Reading between the redacted lines

The redacted Mueller report highlighted, at least from a tech perspective, much of what we’d already known since the indictments were first announced, including of course the top-line takeaway that Russia indeed sought to use Facebook and Twitter, largely through the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, to influence the 2016 election in then-candidate Donald Trump’s favor. Particularly noteworthy is that high-ranking members of the president’s inner circle including Kellyanne Conway, Brad Parscale, Michael Flynn and Donald Trump Jr. shared misinformation on social media apparently without realizing it came from Russia-linked internet trolls. As for fresh information — well, it’s anyone’s guess what’s hiding behind those redactions.

Still, there were some interesting bits to glean from what wasn’t hidden behind black highlights. “The report confirms many of the IRA’s tactics of targeting—and more importantly—engaging with specific demographics to drive them further away from center of the political spectrum,” notes Graham Brookie, director and managing editor of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. And it’s striking how extensively the report relies on Trump’s own tweets @realDonaldTrump gets cited dozens of times in footnotes — to help build the timeline of events and corroborate witness statements on comments the president made behind closed doors on a range of subjects, from his frustrations with former attorney Michael Cohen to his alleged attempts to squelch the investigation.