Doug Stanglin

USA TODAY

The "fake news" phenomenon that circulated thousands of phony stories during the election was aided by a sophisticated Russian propaganda effort, according to the Washington Post.

Independent researchers who tracked the bold operation say the goal was to punish Democrat Hillary Clinton, help Republican Donald Trump and undermine faith in American democracy, the newspaper reports.

Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment in the rancorous campaigns. Among the most-circulated stories were items on Clinton's health and fears about vote rigging.

“They want to essentially erode faith in the U.S. government or U.S. government interests,” said Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who co-authored a report on Russian propaganda, the Post reports. “This was their standard mode during the Cold War. The problem is that this was hard to do before social media.”

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In an article in the national security online magazine War On The Rocks, Watts, along with with co-authors Andrew Weisburd and J.M. Berger described a multi-pronged operation that bombarded social media with skewed items that then, often unwittingly, showed up in newsfeeds, posts and alternative news sites.

"A small army of social media operatives — a mix of Russian-controlled accounts, useful idiots, and innocent bystanders — are deployed to promote all of this material to unknowing audiences. Some of these are real people, others are bots, and some present themselves as innocent news aggregators, providing 'breaking news alerts' to happenings worldwide or in specific cities," the report says.

Weisburd is a fellow at the Center for Cyber & Homeland Security. Berger is an author and analyst studying extremism and the use of propaganda on social media.

A similar report from PropOrNot, which tracks propaganda, identifies more than 200 websites that regularly pushed Russian propaganda to some 15 million Americans. The analysts found bogus stories pushed on Facebook were viewed more than 213 million times.

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Some items originated from the Russian-funded information services, like RT and Sputnik, which produce both traditional news items and some misleading articles.

"A large-scale information campaign is deceptively injecting Russian propaganda into American public discourse online," ProporNot says on its website. "It operates on both the left and the right, generating thousands of fake news articles, memes, tweets, and videos. Collectively, this propaganda is undermining our public discourse by providing a warped view of the world, where Russia can do no wrong, and America is a corrupt dystopia that is tearing itself apart. It is vital that this effort be exposed for what it is: A coordinated attempt to deceive U.S. citizens into acting in Russia's interests."

RT responded Friday with an article that said the Post was "blasted online" for what it called "its latest hit-piece." It also said the FPRI, where one of the analysts, Watts, is a fellow, was founded in 1955 to mobilize opposition to the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was criticized by Sen. William Fulbright, who was "a vocal opponent of McCarthyism."

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In October, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community accusing the Russian government of directing hacking operations on U.S. political organizations and individuals. Emails and documents hacked from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta surfaced repeatedly on WikiLeaks during the campaign.

Last week, President Obama denounced the attention generated by fake news, saying, “If we are not serious about facts and what’s true and what’s not ... If we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems.”