It is no secret that the Russian government has weaponized social media in an attempt to sew doubt, division and chaos among western governments. Now the website Hamilton 68 helps to monitor the stories being pushed by Putin.
The site is an effort of The Alliance for Securing Democracy is “a bipartisan, transatlantic initiative” whose advisory council includes Democratic and Republican foreign policy experts. It is financed by the German Marshall Fund (GMF).
The site tracks 600 Twitter accounts which have been identified as openly pro-Russia or similar. According to a blog post:
The list includes samples from three different networks:
- A network derived from openly pro-Russian users.
- A network derived from users who tweeted as part of a disinformation campaign linked to openly attributed Russian media.
- A network of accounts that engage in automated behavior (bots) on behalf of other accounts reflecting Russian messaging priorities.
The list includes the following types of users:
- Accounts likely controlled by Russian government influence operations.
- Accounts for “patriotic” pro-Russia users that are loosely connected or unconnected to the Russian government, but which amplify themes promoted by Russian government media.
- Accounts for users who have been influenced by the first two groups and who are extremely active in amplifying Russian media themes. These users may or may not understand themselves to be part of a pro-Russian social network.
The Hamilton 68 site gives you essentially the same information you would get if you monitored those 600 accounts all day including most popular tweets, most popular stories and most frequently shared URLs. It does not necessarily mean that all of these stories are false or completely false, only that these are the stories which Russia would like you to focus on. It also shows the times of the day and days of the week during which these accounts are most active.