google, English-language searches for key events or players in the 

Syrian conflict- such as the chemical attacks in Douma or the "White Helmets" civilian rescue 

organization - regularly returned results dominated by overt Kremlin propaganda outlets pushing 

conspiracy theories, allowing Moscow to insert its narratives directly into public discussion. 5 

These operations use similar tactics around other geopolitical and divisive issues. IRA 

accounts on Reddit circulated multiple memes discouraging U.S. support for Montenegrinaccession to NATO. Some posts portrayed Montenegrins as free riders, while others painted 

them as unwilling participants in the alliance.6 On Twitter, Russian-linked accounts have 

similarly promoted negative portrayals of Europe in the U.S. and negative portrayals of the U.S. 

in Europe to undermine transatlantic bonds. 7 IRA accounts on Twitter have also targeted 

domestic issues by promoting conspiracy theories, 8 amplifying partisan content related to the 

NFL anthem protests,9 and exploiting mass shootings to widen divisions over gun control 

debates. 10 

In all of these cases, the goal is to polarize domestic U.S. debate and manipulate public 

opinion on key international issues to further the Kremlin's interests. In this way, social media 

'U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 981," 

Social Media Advertisements, accessed July 26, 2018, https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-mediacontent/social-media-advertisements.htm. 

4 U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 1262," 

Social Media Advertisements, accessed August 20, 2018, https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-mediacontent/social-media-advertisements.htm: U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on 

Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 3023," Social Media Advertisements, accessed August 20, 2018, 

https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/social-media-advertisements.htm. 

5 Bradley Hanlon, "From Nord Stream to Novichok: Kremlin Propaganda on Google's Front Page," Alliance For 

Securing Democracy, June 14, 2018, https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/from-nord-stream-to-novichokkremlin-propaganda-on-googles-front-page/. 

6 1ronhammerConjukelv, "Accession of Countries to NATO: expectations vs. reality," 

Reddit.com/r /funny/, https:/ /www. reddit.com/r /funny /comments/3q5zpnjaccession _of_ countries_ to_ nato_ expe 

ctations_vs/; and HityndiDutilar, "NATO? No action, talk only," Reddit.com/r/funny, 

https:/L\!!ww.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3g5w97/nato no action talk only/. 7 Sophie Eisentraut and Bret Schafer, "Russian lnfowar Targets Transatlantic Bonds," Cipher Brief, March 30, 2018, 

https://www. thecipherbrief.com/russian-infowar -targets-transatlantic-bonds. 8 Salvador Hernandez, "Russian Trolls Spread Baseless Conspiracy Theories like Pizzagate And QAnon After The 

Election," BuzzFeed, August 15, 2018, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/russian-trollsspread-baseless-conspiracy-theories-like. 

9 Nicole Einbinder, "The Election Is Over, But Russian Disinformation Hasn't Gone Away," Frontline, November 1, 

2017, https:/ /www. pbs.org/wgbh/frontl ine/article/the-election-is-over-but-russian-disinformation-hasnt -goneaway/. 

10 @BEEBCLAPTT, "Sheriff Clarke Sounds Off on Vegas Massacre as Liberals Demand Gun Control 

https:Ut.co/FB1EnNda8K," Twitter, October 3, 2017, accessed via Oliver Roeder, "Why We're Sharing 3 Million 

Russian Troll Tweets," FiveThirtyEight, July 31, 2018, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-were-sharing-3-

million-russian-troll-tweets/. 
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and the online information space have given Moscow an effective way to supercharge its active 

measures efforts to reach larger audiences at rapid speed for lower costs. 

2) Isn't this Russian social media campaign really just old wine in new bottles, 

with perhaps a different distributor? 

In many ways, the playbook employed by the Russian government is similar to the one 

used by the Soviet-era KGB. The focus on dividing U.S. society by seizing on polarizing 

domestic issues, inflaming public discussion to undermine American foreign policy, and driving 

a wedge between the United States and its allies represent continuity in Moscow's strategy to 

weaken the United States. But while the playbook is in many ways the same, the tools that can be 

used to run those plays are very different. Digital platforms allow for manipulation of the entire 

information ecosystem in new and powerful ways, boosting the reach and possibly the impactof the playbook. By combining newer digital tactics like automated and inauthentic social media 

accounts with more traditional tools like state propaganda outlets, the Kremlin can spread its 

narratives across the information ecosystem to reach a wider audience than ever before and 

distort the information space itself. Additionally, the anonymity and reach of social media tools 

has made information operations cheaper, easier, and likely more effective than pre-digital 

iterations. In the past, conducting widespread information operations required experienced 

tradecraft and covert distribution networks. Now, basic cultural and linguistic skills, along with 

an understanding of trending algorithms, is all that is needed for Russian assets to insert 

narratives into the information space and watch them go vira1. 11 The ability to combine these 

tactics with other cyber means, including to disseminate hacked material obtained through 

cyberattacks, also enhances the power of this playbook. 

