Unsealed FBI doc exposes terrifying depth of Russian disinfo scheme
New court documents reveal that Russia is keeping a very, very long list of influencers to spread its propaganda.
The Russian disinformation plot revealed in a Justice Department indictment this week may just be the tip of the iceberg, according to newly unsealed court documents.
On Wednesday, the DOJ announced it would seize 32 internet domains linked to a larger Kremlin scheme to promote disinformation and influence the 2024 election. The Russian campaign, known as Doppelganger, uses AI-generated content to create “fake news” boosted through social media with the aim of electing Donald Trump.
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Of particular note, the documents released Wednesday included an affidavit that noted a Russian company is keeping a list of more than 2,800 influencers world wide, about one-fifth of whom are based in the United States, to monitor and potentially groom to spread Russian propaganda. The affidavit does not mention the full list of influencers, but is still a terrifying indicator of how deep the Russian plot to interfere in U.S. politics really goes.
About damn time. Could have used this 8+ years ago. Might have stopped Drump's term in office.
The only person who did anything helpful got sent to jail (reality winner)
still haven't got used to that being her actual name.
It is despicable but remember that they only paid right wing trolls to do what they were already doing. This is how modern corruption works. Conservative and reactionary talk radio all across the US works like this. The only reason the GOP is so successful in rural areas is they are doing the exact same shit Russia is doing. Fund extremists to continue their bullshit. You don't need a "Quid Pro Quo", you just need to pick the right weirdos to boost.
And if you think this is terrifying, think of not just what leftists think of this inside the US, think of what people all around the world think of the US election interference. For decades and decades the US has interfered and overthrown democracies. They did in Euromaidan too.
So yeah, fuck Russia, just realize many countries rightfully think the same about the USA.
I would say election interference still mostly works in the "all the world trying to somehow affect US" way as opposed to "US interfering with some country's elections".
Simply because affecting the power balance in the metropoly is much more rewarding.
Russia is a scarecrow.
First, it's not new and even USSR during fscking Cold War would fund and influence the so-called progressive youth (not what's called progressive now) and parts of the Democratic Party. I guess that Biden guy stopped being a Soviet asset long before being elected president, but he definitely was at some point.
Second, Russian meddling is not even comparable to Israeli, Turkish, Saudi meddling. The problem is that they seem to agree with each other and often cooperate these years.
Third, it's not even a big deal, we know that politics involve such meddling. They wouldn't think the same about the USA if it would show some responsibility. Restore Iraq after fscking it up. Investigate war crimes and give some justice to their victims after that invasion. Protect Georgia against Russia. I guess the Marshall plan was for white Europeans only (it's funny BTW, people in ex-USSR in 1991 apparently expected that something like that will be attempted, but USA worked to cement the ex-Soviet elites and to help them neuter actual grassroots movements instead), but at least fixing things that wouldn't be broken without USA seemed logical.
Uh... the US tried to restore Iraq, it didn't go well. Nation building is hard and the US isn't particularly good at it. Calling on the US to do more nation building probably isn't a good idea.
Currently weakening the Russian military in Ukraine. Do you want to broaden the war?
Are you saying the Eastern Europeans aren't white? Or that no money was spent in Afghanistan and Iraq? There's a difference between rebuilding allies and rebuilding while engaging in combat with a a resistance.
It doesn't seem to be a lot of thought in this particular "US bad" narrative. There are real criticisms to be made of US foreign policy but you're missing them all by a longshot. Maybe consider that the US isn't some nation of supermen that is capable of solving all of the world's problems but it just doesn't want to. It's more accurate to say the US isn't actually capable of solving many of the problems in the world, and tends to make a lot of messes by misunderstanding other countries and it's own capabilities.
You've skipped half or more of what I wrote. Especially about not putting in jail people who committed war crimes in Iraq and about supporting people like Putin against everyone else in the ex-USSR in the 90-s.
I'm not talking about nation building under American control, but killing a million of a country's population warrants reparations, international courts, official apologies (real ones) ...
In 2008, not currently.
Yes, if you replace what I said with weird imagined things.
It doesn't take to be a nation of supermen to stop arming Turkey, Israel, Azerbaijan, put sanctions on them and forget they are of the same species.
