The documents discovered by the Daily Beast are said to detail the Internet Research Agency’s efforts on Reddit.<\/p>\n
The site says the agency employed “online agitators” to help posts from its own propaganda websites rise to the top of Reddit.<\/p>\n
It says the organisation used proxy servers to mask the location of its work.<\/p>\n
Also targeted were the Yahoo-owned blogging platform Tumblr, and the viral joke site 9gag.<\/p>\n
![\"Heart](\"https:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/15137\/production\/_98572368_de27-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The Daily Beast said the documents – which the BBC has not seen – included the names of US-based activists who the Russians were trying to contact.<\/p>\n
The publication said its reporters contacted several of these people and confirmed online conversations had taken place.<\/p>\n
As has been a pattern with Russian efforts discovered to date, there is no outright support of any particular candidate or viewpoint.<\/p>\n
Instead it seems Russia’s aim was to provoke and divide Americans on the internet and, as a result, in the physical world too.<\/p>\n
‘Not provided evidence’<\/strong><\/p>\n The Daily Beast said it had given Reddit the opportunity to comment on the story, but that repeated requests were ignored.<\/p>\n Reddit replied on Friday, telling the BBC: “Reddit was not provided evidence of accounts or other data that would enable us to identify misuse or manipulation of the platform by users.”<\/p>\n Reddit has gained a reputation as being something of a haven for some of the more extreme views that have been pushed off other platforms like YouTube and Twitter.<\/p>\n The site consists of many user-generated sections, known as subreddits, that focus on a particular topic or place, such as r\/football or r\/SanFrancisco.<\/p>\n Submissions are up- or down-voted by other users, with the most popular rising to the top of each respective section.<\/p>\n Posts that are wildly popular make their way to the front page and thus an audience of several million around the world every day.<\/p>\n One particular subreddit, r\/The_Donald, is arguably the most powerful and coordinated pro-Donald Trump community on the internet, endorsed by the President himself who, while campaigning, used the forum to answer questions posted by users.<\/p>\n Reddit has taken several steps to limit r\/The_Donald’s impact, including blocking popular submissions from appearing on Reddit’s front page.<\/p>\n In a move he later apologised for, Reddit co-founder and chief executive Steve Huffman admitted personally editing comments posted on r\/The_Donald.<\/p>\n Trump supporters on the site accuse Reddit of censorship and bias, but other users accuse Reddit of doing too little, pointing to many instances in which posts on r\/The_Donald have gone against Reddit’s policies.<\/p>\n Mr Huffman acknowledged that some users on r\/The_Donald did break the site’s rules, but said the volunteer moderators on the section were proactive in removing such material.<\/p>\n Aside from information involving Reddit, the Daily Beast said the leaked documents included “at least 21” accounts on Tumblr, the blogging site acquired by Yahoo in 2013.<\/p>\n Oath, the Verizon company that now owns Yahoo, said the findings were “deeply disturbing”.<\/p>\n “We\u2019re committed to creating platforms consumers can trust, and any abuse of our services is deeply concerning to us,” it said.<\/p>\n Like Reddit, Oath has not been called upon to provide evidence to the various committees looking into the issue of Russian influence online.<\/p>\n Facebook, Twitter and YouTube-owner Google have all appeared in front of US politicians on several occasions to explain their investigations and subsequent efforts to prevent similar activity from Russia – or other countries – in the future.<\/p>\n Yet unlike its competitors, which have workforces in the tens of thousands, Reddit is a comparatively tiny company.<\/p>\n As of July last year, the company had just 230 employees, yet it is ranked the sixth most popular website on the internet by traffic monitoring service Alexa.<\/p>\n It has a so-called “anti evil” team to combat abuse, described in job postings as “small and scrappy”.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Russian propagandists targeted the popular news-sharing website Reddit to influence American political debate, a US website has claimed. It had been widely presumed that Reddit, a hub for campaigning, activism and often extreme views, would be a logical target for any manipulation. It has yet to publish its own investigation into Russian activity. Now news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":406096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106],"tags":[15533,954],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/895C\/production\/_100246153_whatsubject.jpg\")
<\/p>\n‘Disturbing’<\/h2>\n