3) To what extent have you looked for and seen Russian activity on this front 

[to sow racial discord, try to create problems with NATO, discredit our 

nuclear modernization, undercut military spending, highlight corruptions, 

and try to encourage the U.S. to retreat from the world stage) on social 

media? 

Inauthentic accounts controlled by Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA) have 

attempted to influence U.S. defense policy and alliances through a number of methods. For 

example, numerous ads purchased by IRA accounts on Facebook sought to undermine U.S. 

policy on Syria, while IRA accounts on Twitter questioned the United States' nuclear 

capability12 and commitment to NATO, including tweets asking why Americans would fight and 

11 Andrew Weisburd and Bret Schafer, "Insinuation and Influence: How the Kremlin Targets Americans Online," 

Alliance for Securing Democracy, October 16, 2017, https:/ /securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/insinuation-andinfluence-how-the-kremlin-targets-americans-online/. 

12 U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 1262," 

Social Media Advertisements, accessed August 20, 2018, https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-media-
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die for "Turkey and their Sharia law." 13 Russian-linked accounts on Twitter have also worked to 

discredit transatlantic partners in the eyes of each other by painting a negative picture of Europe 

to American audiences and of the United States to European audiences. 14 And IRA accounts on 

Reddit discouraged U.S. support for Montenegrin-accession to NAT0. 15 While I am not aware of 

specific examples of Russian activity on social media directly targeting U.S. missile defense 

deployments or nuclear modernization efforts, such messaging would be consistent with the 

Kremlin's broader goal of weakening our alliances and influencing U.S. policy on geopolitical 

issues. 

4) What modifications would you recommend to the large social media 

companies that would enable users to identify the source and potential 

funding of items posted on social media? 

There are a number of measures that social media platforms can implement to help 

protect users from foreign manipulation. Most of these measures require greater disclosure and 

transparency. Online information platforms need to supply users with the context necessary to 

evaluate the information they encounter, including the origin of content and an explanation of 

why it is being presented to them. To this end, companies should inform users in a clear and 

approachable manner how and why certain content appears for them. As outlined in the Alliance 

for Securing Democracy's Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in 

Democracies, transparency and disclosure of source information are also essential to protecting 

the integrity of the U.S. political system. 16 Congress could help promote greater transparency by 

adopting legislation that improves disclosure requirements for online political advertisements so 

content/social-media-advertisements.htm: U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on 

Intelligence, "2017: Quarter 2, May: Ad ID 3023," Social Media Advertisements, accessed August 20, 2018, 

https:ljdemocrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/social-media-advertisements.htm.; 

@RAVENICHOLSON, "Trump questions the US's nuclear arsenal: Here's how the US's nukes compare to Russia's 

https://t.co/h6KIQ8biha via @BI_Defense," Twitter, December 24, 2016, accessed via Oliver Roeder, "Why We're 

Sharing 3 Million Russian Troll Tweets," FiveThirtyEight, July 31, 2018, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whywere-sharing-3-million-russian-troll-tweets/. 

13 @BEEATRWL, "How heartening is it that our sons and daughters are FIGHTING and DYING for Turkey and their 

Sharia Law? NATO Tun1€/ https:Ut.co/eaQ9QaFWiP," Twitter, August 1, 2017, accessed via Oliver Roeder, "Why 

We're Sharing 3 Million Russian Troll Tweets," FiveThirtyEight, July 31, 2018, 

https:/ /fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-were-sharing-3-million-russian-troll-tweets/. 14 Sophie Eisentraut and Bret Schafer, "Russian lnfowar Targets Transatlantic Bonds," Cipher Brief, March 30, 2018, 

https://www. thecipherbrief.com/russian-infowar-targets-transatlantic-bonds. 15 lronhammerConjukelv, "Accession of Countries to NATO: expectations vs. reality," 

