The US 2016 presidential election & Russia’s troll farms

ABSTRACT

The Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) prosecuted an online campaign to undermine the 2016 US presidential election. It sought to accentuate existing social conflicts to affect the electoral behaviour of select groups. However, the IRA’s actual effect on the election outcomes, as assessed through its effect on its specifically targeted regions, was minimal. Nonetheless, the Kremlin successfully exploited the shock of Trump’s victory to exaggerate the apparent effect of Russian intervention. By seemingly fecklessly denying an apparently successful covert action, Moscow further challenged the legitimacy of the US election and degraded the coherence of US strategic decision making.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Saad, “Trump and Clinton Finish With Historically Poor Images,” 1.

2. Jamieson, Cyberwar, 229–30.

3. Allen and Parnes, Shattered: inside Hillary Clinton’s doomed campaign; Tur, Unbelievable: my front-row seat to the craziest campaign in American history; Green, Devil’s bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the storming of the Presidency; Clinton, What happened; Jamieson, Cyberwar; Isikoff and Corn, Russian Roulette; and Miller, The Apprentice.

4. Jones, Russian Meddling in the United States, 2–5.

5. Chen, The Agency; Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018.”; and DiResta et al., The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency.

6. Morozova, “Russian Politics of Deception.”

7. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Assessing Russian Intentions in Recent US Elections,” ii-iii.

8. Ibid.

9. The Grand Jury for the District of Columbia, United States v Internet Research Agency LLC et al., Criminal No. 1:18-CR-00032-DLF (2018).

10. Ibid.

11. Silver, FiveThirtyEight.

12. United States Senate, “Statement of James R. Clapper,” 5.

13. Graff, Hackers, Hecklers, and Honeypots, 1.

14. Timberg et al., “U.S. Senate releases trove of Russian Facebook ads,” 1.

15. Miller, The Apprentice, 363.

16. Jamieson, Cyberwar.

17. Mayer, “How Russia helped swing the election for Trump,” 1.

18. Baker, “For Trump and the System.” 2.

19. Snider, “Robert Mueller investigation,” 1–2.

20. Chen, The Agency, 7–8.

21. DiResta, “Statement for the Record from Renee DiResta; and Singer and Brooking, LikeWar.

22. Sanger, The perfect weapon.

23. Hsieh, “Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC),” 1.

24. Rawnsley, “Pentagon Wants a Social Media Propaganda Machine,” 1–2.

25. Dao, “Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad,” 1–3.

26. Galeotti, “The ‘Gerasimov doctrine’and Russian non-linear war,” 1.

27. Sanger, The perfect weapon, 139.

28. Chen, The Agency, 3.

29. Sanger, The perfect weapon, 139.

30. Chen, The Agency, 3.

31. Ibid., 4–5.

32. Blidner, Russian agency creates army of trolls to spread Internet panic, propaganda.

33. Chen, The Agency.

34. The Grand Jury for the District of Columbia, United States v Internet Research Agency LLC et al., Criminal No. 1:18-CR-00032-DLF (2018) 1.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid., 11.

37. Ibid., 11–12.

38. Lee, The tactics of a Russian troll farm.

39. Sanger, The perfect weapon, 185–86.

40. See note 38 above.

41. The Grand Jury for the District of Columbia, United States v Internet Research Agency LLC et al., Criminal No. 1:18-CR-00032-DLF (2018), 13.

42. Ibid.

43. DiResta et al., The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency, 11.

44. See note 9 above.

45. Johnson and Daugherty, Covert Action: Strengths and Weaknesses.

46. See note 16 above.

47. Eileen J. Leamon, Federal elections 2016: election results for the U.S. president, the U.S. senate and the u.s. house of representatives.

48. Krogstad and Lopez, “Black voter turnout fell in 2016, even as a record number of Americans cast ballots,” 1.

49. Ibid.

50. Krogstad and Lopez, “Black voter turnout fell in 2016, even as a record number of Americans cast ballots,” 1.

51. Ibid.; and Lopez and Taylor, Dissecting the 2008 electorate.

52. Griffin et al., “Voter trends in 2016: A final examination.”

53. Krogstad and Lopez, “Black voter turnout fell in 2016, even as a record number of Americans cast ballots.”

54. Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018,” 24.

55. Donie O’Sullivan, The unwitting.

56. Ibid.

57. Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018,” 24.

58. Allen and Parnes, Shattered.

59. Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018,” 24.

60. Ibid. 24.

61. See note 52 above.

62. Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018,” 24.

63. See note 58 above.

64. See note 52 above.

65. Mayer and DeCrescenzo, Supporting Information.

66. Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018,” 24.

67. See note 52 above.

68. Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018,” 24.

69. Allen and Parnes, Shattered, 397.

70. Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018,” 24.

71. See note 52 above.

72. Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018,” 24.

73. See note 9 above.

74. Howard et al., “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018,” 24.

75. See note 9 above.

76. DiResta et al., The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency.

77. Ibid., 78.

78. See note 9 above.

79. Cleary, Twitterbots.

80. See note 16 above.

81. Clinton, What happened, 403.

82. Ibid., 406.

83. Allen and Parnes, Shattered, 392.

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid., 396.

86. Abramowitz, Did Russian Interference Affect the 2016 Election Results?, 1–2.

87. Mueller, “Report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election,” 14–36.

88. Ibid., 4.

89. Ibid., 27–29.

90. See note 79 above.

91. Mueller, The Mueller Report.

92. Ibid., 29.

93. Ibid., 23–24.

94. Aldrich and Cormac, “Grey is the new black.”

95. The Grand Jury for the District of Columbia, United States v Internet Research Agency LLC et al., Criminal No. 1:18-CR-00032-DLF (2018), 23.

96. Ibid., 6.

97. Ibid., 17.

98. See note 9 above.

99. Leamon, Federal elections 2016.

100. Ibid.

101. Ibid.

102. Ibid.

103. Ibid.

104. Ibid.

105. Ibid.

106. Ibid.

107. State of Michigan Secretary of State, 2016 Michigan Election Results.

108. Ibid.

109. See note 99 above.

110. Ibid.

111. Ibid.

112. Ibid.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen McCombie

Stephen McCombie is currently a Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security at Macquarie University in Australia. His research interests are in cyber security, digital forensics, cyber threat intelligence and information warfare. His research draws on a diverse background in policing, security and information technology. His PhD thesis examined the impact of Eastern European cyber crime groups on Australian banks.

Allon J. Uhlmann

Allon J. Uhlmann is a lecturer in intelligence studies and cyber security at Macquarie University. He researches distributed cognition, intelligence policy and information warfare. A former anthropologist and public servant, he is author of Arabic Instruction in Israel: Lessons in Conflict, Cognition and Failure (Brill, 2017) and Family, Gender and Kinship in Australia: The Social and Cultural Logic of Practice and Subjectivity (Ashgate, 2006).

Sarah Morrison

Sarah Morrison is a Senior Cyber Security Consultant and has over ten years experience working in Fraud and Security Risk Management. Sarah’s experience extends to both the public and private Sector, having worked for various government organisations and within the Banking industry. Sarah has spent the last three years in a research and teaching support position within the Security Studies and Criminology Department at Macquarie University and is currently undertaking her PhD in Russian Cyber Operations at Swinburne University of Technology.