So I've been toying around with some of the data on other social media platforms, now that much of it has been made publicly available. I'm looking forward to doing a more systematic analysis of the content. In the meantime, however, here are some counts of IRA activities on different social media platforms from 2015 to 2017.
I was somewhat surprised to see that the time series did not line up as neatly as I thought they would have. Perhaps these strategies are meant to complement each other? This is where a deeper dive into the content or the account would be more useful. For example, perhaps conservative-imitating IRA accounts (e.g., Twitter's @TEN_GOP) responded to different things compared to liberal imitating IRA accounts (e.g., Facebook/Twitter's @Blacktivist group).
Given the pending lockdown of information regarding this case, it is more important than ever to share and verify this information. It's a shame researcher do not get much access to this kind of data, as scientific rigor should be the minimum standard for analyzing potential foreign influences into American elections.