During the election there was a sudden surge of pro-Boris Johnson Facebook comments which looked like Russian bots.

I interviewed some of the commenters. They were British pranksters: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-50218615">https://www.bbc.com/news/blog... https://twitter.com/jdpoc/status/1252510122414399488">https://twitter.com/jdpoc/sta...

It was & #39;inauthentic behaviour& #39;, but not Russian bots, but ordinary Brits winding up their opponentshttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Down pointing backhand index" aria-label="Emoji: Down pointing backhand index">

A screensbot of this tweet went viral back in November as evidence of a nefarious Russian bot campaign.

I verified Dan& #39;s identity and he told me "I am not a bot - it was just a satirical comment"

With @mariannaspring & @mwendling I reported on last year& #39;s & #39;digital election& #39;, digging online, and interviewing people around the UK.

Our overwhelming takeaway: ordinary Brits, not nefarious plots, are overwhelmingly the source of online political havoc. https://twitter.com/josephmdurso/status/1208058091327098880">https://twitter.com/josephmdu...

Foreign interference, sinister government plots... these are real things that have happened around the world, and we should all be vigiliant.

But it& #39;s generally less likely than a few people taking the piss, so think carefully before RTing stuff that confirms your biases.