Russian Trolls Used Buzzfeed’s Community Site to Spread Misinformation Ahead of UK’s Election
A Russian network of trolls used BuzzFeed’s open community boards to spread misinformation ahead of the United Kingdom’s elections, BBC reported Tuesday.
BBC traced the accounts to posts on BuzzFeed, blogging site Medium, social media site Quora and several other blogs and websites across the internet, the report notes. BBC examined a series of accounts on Reddit, which posted a list of the now-suspended accounts.
Unpaid volunteers are often responsible for posting much of the content on BuzzFeed’s Community section, which is separate from BuzzFeed News. The Community section typically houses silly quizzes and other joke articles that are not professionally edited.
The Community section contains BuzzFeed’s brand logo and colors but bears a disclaimer notifying readers that the news outlet’s editors have not “vetted or endorsed” the content on the site.
One of the Russian-linked Reddit accounts posted false information online and within a few minutes appeared, almost verbatim, on BuzzFeed’s Community Section, BBC reported. One account posted a post on the section that claimed to be an interview with a member of Britain’s MI6 secret service. (Read more from “Russian Trolls Used Buzzfeed’s Community Site to Spread Misinformation Ahead of UK’s Election” HERE)
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