With a multimillion-dollar budget at its disposal—source still unknown—the Internet Research Agency (IRA) set to work recruiting twentysomething news writers, graphics designers, and “search engine-optimization specialists” with $1,400 weekly salaries, more than four times what they could make anywhere else. On one floor, Russian trolls operating in rotating twelve-hour shifts created and deployed hundreds of fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter to pummel anyone who criticized their master, Vladimir Putin. On another floor, the IRA trolls waited for their daily assignment: a list of America’s
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