Thread by @wiczipedia

Good morning! Day 1 of my trudging through the Russian ad dump is below.

Day 2 coming soon. But first, some observations of what I've read so far:

1. As we knew, the content sought to divide Americans on religious, racial, sexual & other social lines
2. A lot of the ads are positive and *not* divisive, seeking to build community before increasingly large asks (sharing, commenting, showing up to protests IRL)

3. In terms of "sophistication," the IRA was often very clumsy with their English & with targeting. Could they have been more effective? Undoubtedly. Did their efforts nonetheless have an impact? Absolutely. Their posts - many with a significant organic reach - reached millions.

4. The overtly political ads begin in March 2016. And that's where we begin our journey today...

#RussianAds #Facebook

This sort of ad becomes way more common beginning in Q3 2016.

#RussianAds #Facebook

Buff Bernie, in case you were wondering, didn't perform so well. 😂

A snippet from an "open letter to Hillary Clinton" from the IRA's "United Muslims of America" account. Generated a few thousand clicks; attempted to mobilize American Muslims against HRC.

#RussianAds #Facebook

Other than Buff Bernie, starting to see pro-Sanders ads pop up as we head deeper into 2016 primary season, particularly on the United Muslims of America page.

#RussianAds #Facebook

Headed into April 2016 now. A significant uptick in IRL events so far in 2016.

#RussianAds #Facebook

Lots of unfunny, unsuccessful memes from "Memopolis"

#RussianAds #Facebook

Russia's Internet Research Agency garnered 108k impressions on this Instagram post advocating for kids to be trained to use a gun.

#RussianAds #Facebook

Targeting students at seemingly random schools in CA (and WI?)

Love it when these little Russianisms come through. In Russia, a sheet of paper = лист (list).

#RussianAds #Facebook

This goes beyond even asking people to show up to protests- looking for surrogates in the US. Only one click generated; I wonder if Instagram is able to track if DMs are generated from a specific post? Conveniently, the engagement info on most of the Insta posts is not provided.

Oh my word.

#RussianAds #Facebook

Genius targeting technique: find the .001% of Americans who watched this 1997 Indian film because they clearly care about secured borders. 😂 Not one of the more successful ads.

#RussianAds #Facebook

This post about renaming schools in the South did quite well.

#RussianAds #Facebook

I'm sure this wasn't loaded with spyware or anything. 😉💁🏻‍♀️

#RussianAds #Facebook

(Happily, very few users interacted with these ads for "Facemusic," but you have to wonder what the goal was...)



#RussianAds #Facebook

HI! sorry. I've fallen down the rabbit hole looking into something. I'll be back ... eventually.