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Recent news report on current Russian election meddling said that one propaganda #infoOps by the Kremlin was 2 convince Americans that instead of having a childhood stutter, Joe Biden was actually suffering from dementia cc @jonkarl @donie @oneunderscore__ https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1301153433324584960
Looking at our archives we confirmed seeing something very similar 2 the draft bulletin titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of US Candidates to Influence 2020 Election” from DHS analysts that was submitted to their public affairs office 4 review on July 7 but never released
As an example of Russian efforts to raise doubts about Biden's mental acuity, the draft bulletin points to a March story on a Russian proxy website that "refuted media claims that the candidate’s gaffes are a result of a stutter, instead arguing they were symptoms of dementia.”
We looked at our troll archives, including our Kremlin-aligned #Hamilton68 trolls & noticed that it appears this #infoOps started in earnest around March 1st, 2020 & continued into May & is likely ongoing. We continue 2 analyze nearly 700 tweets related to this specific #infoOps
It turns out the article that DHS analysts were referring to was this one by Caitlin Johnstone published on Mar 5 that was heavily promoted and boosted by Kremlin-aligned trolls both from the far-left and far-right. #infoOps #osint #infosec #disinfo
The next day on March 6th it was repackaged and published at Consortium News and Zerohedge and again further amplified and boosted. #infoOps #osint #infosec #disinfo
Turns out we also ran an advanced Twitter search collection on March 7th using the terms Biden AND dementia as we noticed it in a Twitter trend at the time. Not surprisingly the top influencers 4 this Kremlin supported propaganda #infoOps were on the far left and far right #osint
Caitlin Johnstone's article was the top referenced article from the data we collected on March 7th as a result of the Twitter trending data. #infoOps #osint #infosec #disinfo
Google Trends data can be a very useful supplement to something like this. This #infoOps appears quite targeted both in the boosting of alt-left and alt-right influencers and the spiking around March 3rd-4th in key battleground states which I will highlight next. #osint #disinfo
As I said the Google Trends data seems to show some interesting targeting. Searches related to this Kremlin backed #infoOps started to spike around March 3rd-4th in key battelground states and in areas not necessarily the most urban but rather key Trump districts within the state
Google Trends data is still rather crude, however sometimes you can see rather interesting international signals in Google trends. Here were just a few locations that seemed to suggest bursts of interest just prior to Caitlin Johnstone's article. There were others #infoOps #osint
And of course one should note the Google Trends signals coming from Russia. In this case it appears they at least weren't being overly overt about it and its not clear what particular troll farm they might have been using to boost and amplify this #infoOps #disinfo #osint
As I mentioned this was ongoing. Later in April Russian state media, Sputnik @\\SputnikInt published this impressive piece of self-serving propaganda. "Norwegian psychiatrist suggests Dem presidential candidate Joe Biden suffering from dementia" #infoOps #disinfo #osint