And it seems to actually be close to "some nation of supermen" when supporting the bad guys. There's definitely some beef to US's capabilities when it wants to fuck something up and arm cannibals.
It's not that hard to not act. The problem with the US is that it does bad things, not that it doesn't do good things. But if it just can't play hegemon differently, then it could at least try to clean up sometimes.
Well, why not? Name and shame all of them. Normal political ads are required to tell you who paid for them (even if they only do it in the fine print). There's no reason not to hold these schmucks to the same standard just because it's TikTok vids or whatever instead of magazine or TV ads.
Not a lawoligist, but I suspect they plan on pressing charges ;-)
Wont be in time for the election though, so the damage will be done
I feel like they already got their money's worth on interfering with elections.
They nabbed up several former Soviet republics and then publicly humiliated the states with the 2016 American election.
Say what you want about Putin, be he's a helluva spy.
He's so good that when he got intel that Kiev would fall in 3 days, he didn't bother to check the validity of that info and instead went on confidently to...not take Kiev at all.
So: I'll say what I want about Putin. He's a monster, a liar, a thief, an unimaginative, uncreative leader, a terrible commander, and a shit spy. Putin lucked out on a saving roll. Period. Don't elevate him any higher than the mud he walks on.
The 2015 propaganda campaign was a thing to watch though. I expected it to be more of a historical landmark by now. Instead, we're still living it.
And he tries to never test his reflex saves and poison saves by keeping at least 10 meters of desk between him and any NPCs!
10 foot
poledesk is essential!Yeah those intelligence estimates about being able to take over Ukraine in a couple of weeks and they'd be greeted as liberated was some top tier spycraft.
Really Putin is kinda shit at the spy stuff. Just that it's super easy to acquire assets when there's a lot of people that only care about making money and don't ask a lot of questions about where it's coming from.
This is a list of people "to monitor and potentially groom". You can't exactly charge someone with "being monitored".
Not to say collaboration isn't happening—it sounds like it absolutely is, but this is not the list of collaborators.
Fair point. In my defense I hit a paywall and just kind of gave up, did a bit of assuming there 😅
Eh, they're small potatoes. I think they need to go after the social media companies for allowing this to happen. You're never going to get anywhere by trying to go after idiots that are just saying whatever they think will get them promoted in by the algorithm. It's the companies that make algorithms that can be easily manipulated by bots from a foreign adversary that need to be shamed. And asked some hard questions about what they knew and when they knew it.
Cool, so just how many wars is Russia trying to fight at the moment?
Remember: If your politicians say there is no Russian interference in your elections, they are the ones who have been funded.
Where are my republican “there is no Russian influence in the election” now?
I don't listen to the radio but my coworkers (school bus drivers) do so I overhear it from time to time. News reports keep mentioning "foreign interference in our elections" but scrupulously avoid mentioning a) it's Russia, and b) it's Russia interfering on behalf of Trump and the Republicans. Even fucking NPR is like this, most of the time. It should be obvious that any Republicans hearing this sort of "news" will believe it's a problem afflicting Democrats.
They're currently brainstorming and waiting for their orders from fox "news". I expect we'll see a bunch of posts here in a few days about how it's all bullshit and blown out of proportion. Watch the names too, they'll all be accounts created a year or so ago and haven't posted for about 7 months.
Shhhh....no Russian
No puppet, no puppet, you're the puppet!
They will never hear about this in a non-obfuscated way
read the news
I'd like to see that list.
Alongside the list of influencers US is paying to spread its propaganda.
Guaranteed they are all over the Fediverse and probably hosting their own instances.
Do you think it's big enough to bother with?
For instance admins, definitely? For the government or other organizations... lol, no. Lemmy is such a very small pie segment of social media... and that's part of why I love it.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Sure, people will spin up their own instance and run it according to their own biases, but I don't see Russia or Israel or whomever running bots specifically to push things one way or another like they do with Twitter, Facebook or Reddit.
cousneezefartcough .ml cough
Sorry, did that sound like words?
Yes but... Fediverse has more moderators and even server level bans where we can fight back.
It's a different political makeup here on the Fediverse. It's not like the Russians can hand money to just one or two CEOs and suddenly all of the moderators we trust here turn to the other side.
