Intensity of Influence

Content authors

A distinction should be made between content authors and post authors. Such match is possible if authors publish their materials on their pages/profiles. In the research, the authors of the content were identified either by the surname / pseudonym indicated in the text, or the anonymous text of the post was already identified on another resource with the specified author.

In 150 of 887 posts it was feasible to identify the content authors. 89 “experts” / opinion leaders / journalists acted as authors of the materials (Annex 2 shows the rating of authors who published more than two materials in ten days of research). In addition, an analysis of the author’s attitude to “Soros” demonstrated negative attitude in 79 authors, neutral attitude in 9 authors, and positive attitude in one author.

Intensity of Influence

Group members Account subscribers

Fig. 2. Potential audience of content with the keyword “Soros”

Posts distribution by dates

The previous stage was actually conducted in an “experimental” mode, the posts for analysis were selected on discrete dates, which makes it impossible to draw accurate conclusions about the information bursts.

Accurate detection of information shudders is possible only under the conditions of daily (weekly, monthly) analysis of information activity of the network on a certain topic .

Potential audience

The 887 analyzed posts were distributed by 301 groups (487 posts) and 335 accounts (400 posts). They have connections with other groups and accounts, which constitute a potential audience.

According to the analysis of the connections of the identified accounts and groups, a potential audience of content with the keyword “Soros” was estimates - about 6.8 million accounts (in other words - the actual potential number of accounts which might receive the notification of the new post, fig. 2). The majority of the audience (about 91%) were members of groups (over 6.2 million). Thus, groups are the main resource for the distribution of discrediting materials.

Active resources

Groups

The researchers identified 9 groups with the highest activity - each had no less than 6 posts during 10 days (Annex 3).

But the intensity of information influence depends not only on the number of relevant posts, but also on number of the group members that can read the publication. Therefore, the analysts identified 9 groups of more than 200 thousand members. ( Annex 4 ). Analysis of the number of posts in those groups has shown their irregular activation for targeted information attacks, although the potential of their influence is high.

The names of the most active groups already give grounds to state their anti-Ukrainian orientation.

Personal accounts

Active accounts were identififed by similar criteria: the number of posts (4 or more) and the total number of subscribers and friends (above 10 thousand). Results are shown in Annexes 5 and 6 .

Unlike the names of groups, personal accounts names do not provide understanding of their topics of interest. Therefore, if necessary, it is advisable to conduct additional research on account holders’ political affiliations and identifying bots.

Number of group memberships is one of the criterion for identifying bots. Several accounts with over one thousand group memberships were identified during the research, It is believed that the average person is not able (unless it is their job) to review over 100-120 posts (in fact, membership in 100-120 groups is considered natural). Therefore, discovered accounts with high confidence can be attributed to automated surveillance or information dissemination (e.g. bots) (Annex 7 ).

Sources of content

The analysis of the content of posts revealed 88 sources (websites, blog platforms, Telegram channels, video channels) of 175 materials (text, video) within 10-days research, excluding mutual reposts. The original source in this case should be understood as the source indicated in a reference in