The Russian digital agency Mueller indicted ran like 'a propaganda startup'

A phone screen with social media icons
(Image credit: iStockphoto)

Along with 13 Russian nationals, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team targeted three Russian organizations in the indictment announced Friday. Among them was a group called the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which The Wall Street Journal reports operated like "a propaganda startup," complete "with finance and graphics departments, performance targets, and a sophisticated social-media strategy designed to gain maximum attention."

The IRA's troll factory operated with the precision of, well, a factory, the Journal story says. "Operational goals were subject to internal audits," and messaging was tightly policed. The monthly budget was about $1.25 million, money spent refining online targeting to increase engagement with social media users who believed they were talking to fellow Americans.

But the action wasn't all online. The IRA used its digital reach to "organize flash-mobs in Florida," to "pay a U.S. resident to dress up like Hillary Clinton in a prison uniform at a West Palm Beach rally," and to "promote several pro-Trump rallies." Read the Journal's full report here.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.