The impact of the social media campaign conducted by the Internet Research
Agency (IRA) during the 2016 U.S. presidential election continues to be a topic
of ongoing debate. While it is widely acknowledged that the objective of this
campaign was to support Donald Trump, the true extent of its influence on
Twitter users remains uncertain. Previous research has primarily focused on
analyzing the interactions between IRA users and the broader Twitter community
to assess the campaign's impact. In this study, we propose an alternative
perspective that suggests the existing approach may underestimate the true
extent of the IRA campaign. Our analysis uncovers the presence of a notable
group of suspended Twitter users, whose size surpasses the IRA user group size
by a factor of 60. These suspended users exhibit close interactions with IRA
accounts, suggesting potential collaboration or coordination. Notably, our
findings reveal the significant role played by these previously unnoticed
accounts in amplifying the impact of the IRA campaign, surpassing even the
reach of the IRA accounts themselves by a factor of 10. In contrast to previous
findings, our study reveals that the combined efforts of the Internet Research
Agency (IRA) and the identified group of suspended Twitter accounts had a
significant influence on individuals categorized as undecided or weak
supporters, probably with the intention of swaying their opinions.Comment: 13 Tables, 12 Figure