Reddit Boots 944 Accounts Linked To Russian Troll Factory

Reddit has close down 944 accounts over their suspected ties to the Russian "troll farm," the Internet Inquiry Agency.

The well-nigh popular account "u/rubinjer" managed to gain thousands of upvotes by posting memes and images disquisitional of Hillary Clinton and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz. The account even uploaded an animated gif of a faux Clinton sex tape nether the title: "This is how Hillary gets black votes."

On Tuesday, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman posted the full list of afflicted accounts. Information technology comes as the company has been cooperating with Congress on investigating Russian efforts to exploit US social media during the 2022 election.

The Net Research Agency, which is based in Saint petersburg, Russia, has been defendant of hiring hundreds of employees to spread state-sponsored propaganda under fake social media profiles. In February, federal investigators indicted the bureau for its office in trying to influence Usa voters during the 2022 election.

On Reddit, all 944 accounts have been banned from the platform. Simply in the involvement of transparency, the company has decided to leave the account histories online, giving the public a detailed view of what the suspected internet trolls decided to post.

Reddit Russian Troll

Ironically, the Russian trolls besides gained thousands of upvotes on Reddit by sharing apolitical content including videos of cute dogs and cats.

Other content shared was disquisitional of constabulary officers or US politics in general. One of the height subreddits the trolls posted to was Bad_Cop_No_Donut, a customs devoted to stories around law enforcement abuse.

The second most popular Russian-controlled account was "u/shomyo," which was likewise the moderator of a subreddit that focused on news that Reddit was supposedly suppressing. Posts included links to real media manufactures with the headlines "Fifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country" and "Russia Collusion: Hillary Clinton, DNC and FBI are the Real Stars."

Together, the 944 accounts made 14,000 posts to the platform, Reddit's CEO said. 316 of them went to President Donald Trump'south subreddit page. Another 214 went to the subreddit on racism.

Reddit Russian Troll 2

Only 13 of the 944 accounts managed to gain a Reddit karma score of over 10,000, which is calculated based on how many upvotes and downvotes their posts receive. 662 of the accounts had a karma score of zilch, and shared little to no posts on Reddit.

A month agone, Reddit's CEO said the company had shut downward a "few hundred" Russian troll accounts, merely his mail on Tuesday indicates that the service continues to uncover more.