August 24, 2018 global disclosure

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45294192

  1. Johns Hopkins University. “Vaccination was being used by trolls and sophisticated bots as a “wedge issue”, said Mark Dredze from Johns Hopkins University.”

  2. George Washington University: “A significant portion of the online discourse about vaccines may be generated by malicious actors with a range of hidden agendas,” said David Broniatowski from George Washington University.

  3. Going back to year 2014: “Troll accounts that had attempted to influence the US election had also been tweeting about vaccines, a study says. Many posted both pro- and anti-vaccination messages to create “false equivalency”, the study found. It examined thousands of tweets sent between 2014 and 2017.”

  4. Source is Russia / Kremlin: “The researchers reviewed more than 250 tweets about vaccination from accounts linked to the St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA)”

Back in August 2018, this was covered in every major news network across the world

  1. Fox News https://www.foxnews.com/tech/russian-trolls-bots-spreading-discord-over-vaccine-safety-scientists-say

  2. Canadian news: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/bots-and-russian-trolls-fuelling-vaccine-debate-on-twitter-us-study/

  3. Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald: https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/russian-trolls-twitter-bots-exploit-vaccine-controversy-20180824-p4zzgf.html