A co-ordinated network of bots, suspected to be linked to Russia’s security services, overloaded the US Army’s Facebook page, posting more than 3000 comments a minute calling for American military intervention to support the imprisoned leaders of Myanmar’s democracy movement.

In an operation bearing the hallmarks of a training mission for social media misinformation campaigns elsewhere, analysis by Australian security firm Internet 2.0, showed a surge in comments at “exponential algorithmic growth”.