Pro-Russian internet trolls fueled claims that Scotland’s independence referendum in 2014 was rigged, and amplified demands for a revote.

The behavior of these accounts is pro-Kremlin, and consistent with the behavior of accounts know to be run by the so-called “troll factory” in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the United States 2016 presidential election. However, it is not possible to determine from open sources whether some or all of the accounts are independent actors, or linked to Russian information operations.

Given the concerns expressed in the United Kingdom over the support of Russian trolls for Brexit, and in the U.S. over Russian interference in the 2016 election, much more research is needed into the activity of pro-Kremlin trolls around Scottish independence, and much more investment is needed into building Britain’s resilience against online disinformation.

The referendum and the results

Scotland’s independence referendum was held on September 18, 2014. The referendum asked a single question:

Should Scotland be an independent country?

With a turnout of 84.59 percent, the “No” campaign (which, with a very British touch, campaigned as “No thanks”) won 55.3 percent of the vote, to the “Yes” campaign’s 44.7 percent.

Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond accepted the vote in the early hours of September 19. He said, “I call on all of Scotland to follow suit in accepting the democratic verdict of the people of Scotland.”

Claims of fraud

However, almost as Salmond was speaking, claims of fraud began to circulate online. The fraud claims included a number of videos, which purported to show vote-rigging. The most influential was a video posted by “Elite NWO agenda”, which was viewed over 800,000 times. NWO stands for the conspiratorial “New World Order”, a theory of a secret elite plot to dominate the world.

The YouTube video on election fraud, archived on May 18, 2015. (Source: YouTube / NWO)

The post used video and still photos to claim the vote was rigged. The claims were debunked, but links to the video continued to circulate online.

Most of the accounts that shared it appear unexceptionably Scottish-focused; however, a significant minority, especially among the earliest accounts to post, look more like pro-Kremlin trolls. These accounts were among the most vocal amplifiers of the video — posting it repeatedly and tagging different users.

For example, @w_nicht posted the link several times on the morning of September 19, 2014.