the operation used every major social media platform including youtube, google and instagram to help elect president trump and even increased once trump came into power. the research by oxford university found that while the overall intensity of posting across platforms gruyere by year with a particular spike during the six months after election day 2016, this growth was particularly pronounced on instagram which went from roughly 2600 posts a month in 2016 to nearly 6,000 in 2017 when the accounts were shut down. across all three years covered by the report russian instagram posts generated 185 million likes and 4 million user comments. what is clear, the report says, is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the