USA Really’s Facebook page, as it appeared on May 28 (archived link)

As the awkward name suggests, this venture isn’t the most sophisticated operation. However, its existence shows that Russia is still actively pursuing new avenues to reach American audiences (particularly Trump supporters, as you’ll see shortly)—and despite all the congressional hearings and headlines about digital manipulation, a clearly Russian-backed project was able to establish (and in at least one case, maintain) a presence on two of the largest social media platforms in America.

The Who, What, and Why of “USA Really”

The following section briefly describes the “who, what and why” of “USA Really,” focusing on who is behind the venture and who works for it, what type of content the propaganda outlet is creating, and why this new platform may have been established in the first place.

Who?

The Funders: While some attempts were made to obscure its ties to the Internet Research Agency, it’s not difficult to trace “USA Really” back to the Russian-funded organization.

As Lawrence Alexander found in his technical analysis of “USA Really,” at least nine different domains— including usareally.com, usareally.net, usareally.org, usareally.biz, usareally.us, usareally.space, americareally.info, usareally.info, and usareally.ru—were all registered on April 4, 2018 using the name “USAReally” (or, in one case, “AmericaReally”).

The website lists its contact email as work@usareally.com, but the designated mail server for USAReally.com is mx.yandex.net — part of Russia’s Yandex service.

Of the nine domains registered on April 4, all but one were registered anonymously using regprivate.ru, which is part reg.ru — a Russian domain registrar used previously by the Internet Research Agency.

Domain registry details for USA Really.com

However, one of the domains, USAReally.us, left identifiable information on the domain registry page. The person listed as the registrant is Evgenii Zubarev, the CEO of RIA FAN, which actually shares a building with the Internet Research Agency.

Domain registry details for USAReally.us, one of a number of domains registered on April 4, 2018, under the name “USAReally”

Furthermore, as Lawrence Alexander described, “On April 4, no more than a few hours after the USAReally domains had been registered, at least 20 such VK [a Russian equivalent of Facebook] pages (including PolitDigest, Politstar and Putin Speaks) published links to the RIA FAN press release.”

And long before the emergence of “USA Really,” the links between RIA FAN and the Internet Research Agency were already thoroughly documented.

The Authors: So who works for this Internet Research Agency-backed venture? In short, the same authors who work at other Russian propaganda outlets.

Andrew Korybko, one of the authors who writes for “USA Really,” is also listed as an author at Sputnik and several other Russian propaganda outlets. Though his name is spelled differently by one letter on “USA Really,” the disclaimer at the bottom of his articles on the website is nearly identical to a disclaimer displayed as his pinned tweet on Twitter.

Walt Garlington, another “USA Really” author who wrote, among other things, an article advocating for Louisiana to secede from the rest of the U.S., is also listed as an author for several other Russian propaganda outlets, including a think tank run by extremist Russian nationalist Aleksandr Dugin and a Romanian nationalist website that is one of many channels carrying Russian propaganda into Romania. According to his bio on these websites, the author “makes his home in Louisiana of Dixie.” His bio on “USA Really” also says he “once worshiped a false god: the Idea of America.”

The Social Network: Shortly after the site launched, “USA Really” established social media profiles on both Facebook and Twitter.

I started monitoring @USA_Really’s Twitter profile the day after the account was created on May 25, so I was able to observe the account’s activity as it started following people, gaining followers, tweeting, and engaging with tweets. I started archiving material on May 27, two days after the account was created, and continued doing so for three days. I started monitoring and archiving material from “USA_Really’s” Facebook page the day it was created (May 27), and continued doing so for three days.

At the time of this writing, the Twitter page is still active, but the Facebook page has been deactivated.

At approximately 5 p.m. EST on May 28, @USA_Really had only 29 Twitter followers, but it was actively gaining more at a pace that would quickly speed up over the next several days. By 6:30 p.m., it was up to 35 followers. By late in the day on Saturday, June 2, it was up to 495 followers, and by 10 p.m. EST on Monday, June 4, it was up to 527 followers.

On May 28, @USA_Really was following 589 accounts. By June 3, it was following 1,721 accounts, but a day later that number had dropped back down to 1,709 accounts. The drop in the number of accounts followed by @USA_Really could reflect a number of things — for example, it’s possible that some of those accounts were banned or suspended, or that some of them blocked @USA_Really when it started following them. It’s also possible that @USA_Really stopped following certain accounts in an effort to erase its digital footprints.

‏The most noteworthy characteristic of @USA_Really’s Twitter profile is that the earliest accounts it followed — and the earliest accounts that followed it back—were almost exclusively embedded within a pro-Trump network. Many of the accounts bear the hallmark characteristics of the Russian-backed accounts that were used to boost Trump during the 2016 election, including “patriotic” symbolism (e.g., flags, eagles, etc) and excessive use of hashtags and emojis, while others featured Christian symbols and imagery.

The pro-Trump, “patriotic” theme characterizing @USA_Really’s Twitter network is particularly apparent when viewing the small group of accounts that were the first to follow @USA_Really, as you can see below.