Reddit.com/r /funny/, https:/ /www. reddit.com/ r/funny /comments/3q5zpn/accession_ of_ countries_ to_ nato_ expe 

ctations_vs/; and HityndiDutilar, "NATO? No action, talk only," Reddit.com/r/funny, 

https:/L\I!ww.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3g5w97/nato no action talk only/. 16 Jamie Fly, Laura Rosenberger, and David Salvo. Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in 

Democracies. June 26, 2018. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/PolicyBiueprintpdf 
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that Americans understand who is funding the political ads they see online, and legislation 

requiring companies to identify and label automated "bot" accounts. 17 

New mechanisms for data sharing, both between the public and private sectors and 

among technology companies, are essential for combatting this problem. The U.S. government 

plays an important role in identifying threat actors of concern, as the intelligence community has 

important capabilities that allow it to identify both the intentions and behaviors of threat actors. 

At the same time, social media companies have unique visibility into activity on their platformsvisibility that government analysts often lack. Information sharing mechanisms between the 

government and social media platforms should facilitate regular communication of developments 

on these fronts so that both entities are better positioned to identify, deter, and defend against 

foreign interference. Additionally, given the manner in which interference operations work 

across the social media ecosystem, tech companies also need mechanisms in order to regularly 

share threat indicators with one another. And such data should be shared, with appropriate 

controls for privacy, with independent researchers. Models of sharing mechanisms between the 

public and private sectors, cross-industry, and with independent experts exist for counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and financial integrity. 18 

5) Should there be disclaimers on anything other than personal information? 

Context about information is critical for consumers to be able to evaluate it. Users should 

be able to see and understand the origin of information presented to them, whether the 

information is being spread by an automated account, and why they are being shown that 

information. Additionally, there are a variety of ways to require authenticity and provide context 

without compromising anonymity, which is particularly essential for democratic activists who 

operate in authoritarian states. Another simple step toward empowering users with contextual 

information is to label automated accounts, which will help people better understand and 

evaluate the content they interact with. As outlined in the Alliance for Securing Democracy's 

Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in Democracies, Congress could 

adopt legislation requiring companies to identify and label automated "bot" accounts. 19 

17 Jamie Fly, Laura Rosenberger, and David Salvo. Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in 

Democracies. June 26, 2018. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/PolicyBiueprint.pdf 

18 One example is the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), whose goal is to substantially disrupt 

terrorists' ability to promote terrorism, disseminate violent extremist propaganda, and exploit or glorify real-world 

acts of violence using our platforms by: employing and leveraging technology; sharing knowledge, information and 

best practices; and conducting and funding research. https://gifct.org/; The National Cyber Forensics and Training 

Alliance, is a nonprofit partnership between industry, government, and academia to provide a neutral, trusted 

environment that enables two-way collaboration and cooperation to identify, mitigate, and disrupt cyber crime. 

http://www.ncfta.net/; Two models from the world of financial intelligence are the UK's Joint Money Laundering 

Intelligence Taskforce (JMLIT) and the United States' FinCEN Exchange. 19 Jamie Fly, Laura Rosenberger, and David Salvo. Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in 

Democracies. June 26, 2018. https:Usecuringdemocracy.gmfus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/PolicyBiueprint.pdf 
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6) Should everything posted on social media have a "tag" that allows users to 

determine who posted information, even if it was re-posted or shared by 

another person, so you can always determine the actual source? 

Providing users with broader context about the origin of information and why they are 

seeing it is key to empowering a more discerning and resilient social media culture. As described 

by Senators Warner and Rubio, "There is really no better defense against Russian aggression on 

social media than an informed citizenry."20 Online information platforms should ensure that 

online content is presented in a manner that relays the origin of the information and why users 

are seeing the content. Additionally, verifying the authenticity for accounts- while protecting 

anonymity and requiring the labeling of automated accounts will help users better understand 

and evaluate their information environment. Although some platforms have taken steps toward 

these ends, others have not. 

7) What reforms would you recommend to ensure that federal, state and local 

authorities are not influenced by Russian social media or Internet 

propaganda? 

