Russia used Twitter bots and trolls to disrupt Brexit vote

[sl8]

Source: The Times

Russian Twitter accounts posted more than 45,000 messages about Brexit in 48 hours during last year’s referendum in an apparently co-ordinated attempt to sow discord, The Times can reveal.

More than 150,000 accounts based in Russia, which had previously confined their posts to subjects such as the Ukrainian conflict, switched attention to Brexit in the days leading up to last year’s vote, according to research for an upcoming paper by data scientists at Swansea University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Read more: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russia-used-web-posts-to-disrupt-brexit-vote-h9nv5zg6c

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Many Russian accounts which went on a spree of tweets about Brexit were also strongly supportive of President Putin
ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/RIA NOVOSTI, KREMLIN POOL PHOTO VIA AP

[hlthe2b]

1. I wonder if Britain could use this as justification for a legal re-vote...

Seems there is a lot of regret...?

[DetlefK]

3. British politicians suffer from imperial delusions.

They think that exiting the EU will allow them to negotiate a deal where they have all the upsides of being an EU-member but none of the downsides. That why the exit-negotiations are so difficult: Britain doesn't realize that they need Europe more than Europe needs them.
What happens when Britain suddenly has problems selling their goods to Europe???

They think that a great Britain freed from the shackles of EU-membership will be a major geopolitical player again. I predict the opposite: I predict a country with a weak and sluggish economy, desperate for business-partners. This business-partner will be Russia and Russia will ramp up their already massive secret intelligence operations in Britain. (Russian assassins are killing Russians critical of Putin in Britain and Britain is too afraid to confront Russia about this.)

[stuffmatters]

6. Hope so. Could set a valuable prescedent for our own current Troll Govt.

[nini]

2. Of course they did

They're also doing the same in Spain etc.

They want complete chaos all over the world and they're getting away with it because people have their heads up their rears.

[rockfordfile]

4. yeah of course Russia was involved.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Greenwald and Snowden were unavailable for comment...