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As social networks emerge as an important tool for political engagement and dissent, services including Twitter and Facebook have become regular targets of censorship. In the past, nation states have exerted their control over Internet access to outright block connections to social media during times of political upheaval. Parties without such capabilities may however still desire to control political expression. A striking example of such manipulation recently occurred on Twitter when an unknown attacker leveraged 25,860 fraudulent accounts to send 440,793 tweets in an attempt to disrupt political conversations following the announcement of Russia’s parliamentary election results.