Russian hackers used Tumblr to spread 'fake news' during US election, company reveals

Blogging site collaborates with US Justice Department to see 13 people indicted over spread of propaganda and ties to shadowy Internet Research Agency

Joe Sommerlad
Monday 26 March 2018 14:59 BST
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Tumblr says it was targeted for the spread of fake news
Tumblr says it was targeted for the spread of fake news

Tumblr has revealed that it was used by Russian hackers to disseminate "fake news" in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election.

The blogging site says it only became aware of the situation late last year and reported it to the US Justice Department, collaborating with a subsequent investigation that led to the indictment of 13 individuals linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a shadowy organisation accused of trying to interfere in the campaign to the detriment of defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The exploitation of Facebook and Twitter by bots spreading disinformation and propaganda to boost Republican Donald Trump has been long established but Tumblr's targeting was previously undisclosed.

A Tumblr statement said 84 accounts "were being used as part of a disinformation campaign leading up to the 2016 US election."

"As far as we can tell, the IRA-linked accounts were only focused on spreading disinformation in the US and they only posted organic content. We didn't find any indication that they ran ads," the company said.

Tumblr has pledged to email "anyone who liked, reblogged, replied to, or followed an IRA-linked account with the list of usernames they engaged with" as part of a renewed commitment to transparency.

"We’ve decided to leave up any reblog chains that might be on your Tumblrs - you can choose to leave them or delete them," it added.

"We’re letting you decide because the reblog chains contain posts created by real Tumblr users, often challenging or debunking the false and incendiary claims in the IRA-linked original post.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's criminal investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin is ongoing.

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