Report links Russian social media activity to MU protest rumors

A new report claims social media rumors surrounding protests at the University of Missouri mirrored those of Russian-linked “disinformation” accounts.

The report from Lt. Col. Jarred Prier appears in Strategic Studies Quarterly, a publication put out by the Air Force’s Air University. The paper discusses social media’s role in spreading fake news and how people manipulate trending stories.

The paper uses protests on the MU campus as a case study for the Russian government’s use of the tactic. It cites a tweet from a now-suspended account, @Fanfan1911, claiming the Ku Klux Klan was in Columbia, accompanied with a picture of a black boy with large bruises on his face.

“The cops are marching with the KKK!'” the tweet read. “‘They beat up my little brother! Watch out!'”

The picture, however, was of a boy beat by police officers in Ohio in 2013.

“The image and the narrative were part of a larger plot to spread fear and distrust,” Prier said. “It worked.”

The ploy had garnered hundreds of retweets from both real users and about 70 “bots,” or fake social media accounts meant to spread certain content. Payton Head, then the head of the Missouri Student Association, wrote that he had contacted law enforcement about “confirmed” sightings of the KKK, which ultimately turned out to be untrue.

A few months later, Prier wrote, the Twitter account changed its name and began tweeting in German about Syrian refugees. Prier said the topic and point-of-view the account took played alongside propaganda the Russian government was pushing at the time about emigration throughout Europe.

MU spokesman Christian Basi said that the report gives them some insight into how some rumors started in late 2015. Basi said he isn’t sure that the Russian government was behind the KKK rumor, but does help them look back on the situation.

“We knew pretty quickly that we were not dealing with individuals who had any ties to this campus,” Basi said. “This study helped to clarify a little bit of that.”

Campus police did investigate death threats made on social media surrounding the protests. Hunter Park, then a student at Missouri Science and Technology in Rolla, posted threats to black students at MU anonymously on Yik Yak.