Reddit bans Accounts Suspected of UK Vote Interference
Social media platform Reddit on Saturday concluded that people from Russia leaked confidential British government documents on Brexit trade talks just days before the general U.K. vote.
Reddit said that it has banned 61 accounts suspected of violating policies against vote manipulation. It said the suspect accounts shared the same pattern of activity as a Russian interference operation dubbed “Secondary Infektion” that was uncovered earlier this year.
Reddit investigated the leak after the documents became public during the campaign for Thursday’s election, which will determine the country’s future relationship with the European Union. All 650 seats in the House of Commons are up for grabs.
Reddit said it believed the documents were leaked as “part of a campaign that has been reported as originating from Russia.”
“We were able to confirm that they did indeed show a pattern of coordination,″ Reddit said.
Britain is currently scheduled to leave the 28-nation EU on Jan. 31.
Critics are questioning the British government’s failure to release a Parliament intelligence committee report on previous Russian interference in the country’s politics. They say it should have been made public before Thursday’s vote.
The Times of London reported, without saying how it got the information, that the intelligence report concluded that Russian interference may have affected the 2016 referendum on Britain’s departure from the EU, though the impact is “unquantifiable.”
Earlier this year Facebook discovered a Russian campaign on its platform, which was further analyzed by the Atlantic Council and dubbed “Secondary Infektion.”