A new report by Symantec indicates that the Russia misinformation campaign that aimed to interfere with the 2016 US election was even more sophisticated and extensive than previous research suggested.
The Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA), an organization that played a key role in the meddling efforts and has often been described as a “troll farm,” created it’s first misinformation accounts on social media platforms as early as 2014. The entire campaign was “highly professional” and planned far in advance, the report notes. Gillian Cleary of Symantec says that “while this propaganda campaign has often been referred to as the work of trolls, the release of the dataset makes it obvious that it was far more than that.
Read more: Russia Effort in 2016 US Election Was ‘Vast,’ ‘Professional’