One of the Kremlin's key objectives with its disinformation campaigns is to cause 

confusion to slow and undermine the functioning of U.S. institutions. Deception and 

misdirection are core to its operations to accomplish those objectives. This can include the 

spread of false or altered documents, as well as the spread of false assertions to undermine U.S. 

officials' ability to establish a collective truth. No one is entirely immune to covert information 

manipulation, and it is critical that all Americans scrutinize the sources of their information. The 

Intelligence Community is well trained at this, and understanding the motivations of sources of 

information is something that other government officials should be trained on. At a minimum, 

government employees should be trained to actively verify the sourcing and veracity of 

information in official material, and should receive up-to-date information from the intelligence 

community regarding potential nation-state disinformation campaigns. There should also be 

more formalized partnerships between the various levels of government and the tech platform 

companies in order to exchange information on foreign attempts to manipulate information 

online. 

8) At the hearing on August 1, 2018, I asked each witness to submit written 

policy recommendations to the Committee. Specifically, please provide 

recommendations on the following topics: 

20 Mark Warner and Marco Rubio, "As Trump Meets Putin, We'll Spotlight and Resist Russian Aggression: Warner & 

Rubio," USA TODAY, July 12,2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/07/12/trump-putin-helsinkisummit-resist-russian-aggression-column/776617002/. 
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• Technical solutions, such as requirements to label bot activity or 

identify inauthentic accounts; 

While I am not a technical expert and defer to such experts on specific recommendations 

in this area, transparency is a critical principle that should underpin any technical changes. This 

includes tools to help provide users with more context on the information they are consuming, as 

well as to label automated accounts. Taking steps to ensure that the algorithms that power these 

platforms are less vulnerable to manipulation by malicious actors is also critical. Finally, online 

information platforms should consider the potential utility of hashing as a method or model for 

identifying and sharing signatures of manipulated or corrupted information. 

• Public initiatives focused on building media literacy; 

Developing media literacy and digital competency programs are key long-term steps to 

inoculating against the threat of foreign interference. These skills should be taught not only in the 

classroom, but also through local civil society and non-governmental organizations throughout 

the country. Some of these organizations are already dedicated to helping Americans better 

discern sourcing of information, understand why they are seeing it, evaluate whether it may be 

manipulated, inauthentic, biased, false, or corrupted. These NGOs could partner to conduct 

public trainings on disinformation and on how to consume news critically; advocate to state and 

local governments to include media literacy in public education curricula; and devise programs 

to strengthen civic education, particularly on why democracy matters and why it should be 

protected against foreign interference. To support these efforts, Congress could establish a fund 

with pooled public and private resources that would support media and digital literacy education 

and training throughout the country. This fund could be supported by social media companies as 

part of their efforts to combat the manipulation of their platforms. 21 

• Solutions to increase deterrence against foreign manipulation 

Deterrence is essential to securing American democracy against the ongoing threat of 

foreign interference and preventing adversarial states from conducting future operations. Recent 

exposure of social media manipulation efforts by Iran,22 and efforts by China to test these 

methods, underscore the importance of deterring other authoritarian actors from adopting the 

Kremlin's playbook.23 At a basic level, the President of the United States should publicly 

21 David Salvo and Brittany Beaulieu, "Ten Legislative Proposals to Defend America Against Foreign Influence 

Operations," Alliance for Securing Democracy, April 19, 2018, https:/ /securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/tenlegislative-proposals-to-defend-america-against-foreign-influence-operations/. 

22 Casey Michel, "It Turns Out Russia Isn't the Only Country Turning Face book and Twitter Against Us," The 

Washington Post, August 23, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/08/23/itturns-out-russia-isnt-the-only-country-turning-facebook-and-twitter-againstus/?noredirect=on&utm term=.Ol9382e8eac7. 23 Laura Rosenberger, "F~reign Influence Operations and Their Use of Social Media Platforms," Alliance For 

Securing Democracy, July 31, 2018, https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/foreign-influence-operations-and-theiruse-of-social-media-platforms/. 
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articulate a declaratory policy that makes clear the United States considers malign foreign 

influence operations a national security threat and will respond to them accordingly. 

Additionally, the Executive Branch should publicly expose and attribute foreign interference 

efforts as they are discovered- steps by the Department of Justice to adopt such a policy are 

welcome, and Congress could consider codifying this policy into a mandatory reporting 

requirement. 

