Tumblr confirms 84 Russian accounts were used to spread disinformation

[Ink]

Source: Tumblr confirms 84 Russian accounts were used to spread disinformation

"Just a month after accusations from researchers and Buzzfeed, Tumblr confirmed today that it uncovered 84 user accounts linked to the Russian government and its Internet Research Agency (IRA). The company says that these accounts were used in conjunction with a disinformation campaign to influence the elections. Tumblr notified law enforcement, terminated the accounts and deleted the original posts.

The company says that the IRA employed more than a thousand people to engage in electronic disinformation campaigns around the world using fake social media accounts. It also reports that the IRA-linked Tumblr accounts were only focused on the US and weren't advertising, but rather organic content. In response, the company will email everyone who liked, reblogged, replied to or followed an IRA-linked account with the usernames included."

Blog post
We’re taking steps to protect against future interference in our political conversation by state-sponsored propaganda campaigns

Public List of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns
Public record of usernames linked to state-sponsored disinformation campaigns

 

[Deleted member 65228]

It is true that Tumblr are taking measures to improve their service and prevent unwanted/inappropriate content, I witnessed some changes break the functionality of some spamming campaigns I noticed on social networks recently.

There was a Facebook page which has since been taken down (a few weeks ago) which was tricking people into consenting rights/permissions, allowing the app being promoted to auto-spam with the users private messages. However, the spam messages were linking to a Tumblr website.

Turns out the Tumblr website being linked to had adult material on it, and Tumblr updated how their service works to enforce registration and signing in to proceed. Therefore, they indirectly killed the spam campaigns.