We need to keep our wits about us here. We came to Lemmy (and Fediverse) because centralized commercial control of our discussion spaces led to perverse incentives.
I only consider this political situation to be yet another test of the Fediverse. We have to survive it. But I also believe we moved to the Fediverse because we all believe we can do more about disinformation or malicious actors here on the Fediverse than on... Reddit or Facebook.
What happens when your mods are part of it?
Move to a different instance.
Or shit, make your own instance and have your own mods lol.
Not just that. If it's just the mods of one community, appeal to the instance admins. If the admins are part of the problem, don't just move to a different instance yourself, also try to raise awareness and convince the rest of Lemmy to defederate.
A bit of self-promotion here, but check out !fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com if you want to stay up to date on recent disinformation campaigns. It's obviously not going to solve the problem, but it's one more tool to help identify and fight the disinfo peddlers.
There are a few obvious ones around but it's against the rules to even suggest that they could be shills or bots. Hopefully this news will get the mods to start taking action against the most blatant ones.
I've heard it from a reliable source, a Lemmy.ml mod, that there's simply no Russian activity on Lemmy. Would you like to know who?
I, for one, will not return to allowing that particular guy back on my feed.
That guy gets on my nerves, but I've read enough from him on various topics that I'm pretty confident he's a genuine user. Don't get me wrong, he's for sure an ideologue who's no fun at parties, but I don't think he's a bot or that he's saying things he was instructed to say and doesn't actually care deeply about.
There's another user, with a three-word-phrase username, that I would describe similarly.
Wait, I think I know the instance you're talking about but since when are we not allowed to say anything about it? Or do you just mean on .ml you can't do that
In !politics@lemmy.world, for example, it is against the rules to accuse another user of being a bot or paid actor. Any post suggesting a user might be will likely be removed at the minimum.
I don't buy it fediverse is cool and all, but it isn't in a anyway relevant for misinformation, X, Facebook, reddit and politians are perfect for that, why bother with the less than 1%, they probably don't even know what fediverse is
Have you seriously not seen advertising and obvious political propaganda on here? Look up anything by that Jimmy Dore guy, for instance. And the guy whose name is like amoxtli or some shit.
I saw alot of dump communist propaganda, that's is usually based on "USA bad, so everyone that disagree with them are good" so they love China and Russia, but the Russia propaganda towards right wings, are more like "Democrats are communists so we must defeat them"
Sure it is. Plenty of platforms are tied into federated information. Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads...
Idk man, bluesky and mastodon are big enough?, mastodon don't has personal algorithms so it's not that efficient, and threads? Where most right-wings-trump-supporters are? YouTube, tiktok and Facebook would be my bet, not threads
Also Russia make propaganda to right wings trump supporters, they are the opposite of what we see in Lemmy, far-left, "urss did not wrong"," USA is always wrong ", so anything that they do is obviously bad, and everyone who disagree with them are inherently good
"X" is something like 70% bots now since the Elon takeover.
You can read other articles that specifically go into detail on why Russia is investing in video and audio influencers now, but that's mostly why.
I agree, I just disagree that fediverse is bigger enough to gather that attention, we don't even have influencers here(that I know off) but the rest, that X is infested with pro-russia bots I totally believe
Everyone that doesn't agree with me politically basically
I've seen a lot of seriously obvious and unapologetic shilling for very out there positions around here. The further telltale sign is that when one popular poster starts getting regularly rebuffed and shutdown, backup arrives not long after to pollute a thread with their bullshit.
It's a slippery slope to start assuming people are bots or paid shills. Whos to say everyone that agreed with you at first weren't bots and then regular people came in and commented their own opinion that went against the first wave of bots?
Not everyone that thinks capitalism is broken is a paid Russian agent. I'm assuming that is what you are referring too. Some are very extreme in their views but the most likely explanation is that they are a combination of stupid and mad.
Not the green party or communist not jobs necessarily, but the Pro-Putin, "Ukraine is Nazis", warmongering types...yup.
I'd argue they are still most likely just idiots that got wrapped up in foreign propaganda, and not necessarily paid to post on lemmy of all places.
I just think calling people bots and shills has no place in honest discourse and the brushstroke always tends to get bigger and bigger.