To effectively dissuade foreign actors from interfering in our democracy, the U.S. 

government should tailor its deterrent efforts to most effectively target the interests and 

weaknesses of foreign regimes while leveraging the United States' relative strengths. In the case 

of the Russian Federation, the Putin regime is dependent on corrupt financial links between the 

political leadership, security services, and business for its survival. Inducing behavior change 

from the Kremlin will require the United States to utilize its relative economic superiority by 

imposing a broader set of sanctions and reputational costs against individuals and entities that 

conduct these operations, facilitate corruption, and support authoritarian regimes' destabilizing 

foreign policy actions. 

Additionally, the U.S. should impose reputational costs on authoritarian powers that 

employ these tools. Vladimir Putin values his standing on the world stage. As such, it is 

important that Russia not be allowed to reenter normal international fora until Kremlin behavior 

changes. This is even more relevant for the Chinese Communist Party, which is more sensitive 

about being exposed for illegal activity and interference operations abroad, as China attempts to 

sell an alternative model of governance and growth to developing nations.24 Imposing 

reputational costs on Beijing must be a pillar of western deterrence strategy. 

Finally, the Executive Branch should employ cyber responses as appropriate to respond 

to cyberattacks and deter future attacks, and consider offensive cyber operations using 

appropriate authorities to eliminate potential threats. 

• Any additional policy recommendations 

Effectively countering foreign interference will require a whole of society effort, with 

actions by government, the private sector, and civil society. For a comprehensive set of policy 

recommendations for securing U.S. democracy against authoritarian interference, please see the 

Alliance for Securing Democracy's Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference 

in Democracies.25 A few specific recommendations are worth highlighting specifically with 

respect to countering online information manipulation. 

New mechanisms for data sharing, both between the public and private sectors and 

among technology companies, are essential for combatting this problem. The U.S. government 

24 laura Rosenberger and John Garnaut, "The Interference Operations from Putin's Kremlin and Xi's Communist 

Party: Forging a Joint Response," Open Forum, The ASAN Forum, May 8, 2018, http://www.theasanforum.org/theinterferenceoperations-from-putins-kremlin-and-xis-communist-party-forging-a-joint-response. 

25 Jamie Fly, laura Rosenberger, and David Salvo. Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in 

Democracies. June 26, 2018. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/PolicyBiueprint.pdf 
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plays an important role in identifying threat actors of concern, as the intelligence community has 

important capabilities that allow it to identifY both the intentions and behaviors of threat actors. 

At the same time, social media companies have unique visibility into activity on their platforms; 

visibility that government analysts often lack. Information sharing mechanisms between the 

government and social media platforms should facilitate regular communication of developments 

on these fronts so that both entities are better positioned to identify, deter, and defend against 

foreign interference. Additionally, given the manner in which interference operations work 

across the social media ecosystem, tech companies also need mechanisms in order to regularly 

share threat indicators with one another. And such data should be shared, with appropriate 

controls for privacy, with independent researchers. Models of sharing mechanisms between the 

public and private sectors, cross-industry, and with independent experts exist for counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and financial integrity. 26 

This is also a transnational problem, and the United States should develop information 

sharing and coordination mechanisms with its democratic allies and partners across the 

transatlantic space and around the world. Actions taken by the U.S. government to punish 

foreign actors for interference will be much more effective if they are executed in coordination 

with allies. The G7's recent commitment to share information and work with social media 

companies and internet service providers to prevent foreign interference in elections is a good 

first step in this direction, and could serve as an impetus for more efficient transatlantic 

coordination to share threat information and best practices.27 

Domestically, the United States should also work to develop better coordination and 

information-sharing across the U.S. government. Appointing a Counter Foreign Interference 

Coordinator at the National Security Council and establishing a National Hybrid Threat Center at 

the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would help the U.S. government work across 

bureaucratic stovepipes in a unified and coordinated way.28 

26 One example is the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), whose goal is to substantially disrupt 

terrorists' ability to promote terrorism, disseminate violent extremist propaganda, and exploit or glorify real-world 

acts of violence using our platforms by: employing and leveraging technology; sharing knowledge, information and 

best practices; and conducting and funding research. https://gifct.org/; The National Cyber Forensics and Training 

Alliance, is a nonprofit partnership between industry, government, and academia to provide a neutral, trusted 

environment that enables two·way collaboration and cooperation to identify, mitigate, and disrupt cyber crime. 

http:/ /www.ncfta.net/; Two models from the world of financial intelligence are the UK's Joint Money Laundering 

Intelligence Taskforce (JMLIT) and the United States' FinCEN Exchange. 27 "Charlevoix Commitment on Defending Democracy from Foreign Threats," G7 2018 Charlevoix, June 10, 2018. 

