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According to the report by the CIA, FBI, and
NSA in January 2017, there had been Russian
interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election. Between January 2015 and August 2017,
a total of 50,258 Twitter accounts were identified
as Russian bots -- fake accounts to share false
information to the internet. These bots created
at least 3.8 million tweets, which is about 19%
of the total tweets on the 2016 election. 80% of
the Russian bots were programmed to support Donald Trump.
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Russia’s goal was to lower America’s confidence in their
electoral system and to belittle Hillary Clinton. One
possibility Russia used social media to support Donald
Trump was Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, and
his contempt for Hillary Clinton. Back when riots took
place in Moscow during the announcement of Putin’s candidacy
for Russia’s president in March 2012, the Kremlin accused
the Secretary of State -- Hillary Clinton -- of encouraging
the incident.
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In the recent 2020 U.S. presidential election, Russia once
again supported Donald Trump over Joe Biden, but Facebook
took down three botnets spreading false information at the
end of August 2020. However, Russia continued to spread false
information about both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, in order
to further divide Americans.
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These Russian bots should not be underestimated, as they are
powerful in terms of speed and quantity. Since bots are
programmed, they spread fake information quicker than
real news, meaning they can drown social media with
false news to hide real information. Russian interference
through the spread of misinformation continues to be a threat
today towards Americans, raising uncertainty and lowering
confidence in the U.S. election system.
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