Tumblr Links 84 Fake Accounts to Russian Propaganda Campaign

Tumblr is the latest social media service to uncover Russian state-sponsored efforts to spread propaganda during the 2022 presidential ballot.

On Friday, Tumblr said information technology linked 84 accounts to the Internet Research Agency, an organization accused of running an internet troll farm for the Russian government.

Tumblr uncovered the simulated accounts last fall and shut them down. "What makes them so difficult to spot is that they're not spambots. They're real people who get trained and paid to spread propaganda," the company said.

Tumblr Account Russia

BuzzFeed reported on the problem in February, when a researcher noticed that Russian-controlled Tumblr accounts were posing as black activists. The accounts offered critical takes on Hillary Clinton, local constabulary, and white people via memes, animated GIFs, and shared tweets written in English—leaving little reason to suspect the content came from Russian federation.

Tumblr Account Russia 2

Tumblr remained quiet on the matter until Friday when the service explained it had been helping the Department of Justice investigate the imitation accounts. This culminated in a federal indictment last month that charged the Cyberspace Research Agency and 13 suspects of trying to meddle in the US election through imitation social media accounts.

Tumblr now plans on emailing users who liked, reblogged, replied to, or followed any of the Russian-controlled accounts. "Second, nosotros're going to start keeping a public record of usernames we've linked to the IRA (Cyberspace Research Agency) or other state-sponsored disinformation campaigns," the service said.

The account names include "bleepthepolice," "4mysquad," "swagintherain," "black-to-the-bones," and "stopropaganda." Tumblr is too advising its users to be on baby-sit against future misinformation campaigns. The states intelligence officials have warned that foreign agents could very well strike social media again, it said.

In the concurrently, Tumblr said it'll monitor account activity for signs of bad actors, and remove the offending accounts. "Disinformation campaigns work because they know people don't fact check," Tumblr said. "Look for reliable sources, and double-bank check that the source really says the same thing every bit the post."