https:/ /g7 .gc.ca/ en/ official-documents/ charlevoix-commitment -defending-democracy-from-foreign-threats. 28 A similar concept exists in a bill proposed by Senator Graham and Senator Menendez in August 2018. The 

"Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act of 2018" calls for the establishment of a "National 

Fusion Center to Respond to Hybrid Threats," which would coordinate analysis and policy implementation across 

the U.S. government in responding to hybrid threats. Full text here: 

https:/ldrive.google.com/file/d/l2SogvkJY8yTLSbUYohzYW978ftpKvCCt/view. 
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MEMO TO: Senators of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 

MEMO FROM: Phil Howard, Oxford Internet Institute 

MEMO REGARDING: Questions for the Record 

MEMO DATE: 04/09/2018 

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to more questions. I prefer to stick to the evidence that we in 

the Project on Computational Propaganda at the Oxford Internet Institute have been collecting and 

analyzing. So my answers on the long history of Russian propaganda mostly focus on the contemporary 

trends and evidence that I am familiar with. 

Questions from Senator Cotton 

1) Aren't the themes the KGB used in 1982, similar to those we're seeing the Russian Intelligence 

Services use on social media in 2018? 

Some of the themes in today's Russian misinformation campaigns are consistent with previous 

campaigns, but there are four important differences. First, there are some unusual new themes, many 

of which are about discouraging voters from trusting evidence, science, or the expertise of their political 

leaders. For example, there are campaigns to discourage parents in the US from inoculating their kids 

against diseases. There are campaigns to get people to distrust the science and evidence on things like 

climate change and healthy nutrition. Second, the propaganda is delivered in a different way. KGB 

propaganda messages from 30 years ago reached far fewer people, often indirectly, not in a targeted 

way, and rarely through US media itself. Today, US-based social media companies deliver the content, 

reaching more people in direct and targeted ways. Third, I think the propaganda attacking two key 

democratic institutions-journalism and elections-is new. The campaigns to undermine trust in news 

organizations, independent journalism, elections administrators and public officials are a contemporary 

phenomenon. Most of the previous Russian propaganda was focused on particular issues and the 

interpretation of events. This new propaganda is focused on particular democratic processes and 

institutions. Fourth, the form of political speech is different. US voters had a right to hear the opinions of 

other governments about world affairs thirty years ago. Contemporary dis information is so full of lies 

and disinformation it probably does not warrant the same free speech protections. 

2) Isn't this Russian social media campaign really just old wine in new bottles, with perhaps a 

different distributor? 

This metaphor is close but not quite right. The bottles are labelled as wine, but the bottles contain 

poison and the poison is being distributed over networks of family and friends. 

3) To what extent have you looked for and seen Russian activity on this front on social media? 

Efforts to undermine trust in the military, nuclear modernization efforts, and sow distrust between the 

US and NATO continue. But yet another difference is that campaigns of misinformation on national 

security issues can now be directly targeted at active duty military personnel, veterans, and their friends 

and family. In our research memo "Junk News on Military Affairs and National Security" we make three 

observations. First, over Twitter we find that there are significant and persistent interactions between 

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current and former military personnel and a broad network of extremist, Russia-focused, and 

international conspiracy subgroups. Second, over Facebook, we find significant and persistent 

interactions between public pages for military and veterans and subgroups dedicated to political 

conspiracy, and both sides of the political spectrum. Third, over Facebook, the users who are most 

interested in conspiracy theories and the political right seem to be distributing the most junk news, 

whereas users who are either in the military or are veterans are among the most sophisticated news 

consumers, and share very little junk news through the network. 

Questions from Senator Manchin 

4) What modifications would you recommend to the large social media companies that would 

enable users to identify the source and potential funding of items posted on social media? 

I believe users should have access to two kinds of information: (I) the sources of funding that pay for 

the ads they see; (II) the ultimate beneficiaries of user data. This means that users should be able to go 

into their account profile and see a list of the organizations that have paid to place ads directed to them. 

It means that users should be able to see a list of the third party data mining firms, advertising firms, 

political actors, and foreign governments that are making use of data the user generated by using the 

social media platform. 

5) Should there be disclaimers on anything other than personal information? 

It would be great if users could explore the sources of all ads and content they are served. But this 

would be a huge volume of information so I believe it best to start with political news, information and 

ads. 