Bots and shills have no place in honest discourse, but they obviously exist. Should we pretend they don't—assume everyone is arguing in good faith, regardless of how blatantly dishonest and inconsistent they are? What would you suggest?
I don't disagree that there's a slippery slope problem; there's no shortage of fringe internet echo chambers that dismiss all dissenting opinions as coming from npc's, cia shills, shitlibs, bloodmouths, breeders, , etc.
It's a though problem but essentially yes. We should only ban because of content, so anything pro-putin would get the hammer but that comes with it's own problems. It's hard to draw the line. Is being pro-isreal an acceptable stance (not morally, thats obvious, but ban wise)? What about being pro-gasoline cars? I've been tempted many times to assume people bashing EVs are oil industry shills but it's really just people that fell for their propaganda and not someone that is actively participating in it. For the most part, downvotes do their job but everyone knows those can easily be manipulated as well.
If the news was about pro-AI bots floating around, I would probably be accused of being one because I'm very outspoken about it when it's a dissenting opinion on lemmy.
I just don't think it's a good standard to keep. I don't have a solution but I think trying to call out people on it will just end up in people calling each other that when ever an argument goes badly. In the end, I view it as a form of rhetoric.
I guess what we want to do is to cultivate a community where people—and especially bots—will have a hard time engaging dishonestly. Having said that, I'm no closer to knowing how to do it. The struggle with
misinformationdisinformation seems like an arms race where the bad actors will always have the advantage.You didn't read the article
Pretty sure they're making veiled shill accusations at anyone who isn't 100% on board with arming Netanyahu until his genocide is complete.
It's real easy to tell who is a troll/bot though. All you have to do is ask them a few questions, they will respond with a quote, and only answer one. Why do you think they only answer one? Why not answer two or three? What's really weird is no where in this thread was Netanyahu mentioned besides you?
From your perspective, it's anyone who doesn't love being Netanyahu's genocide weapons supplier.
Well, either they agree with them or don't want to bother responding to unhinged bullshit. Maybe one thing you said stood out as particularly wrong. Maybe you aren't as entitled to having all your questions answered as you think you are.
Putting a question mark at the end of a declarative sentence doesn't make it a question, but you'll demand to see a manager if I don't answer it anyway. I mentioned Netanyahu because of people who see someone who is upset about genocide and immediately shriek "foreign troll!"
Which is prevalent behavior on lemmy. Thank you for illustrating my point by suggesting that I am a foreign troll, as you have done multiple times in response to my opposition to selling Netanyahu weapons for genocide.
Lol, you proved my point perfectly, now if only a mod would come in and do their job, you wouldn't be here posting bullshit anymore
To me, this is the most interesting bit of the article
We can kind of keep tabs on X or Facebook, but what goes down in Discord gamer chats is largely out of sight. I wish someone could drag more of this content out into the light of day where we could all see it.
You absolutely don’t want to see half the shit said in discord.
It’s all awful.
That's why I want someone to summarize a sanitized version for me ... so I have some sort of heads up on the next trend in stochastic terrorism without having to pluck my eyes out.
Lol, so aparently right wing will be lead by weabos and gamers, not by ultra religious men and women?
There's nothing quite like not getting laid for fueling a wellspring of easily manipulated misogynist anger
You think Microsoft can't keep tabs on what's said in discord servers?hmm nevermind, looks like that purchase did not go through. Still, they can absolutely monitor discord chat, and even voice chat. It is relatively common these days to have voice recordings transcribed automatically into text files, saved, and searchable. Even video games do that these days. Overwatch in particular does this for certain because they announced so with the release of Overwatch 2. I would assume all Blizzard games do this by now.Oh, sure, whatever corporate overlords are involved have unfettered access, but they're unlikely to analyze that data from a public safety perspective. Unhinged players are addicted to their products and no interest in making anything public that could cut into their profits.
I suppose you could reasonably argue that Rex Tillerson and Vladimir Putin were already joined at the hip. But the US advertising and influencing industry is vast - $515B annually and growing. The Russians aren't even in the top ten of foreign influence peddlers. FFS, the Saudis bought golf.
