Ben Nimmo on the Return of the Internet Research Agency
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 September 2020
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Alina Polyakova and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Ben Nimmo, the director of investigations at Graphika. Ben has come on the podcast before to discuss how he researches and identifies information operations, but this time he talked about one specific information operation: a campaign linked to the Internet Research Agency “troll farm.” Yes, that’s the same Russian organization that Special Counsel Robert Mueller pinpointed as responsible for Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election on social media. They’re still at it, and Graphika has just put out a report on an IRA-linked campaign that amplified content from a fake website designed to look like a left-wing news source. They discussed what Graphika found, how the IRA’s tactics have changed since 2016 and whether the discovery of the network might represent the rarest of things on the disinformation beat—a good news story.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | Let's look at what was interesting, why it's interesting that they were using GAN-generated |
| 0:37.4 | faces. |
| 0:38.4 | It was interesting that they were using real people to write for them, but it's also interesting |
| 0:43.1 | that it didn't work. |
| 0:44.5 | And so not only do you have a much better network in place across the platforms of Law |
| 0:52.2 | Enforcement and the research community who are looking out for this kind of stuff, you |
| 0:56.4 | actually have a much more experienced press call who are reporting on it and they know |
| 1:01.0 | the kind of questions to answer and they know the kind of points to look for. |
| 1:04.9 | And if you put all that together it makes for a much healthier environment than we had |
| 1:11.2 | four years ago or even a year ago. |
| 1:14.8 | I'm Quinja Jurexic and this is the LawFair podcast September 10, 2020. |
| 1:22.1 | This week on our Arbordos of Truth series on disinformation, Alina Poliakova and I |
| 1:26.6 | spoke with Ben Nimmo, the director of investigations at Graphica. |
| 1:31.8 | Ben has come on the podcast before to discuss how he researches and identifies information |
| 1:36.3 | operations, but this time when we invited him on to talk about one specific operation, |
| 1:42.9 | a campaign linked to the Internet Research Agency troll farm. |
| 1:47.5 | Yes, that's the same Russian organization that special counsel Robert Mueller pinpointed |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.