Twitter is being gamed into boosting pro-Russia hashtags. Who’s behind them?

Days after Twitter removed accounts spamming pro-Russian hashtags amid the Ukraine invasion, an Australian misinformation researcher says that he’s found networks of accounts still manipulating the platform by spamming #IStandWithPutin.

Last week Twitter banned more than 100 accounts pushing the hashtag #IStandWithPutin for coordinated inauthentic behaviour — essentially claiming that they were trying to game the system to get this message trending. 

Misinformation researchers first noticed the networks because the accounts whose pro-Russian messages were going viral were small and used generic stock photos, two signs that they weren’t accounts belonging to real people. 

Now Queensland University of Technology’s Dr Timothy Graham says he’s found networks of accounts continuing to try to influence the platform that go far beyond what Twitter has acted on. 

Using network analysis to find accounts that were promoting the same #IStandWithPutin tweet in close proximity from a data set of 230,000 tweets, Graham was able to find different clusters of accounts acting in concert, including some that exhibited bot-like behaviour.  

“Pictured in this network is evidence of rampant, large-scale platform manipulation to get the hashtag “IStandWithP*tin” trending. It is far worse than Twitter admits,” he tweeted on Sunday, while also cautioning that this is just preliminary research. 

So is this proof these accounts are being controlled by a Kremlin puppetmaster to bend Western narratives on the Russia-Ukraine war? 

Without further evidence, it’s impossible to conclude who is behind these accounts. But the existence of pro-Putin messages being boosted by accounts that look like they’re being run by computers isn’t a smoking gun for Russian interference. 

Graham identified at least three groups of accounts: a suspected Arabic-language bot network; a group of spammers who are trying to hijack the #IStandWithPutin hashtag; a group of pro-Putin, anti-US, anti-NATO accounts from India.

Some of these accounts promoting the hashtag explicitly advertise that they are commercial services that exist to manipulate Twitter and other platforms, including by getting hashtags trending. 

What Graham’s research show is — regardless of the intent behind the accounts — a small number of accounts, seemingly controlled by an even smaller number of people who are running them as bots, are able to manipulate Twitter’s platform. The effect of this interference is that Twitter users are being hoodwinked as to how popular this pro-Russia message is.

Twitter has been contacted for comment.