But the findings of the report were not unalloyed good news. In one area, in particular, Mueller found deeply troubling activities from the Russians. The section on Russia’s informational campaign using social media to influence the election is damning and shocking. Much of the information it presents was already known, but seen summarized by Mueller, what they achieved was astounding.
Conducted by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian government-backed social media troll farm, the extent and reach of the operations is astounding. Collectively, the report says, "The IRA’s social media accounts reached 10s of millions of US persons." It also controlled Facebook groups such as "United Muslims of America," that had 300,000 followers when it was shut down in 2017.
In total the report says that at least 29 million and perhaps as many as 126 million people were reached by the propaganda campaigns. The danger of this is not merely that the propaganda might help determine the outcome of viewers’ voting decisions. What is far worse is that, on that scale, the Russians can make fringe, divisive positions and rhetoric appear to Americans to be, if not mainstream, at least vastly more prominent than they really are.
Even the news media was not immune to these efforts. The report outlines that on multiple occasions "U.S. media outlets also quoted tweets from IRA-controlled accounts and attributed them to the reactions of real U.S. persons." It is very possible, if not likely that the real target of the IRA was not to sway an election, but rather to sow discord and distrust among Americans. And it looks like the news media was an unwitting accomplice.
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