Well Russia is part of that fossil fuel industry too, and they also hire lobbyists to push fossil fuels
It's a big club and you ain't in it
That's not really relevant in this context, though, is it? Maybe a better comparison would be 2024 election spending by foreign-connected PACS. According to opensecrets.org, the "nearly $10 million" allegedly distributed by RT employees is equivalent to the sum of all other foreign pac money donated to the GOP this cycle. It's certainly not "dwarfed by any other country" as you spuriously claimed.
Saudi sportswashing and other shenanigans are also cause for concern. That in no way lessens the severity of this problem.
It's illustrative of a system of "influencing" that Americans drown in daily. Russian propaganda peddlers are peeing into the sewer.
The panic is over the "Russian"-ness of this media. But the machine that manufacturers consent is merely on loan.
Yes, what about this thing that has nothing to do with the subject of Russia influencing elections?
What's terrifying about buying off a couple of podcasters? The scale is dwarfed by any number of other countries.
Saudis aren't trying to get Trump elected and directly meddle in the election.
And sure, the Saudis whitewash themselves and try to make us forget about Jamal. But Russia influence is really bad.
I'm not necessarily against foreign influence. Ukrainians have a right to make their case to us for example. But the Russian style disinfo is leading to conspiracy theories and a degeneration of our society.
Lol yes they are. They're part owners of Twitter, which became a pro-Trump cesspool. That alone is orders of magnitude bigger than this Russian thing.
The Israelis are, though.
US business interests have more influence over Russian foreign policy than Russians have on the US.
Russia is quite sanctioned, and the remaining US Business interest in Russia was looted / stolen by the Russians.
The business connection between USA and Russia is basically gone. Most (IE Elon Musk) are now making huge moves towards China now.
What remains are RT and other Russian disinfo groups
Clearly not, or Russians wouldn't be able to slide cash into the pockets of social media influencers so easily.
They didn't. They got caught by the FBI and now we have massive news articles proving Russian influence. They literally just got caught, despite their best efforts at hiding.
Now comes the hard work at figuring out which of these 2800 influencers are fucking traitors... and which ones were just caught up in the mess. But someone in there had to have known that Russian money was part of this scheme.
After paying off the podcasters
Yes. That is how crimes work. The crime happens and then the FBI looks at you afterwards.
Are you... American? This crap is taught at grade school level.
Which banks facilitied these illegal donations and what sanctions are they going to suffer?
Banks are required to have KYC (know your customer) rules and report things to the FBI. Which the FBI received the reports and have caught the criminals.
I'm convinced you aren't American at this point and don't have any understanding of how crime or police work around here.
So which bank is being penalized for doing business with a Russian client operating under US sanctions?
Why stop there? Be convinced I'm not human at all.
Because you obviously are asking stupid questions that Americans already know the answer for.
For all the bullshit Europeans chastised me as an American for having an American centered viewpoints, we are talking about an American Police dealing with American Crimes in an efficient manner. And then we have someone in this discussion who doesn't even know the basics.
The least I expect of you is to at least pretend you have an American viewpoint of our police system and understand it (not necessarily agree with it). But if you want to ask dumb fucking questions all day imma call you out on your ignorance.
The bank that obviously reported this suspicious behavior to the FBI and got these assholes caught.
What, are you pissed that these Russians got caught in this scheme or something? This is a celebration topic. We caught the bad guys and caught them quickly before the election.
Laughs in AIPAC
AIPAC is based in the US and there is no evidence of foreign funds. I know it's shocking to hear, but there is a large Jewish population in the US that happens to endorse Israel.
The entities in this indictment went out of their way to circumvent FARA
Bro. The traitor John Roberts has opened up the floodgates of foreign money in our political system. Come on, now.
Thank you so much for mentioning this, I've seen wayyyyy too many people say that AIPAC is foreign interference with no backing.
So all Russia needs to do is register ARPAC inside the US and no-one can touch them.
No...To get around FARA they could never fund it, or ever coordinate with its leadership, just how AIPAC is funded entirely by US citizens and is ran entirely by US citizens, and has zero connection to the Israeli government.
Which makes sponsoring an organization like this incredibly risky, which is why almost no one does it.
Then so too can the American Russian Public Affairs Committee be funded entirely by US citizens, ran entirely by US citizens, and have zero visible connection to the Russian government.
No connections at all unless abiding by FARA yes, that would be legal. That's not even close to what happened here.
