Mueller report sparked an increase in Russian misinformation

Details: SafeGuard maintains a database of 600,000 "bad actors" — a mix of automated accounts (bots) and manually controlled accounts (trolls). SafeGuard attributes many, not all, to Russia.

• Russian bots and trolls increased their rate of posting by 286% on April 16, the day Mueller's report was released, and the number of unique accounts posting increased by 48%.
• It's pretty clear what they were talking about. The top 5 hashtags were #mueller, #muellerreport, #trump, #barr, and #russia, with the rate of #muller increasing more than 50-fold.

What they're saying: "The goal here is to get out the content with so much force that getting one or two retweets a time will reach a huge audience," said George Kamide, director at SafeGuard.

• "We didn't just see an increase in activity, we saw an increase in the potency of the accounts used," he said.
• In the days leading up to the report, the average account the company classifies as Russian had 13,500 followers. After the report was released, that number spiked to 18,600.

Go deeper:

• Why the Mueller report didn't make a decision on obstruction of justice
• 7 takeaways from the Mueller report