6) Should everything posted on social media have a "tag" that allows users to determine who 

posted information, even if it was re-posted or shared by another person, so you can always 

determine the actual source? 

Tracking the ultimate source of an ad or post would be interesting to some users. But most people post 

of the time don't think about politics. They turn to politics when there is an election or crisis brewing, 

and professional news outlets are working hard to draw public attention to current events. 

At election time, or during those sensitive political moments, users are more likely to want to know 

which lobbyists, political parties, candidates or PACs are benefiting from the data they have generated 

as users. 

Questions from Senator King 

7) At the hearing on August 1, 2018, I asked each witness to submit written policy 

recommendations to the Committee. Specifically, please provide recommendations on the 

following topics: 

a. Technical solutions, such as requirements to label bot activity or 

b. identify inauthentic accounts; 

c. Public initiatives focused on building media literacy; 

d. Solutions to increase deterrence against foreign manipulation; 

e. Any additional policy recommendations. 

2 
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There are two ways to protect democracy from the challenge posed by tech companies' dominance over 

socially valuable data. The first option is for governments to regulate content on an unprecedented 

scale. That would oblige public regulators to either review all social media content to judge its 

appropriateness or provide clear signals to private firms -whether the social media companies 

themselves or third parties - to perform such content reviews. But the problem with both scenarios is 

that they would create massive new censorship mechanisms that would further threaten democratic 

culture. 

Far preferable would be market regulations that guide firms on how and when they can profit from 

information about individuals. Such regulations would put the public back in charge of a valuable 

collective resource while still allowing citizens to express themselves individually by deciding what to do 

with their data. To get there, policymakers should focus on five basic reforms, all of which would put 

public institutions back into the flow of data now dominated by private firms. 

First, governments should require mandatory reporting about the ultimate beneficiaries of data. That 

means, when queried, technology firms should be required to clearly report to users which advertisers, 

data miners, and political consultants have made use of information about them. Your Facebook app or 

your smart refrigerator should be required to reveal, on request, the list of third parties benefiting from 

the information the device is collecting. The trail of data should be fully, and clearly, mapped out for 

users so that if a data-mining firm aggregates users' data and then sells it on to a political party, the 

users could still identify the ultimate beneficiary. 

Second, regulations should require social media platforms to facilitate data donation, empowering users 

to actively identify the civic groups, political parties, or medical researchers they want to support by 

sharing data with them. In freeing data from private actors, governments could create an opportunity 

for civic expression by allowing citizens to share it with whichever organizations and causes they want to 

support- not just the ones that can afford to buy it, as is the case today. Making data fully portable is 

only partly about creating some market opportunities for new startups, it is about allowing users to 

volunteer, participate and engage in a modern way, by contributing to the their data to the civic and 

public groups they want to support. 

The third reform is related to the second: Software and information infrastructure companies should be 

obliged to tithe for the public good. Ten percent of ads on social media platforms should be reserved for 

public service announcements, and 10 percent of all user data should be obliged to flow (in a secured 

way) to public health researchers, civic groups, professional journalists, educators, and public science 

agencies. Such a system would allow many kinds of advocacy groups and public agencies, beyond the 

social media firm's private clients, to use existing data to understand and find solutions for public 

problems. 

Fourth, the nonprofit rule on data needs to be expanded. Most democracies have rules that prevent 

firms from profiting from the sale of certain kinds of public data. In many US states, for example, datamining firms can't profit from the sale of voter registration data, which public agencies collect. This rule 

needs to be extended to a wider range of socially valuable data, like much of that collected in the US 

census, but is now gathered and held by technology companies. Such classes of information could then 

be passed to public agencies, thus creating a broader set of data in the public domain. 

Fifth, public agencies should conduct regular audits of social media algorithms and other automated 

systems that citizens now rely on for information. Technology companies will call these algorithms 

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proprietary, but public agencies currently audit everything from video gambling machines to financial 

trading algorithms, all in ways that don't violate intellectual property. Many kinds of political actors have 

accused technology firms of ideologically biased search and news algorithms. Usually such accusations 

are baseless, and the deeper problem is misinformation and computational propaganda. Independent 

review would help us all trust social media and ultimately our political institutions. 

