L ESSON 16: W HEN THINGS GO WRONG

In 2016, Russian Bots Were Busy Supporting Brexit, Too

Russians agents sure do seem to love Twitter. Before and after the Brexit vote in June 2016,
more than 156,000 bots and troll accounts that had Russian registered as their language were
posting in English in support of the British departure from the European Union. According
the New York Times' report on a new study, those accounts tweeted about Brexit 45,000 times
in the final 48 hours before the vote.

A separate report from the Guardian on Tuesday detailed that 3,500 tweets with Brexit-
related hashtags came from 419 of the 2,752 accounts Twitter identified to Congress as
stemming from the Kremlin-supported Internet Research Agency.

These accounts were definitely using Brexit hashtags, Laura Cram, a professor from the
University of Edinburgh who co-authored the research on the Russian accounts shared with
Congress, said in the New York Times. But we cannot say whether they were primarily trying
to influence Brexit or whether it was a side effect of them trying to wreak discord generally.
Seventy percent of these accounts were actually tweeting their Brexit content after the
election. It is similar to what weve seen in the U.S., where bots and trolls continued to use
their large social media following well after the 2016 election. After the alt-right rally in
Charlottesville, for example, Russian-linked bots were tweeting divisive and counterfactual
content that appeared tailored to deepen American political divisions.

This news comes a day after the British governments lead cybersecurity official, Ciaran Martin
of the National Cyber Security Center, shared remarks accusing Russian hackers of attacking
British energy, telecom, and media companies over the past 12 months. Again, this account is
parallel to incidents in the U.S. earlier this year. In July, the Department of Homeland Security
and the FBI found evidence that hackers had penetrated the networks of nuclear power plants,
as well as computer networks critical to the U.S. energy sector. Those attacks uses similar
techniques to those used by the Russian hacking group known as Energetic Bear, known for
its ties to previous attacks on energy industry computer networks.

Finally, the fact that Russian Twitter accounts were cheering for Brexit is also suspicious in light
of Cambridge Analyticas involvement with the Leave.EU campaign. Cambridge Analytica,
which also worked for the Trump campaign, has been roped into the U.S. special
investigation into Russian interference in the election. And the CEO of the company, Alexander
Nix, reportedly reached out to WikiLeaks about Hilary Clinton-related emails while in contract
negotiations to join the Trump campaign. U.S. intelligence officials believeWikiLeaks worked
with Russian military intelligence to release stolen Clinton-related emails in 2016.

Now it appears Russian agents and Cambridge Analytica were working in parallel during the
U.S. 2016 presidential election and during Brexit. Still, just because Russian bots and
Cambridge Analytica seemed to be rooting for the same teams at the same time and have
some similar friends doesnt mean that the two efforts were collaborating.
Warm-up : Tick the things you find annoying. Which one is the most
annoying?
When you hold the door open for someone and they just walk through without saying "thank
you".

When you're in the cinema and there's someone who just won't stop talking.

When you're in a rush and someone in front of you is driving really slowly.

When someone shows up more than an hour late for a dinner you've prepared .

People who sit in parked cars with the engine running.

People on a train or bus who have loud conversations on their mobile phones.

When you're walking in the street and someone in front of you suddenfy stops.

When you're watching TV and someone changes thechannel without asking.

Someone who stands in front of the TV and starts talking to you when you're watching your
favourite show.

Think about it!

Have any of these things ever happened to you? What did you do? What other things annoy
you? What annoys you at work? What annoys you at home? What do you do when you get
annoyed?
Add words to any five verbs to create new collocations. Then, write three
sentences with any of the expressions.
For example: I forgot to say goodbye to her at the party.

Miss a ... plane, train .. .

Burn ... yourself, food .. .
Drop ... an expensive vase ...
Scratch ... a car, a pair of glasses ...
Lose ... a wallet, a passport ...
Crash ... a car, into Q tree ...
Arrive late to ... an appointment, Cl meeting ...
Buy something ... that breaks, you don't really need ...
Fall down ... in public, in front of the audience ...
Rip ... a pair ofjeans, a shirt .. .
Spill... a drink an your shirt .. .
Stain ... a carpet, a sofa ...
Get... wet, tired, stuck in a lift, lost in a city ...
Forget... to cancel an appointment, back-up a document ...

Lets talk! Personal disasters

Have you ever missed a flight? What happened? Have you ever broken anything expensive"?
What was it? Have you ever arrived late to a meeting or interview? Why? Have you ever fallen
down in public? What happened? Have you ever spilt something down the front of your shirt?
Where were you? When was the last time you got lost? Where were you? What happened in
the end?
 Todays grammar : perfect modals

We can use Perfect Modal Verbs to comment on things from the past. We often use these
modals to give our opinions about things. We form Perfect Modals with a modal verb + have
+ a past participle. For example. "You should have gone home early."

In general, we use modal verbs to give advice and express our feelings about situations. We
can also use them to express possibility, regret and certainty, among many other things. For
example:

a) You should leave now. [advice]

b) It might rain tomorrow. [possibility]

Task 0 : Complete the sentences with the participles from below.

1. He should have ______ the shopping last night.

2. They should have __________ him to the party

3. They should have _____________ the film

4. It's Keira's birthday today. I should have ___________ her something.

5. I'm so tired. I should have ______ to bed earlier last night.

6. Brandon and Alex should have ______ a raincoat as it was pouring with rain.

7. I should have ______________ to your advice.

8. He shouldn't have ______________ you that secret.

Task 1 : Put the words in the correct order.

1. should I she I have I by train I gone

2. taken I should I a taxi I have I they

3. at that restaurant I we I have I eaten I shouldn't

4, shouldn't II1 bought I have I it

5. the email / he I have I should I sent

Essay : do you have something you wish you would have done differently
in your life? What do you think you should have changed?