So we agree AIPAC should register under FARA. Sign here
No? How did you even get that impression? I literally just said AIPAC has no connection to the Israeli government, therefore it shouldn't be registered with FARA.
Also lol, Change.org really?
Coordination with Israeli officials
Rabbi Alexander Schindler, former chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations (a US advocacy group), told an Israeli magazine in 1976, "The Presidents' Conference and its members have been instruments of official governmental Israeli policy. It was seen as our task to receive directions from government circles and to do our best no matter what to affect the Jewish community."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States
Wow one dude said something similar to them being Israeli controlled over 30 years ago, it totally must be true then. /s.
This isn't evidence of anything
It is evidence.
Of course AIPAC is government controlled. It does nothing against their interests and everything for them.
Attempting to argue the contrary is disingenuous.
You need evidence to substantiate that FARA was circumvented by funneling funds from foreign entities.
If US citizens want to set up an entity and fund a lobbying group that supports Russia they are allowed to do so, but the money has to originate from US sources. Maybe take a few minutes to understand how the law works.
Why? Surely all PACs are fully transparent about the sources of their funds. Every dollar donated can be attributed to US citizens and, in turn, they can prove none of their income came from overseas.
Yea. Except that's not how any of this works. You have a really cartoon level understanding of how finance works and how these orgs are audited. The world is not a James Bond movie where some rando hacks a linux terminal and breaks into the IMF.
Arguing about levels of understanding is irrelevant.
The point is that whatever works for AIPAC can be replicated for the Russian equivalent ARPAC.
Yea. And the point is you have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe take some time to read up on how FARA and finance regulation works?
The point is all I'm doing is swapping the word Russia for Israel. All the same laws apply.
But you're assuming that the Israeli government has some connection to AIPAC, it doesn't. Sure some Americans could start a homegrown fully American Pro-Russia PAC, just like AIPAC, and that would be completely legal, but that's not what happened here.
If a homegrown fully American Pro-Russia PAC was started, how could we be sure there was no Russian government involvement? Donations are opaque.
It's been a really common talking point on right on the alt right for a while. To this day, no evidence has been substantiated to support this claim.
It's a major talking point in the pro-Palestinian crowd too. Though I feel like that group is shifting towards being alt right for this and many other talking points they have in common.
4/5 are outside the US, does that mean most are in the EU?
Yes, even goverments. For example orban in #orbanistan (hungary), fico in slovakia controlled putin. There are also parties controlled by putin, like afd in germany, le pen's party in france, also the brexit guy nigel farage putin's puppet
How else do you think AfD won so big in Thuringia and Saxony?
Every single conservative comment I have seen about this has claimed it is made up by the DOJ. That is the extent of it.
Law and order party says the doj is corrupt next time on sick sad world
"DOJ is corrupt but also police can do no wrong, let's give them tanks, until they are forced to be against our riots and then they are bad again, but only until we start saying that the riots weren't us and was the deep state actors, then they never did anything wrong"
You know when you're looking for a recipe and you get those long blog posts about "As a young lad, growing up on the farm, we'd often gather bargle nuts for the seasonal..." before finally getting you the info?
Well your post is like finding the recipe only. That's it. That's their formula.
This is how you bake fascist biscuits, no preamble.
You will only ever get the blog post version when actually talking to a conservative however.
To them DOJ < PUTIN
So don't expect anything different from those idiots.
Better a Russian than Democrat Or Justice!
Is anyone really surprised by this? Russia hasn't changed much in this particular way since before WWII ;).
Not really, but it's nice to see the receipts. The indictments are pretty damning
Yes, yes it is 👍
And centrists will imagine that all of it is localized entirely on lemmy, in the form of anyone to their left.
Why now, FBI?
I don’t know how we are supposed to just think “oh what a co-inky-dink”. Maybe I’m missing some timeline stuff here but I keep seeing DOJ action based on unsealed FBI stuff. Great, but when was it sealed? They probably have sealed documents that say the sky is blue too.
Edit: ok then. It’s just asking why we see action now when we’ve all know it for a long time. Carry on.
☝️ Found one
Nice pitchfork.
Somebody should take a long look at 🦚CNBC as well
What are you implying here, I don't get it.