You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
2,973,371 Russian troll tweets
Yesterday, we published nearly 3 million tweets sent from the Russian “troll factory” called the Internet Research Agency, both before and after the 2016 election. The database is the work of two scholars from Clemson University, and we believe it to be the most extensive empirical accounting of Russian political and election meddling on social media. It reveals a systematic onslaught, complete with a division of labor including “Right Trolls,” “Left Trolls” and “Fearmongers.” [FiveThirtyEight]
32 pages and accounts
And speaking of Russians on social media, Facebook yesterday announced that it had uncovered a “coordinated political influence campaign” ahead of the midterm elections on its service, and that, per the Times, “Russia was possibly involved.” The company said it removed 32 pages and accounts, which had a combined 290,000 followers, and that “bore some similarities to that of the Internet Research Agency.” [The New York Times]
$550 to ditch your car
Lyft, the on-demand transportation company, will give 100 Chicagoans $550 in Lyft and other transportation credit if they agree to ditch their own car for a month. Hmm, I haven’t had a car in years. Dear Lyft CEO Logan Green: My Venmo is @oliver-roeder. If my math is right, you owe me about $40,000. [The Verge]
65 potential jurors
Yesterday was jury selection day in the trial of Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is facing a maximum of 305 years in prison for violating tax and banking laws. The pool was composed of 65 potential jurors who were whittled down and sworn in to a jury of 12: six men and six women. [CNN]
More than 1,000 people
A federal judge on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order that blocked plans for 3-D printable guns from being made freely and publicly available online just hours before their scheduled release. These guns can be plastic and untraceable. Some plans had gone online Friday, and more than 1,000 people had already downloaded those for an AR-15, according to Pennsylvania’s attorney general. Despite the fact that his administration cleared the way for these plans to be republished, Trump tweeted, “I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public. Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense!” [The Washington Post]
1.9 billion acres
Bloomberg published some lovely and spellbinding maps about how America uses its land — “a 1.9 billion-acre jigsaw puzzle of cities, farms, forests and pastures.” My favorite little detail: the single pixel on the final map devoted to Christmas trees. [Bloomberg]
If you see a significant digit in the wild, please send it to @ollie.