Users should have access to clear explanations of the algorithms that determine what news and 

advertisements they are exposed to, and those explanations should be confirmed by regular public 

audits. Moreover, all ads, not just political ones, need to be archived for potential use by public 

investigators. Audits of today's technology would also put the designers of new technologies such as 

artificial intelligence- on notice that their own algorithms will one day be under scrutiny. 

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reportsecret. 

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1: hands, two gloves 

Network is based on account re . IP addresses confirm the same are UH1Hl1lH).; &Leil: ac

IP address A Russian Egermans IP address A Russian sigermon 

IP address A Russian turangala 

Russian rudemyanenko 

Russian georgiostr Russian LehaSerg Russian SpasiboWP 

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IRA activity: Summary 

statistics 

• The most frequently posted and engaged with 

websites on are primarily right-wing 

partisan sites, and fake sites created by the IRA 

that targeted African-Americans. 

• Sites targeting LGBTQ rights, gun rights, and other 

contentious issues also received significant focus. 

• They made several web sites and shared their own 

content, including blackmattersus.com. 

ihavethetruth.com 

pinknews.co.uk 

fwact.org 

yesimright.com 

washingtonexaminer.com 

bluelhiesmatter.blue 

conservativedailypost.com 

madworldnews.com 

ktxs.com 

1 

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168 

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Being Patriotic 

Stop A.L 

Heart of Texas 

Blacktivist 

United Muslims 

of AmErica 

Army of Je~,us 

Brown Power 

LGBT United 

South United 

BM 

Secured Borders 

Defend the 2nd 

Wil!iams&Kalvin 

Woke Blacks 

Back the Badge 

Veterans Come 

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IRA: Top 20 Domains Shared by 

Engagement (on k) 

... 

i 

shares likes 

domain 11 through 20 

blackmattersus.com 100092 142923 58469 301484 shares likes reactions fb_eng

patriotsus.com 7372 38361 9109 54842 domain 

breitbart.com 4660 11680 4914 21254 

brexitwatch.com 1737 468 696 

dailymail.co.uk 4927 10285 1651 16863 ny1.com 638 1918 178 

petitions.whitehouse.gov 641 4725 407 5773 

therebel.media 1262 804 618 

angrypatriotmovement.com 1006 3149 439 4594 

heatst.com 476 2050 112 

youtube.com 1087 2237 1026 4350 

pinknews.co.uk 336 1152 1131 

dailycaller.com 939 2149 639 3927 

salamerica.com 0 2286 224 

usherald.com 821 1818 528 3167 

fwact.org 652 1080 730 

ktxs.com 0 2811 354 3165 

represent. com 289 1983 180 

nation.foxnews.com 943 1044 416 

washingtonexaminer.com 431 1237 533 
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Texas deserves to become an independent Republic of Texas again! 
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Heart of Texas 

America's slowly but surely shifting towards turning into islamic state. Our 

president and our government are pro-islamic and don't want America to 

believe in our one and only Lord Jesus Christ. Texas will never keep step 

with U.S. 

Texas stays Christian even when odds are against us. 
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Stop A.t 

"Religious" face coverings are putting American people at huge risk! We 

must not sacrifice national security to satisfy the demands of minorities. 

All face covering should be banned in every state across America! 
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Being Patriotic 

We're facing attacks on our flags over and over. And believe me -taking 

our flags away from public places and erasing the heroes' names from our 

history is just the beginning. Just like attacks on our Second Amendment, 

the war on flags is nothing but a step to tyranny. We'll never give away our 

flags, our guns and our faith. God bless our America and every sacred 

symbol of our country. 
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The Office of the Texas Governor is offering a cash reward up to $15,000 

for information leading to the arrest of anyone connected to the execution 

of the San Antonio officer this past weekend. This reward will be combined 

to bring the total reward up to $25,000. 

The person who executed the officer had initially been described as a clean 

shaven black man who is approximately 5 feet 7 inches to 6 feet tall. 

Information has been updated to reflect that the man had a beard. He was 

wearing a hoodie, baggy pants, and a gray shirt. 

In order to be eligible for the cash reward, anyone with information can 

provide anonymous tips by: 

- Calling the San Antonio Crime Stoppers hotline at 21 0-224-STOP (7867). 

-Calling the Texas Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477). 

- Texting the letters "DPS" followed by your tip to 274637 (CRIMES) from 

your cell phone. 

-Submitting a tip online httj1S:.I/www•.tip,su!bmitcomi/W'eb·TipsCSI.asrJx!