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The web site calling itself Man Stuff News caters to a sure sensibility, with classes like “Backyard Grilling,” “TV Shows for Guys” and “Beard Grooming.” A latest article headlined “Tips for Dads During Labor” supplied this nugget of recommendation: “Just keep in mind to spend a while collectively earlier than deciding whether or not or to not give beginning.”
Get to its part dedicated to world information, nevertheless, and the character of the protection modifications drastically. There, a latest article belittled a world warrant to arrest Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, for battle crimes. It repeated, phrase for phrase, an article that had appeared a day earlier than underneath a unique byline on the web site for RT, Russia’s international tv community.
RT, which the U.S. State Department describes as a key participant within the Kremlin’s disinformation and propaganda equipment, has been blocked within the European Union, Canada and different nations since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Sites like Man Stuff News, nevertheless, have helped RT sidestep the restrictions and proceed reaching European and American audiences, in keeping with a brand new report.
Replicas of RT articles have been laundered hundreds of instances by means of a whole lot of web sites, in keeping with the report, written by researchers from the German Marshall Fund, the University of Amsterdam and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a analysis nonprofit. The websites embody content material aggregators like Infowars, run by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; mirrors of RT repurposed from deserted “zombie” websites; fake native information retailers with names like San Francisco Telegraph; and domains specializing in spirituality, yoga, extraterrestrials and the apocalypse. Many of the articles have been then additional disseminated by means of social media.
The rationale for reposting RT content material more than likely varies from web site to web site, however the surreptitious republishing represents a specific hazard within the European Union, the place issues about Kremlin-linked disinformation campaigns are intensifying, particularly as Russia tries to weaken European help for Ukraine forward of parliamentary elections subsequent week.
“This is absolutely the tip of the Russian propaganda iceberg,” stated Bret Schafer, a co-author of the report and a senior fellow at German Marshall. “It was fairly evident after we have been working the search ends in the E.U. that if Russian propaganda isn’t displaying up on Russian domains, it’s getting by means of, which is form of a double whammy as a result of it’s not simply evading restrictions and bans, it’s doing so on websites which are much less clear than RT itself.”
RT stated in an announcement that its content material didn’t comply with the “U.S. State Department/NATO party line” and added that it’s “very glad that RT’s information content material is so massively widespread with a variety of platforms and customers.”
A message despatched to an electronic mail tackle listed for the Man Stuff News web site registration went unanswered. The web site presents few particulars about the place it’s based mostly or who operates it.
As non-Russian sources parroted the Kremlin’s speaking factors, they helped legitimize the narratives to an typically unsuspecting viewers, the researchers concluded. The copied articles, which the researchers described as “Russia’s propaganda nesting dolls,” focused an enormous geographic swath of viewers by way of websites registered in a minimum of 40 nations throughout six continents, together with in nations the place RT is ostensibly blocked. When factoring in RT’s content material in languages aside from English together with different Kremlin-controlled media retailers, the true scope of Russian propaganda laundering might be a lot larger, the researchers stated.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, stated in a speech this month that she was “significantly involved in regards to the rise of international interference and manipulation in our societies, our democracies and our elections.” She cited “swarms of destructive disinformation” about particular points and candidates and malicious makes an attempt at “shopping for affect and inflicting chaos.”
Last month, a consortium of 36 European fact-checking organizations stated that false or deceptive content material in regards to the E.U. or Ukraine was among the many most prevalent types of disinformation it had encountered.
An E.U. report this 12 months stated operatives overseas — most clearly from Russia, but in addition China — have been coordinating on “just about all platforms” to create an alternate info setting that may erode belief in democracy. Last month, the European Commission performed a pre-election stress take a look at to judge the platforms’ preparedness in opposition to A.I.-generated fakery, affect campaigns from bot accounts and different threats.
Since 2022, the Kremlin has been unable to realize entry to a few of its predominant messaging channels within the West after Canada and the European Union took RT off their airwaves. This month, the bloc suspended 4 different Russian media retailers from broadcasting.
In the United States, authorities regulators didn’t take motion in opposition to the Russian community’s American outpost, RT America. Instead, tv distributors throughout the nation minimize ties with RT America in early 2022, and it shut down inside days.
Online platforms have additionally tried to curb RT’s attain; YouTube blocked global access to channels affiliated with RT and stated it strove to take away dangerous misinformation. Laundered RT content material, nevertheless, persists there and on different platforms, researchers stated, echoing earlier findings from different analysis teams. On YouTube, RT articles appeared to have been narrated utilizing an automatic text-to-speech generator to evade filters. Content copied from RT additionally appeared on main social and messaging websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Substack, Telegram and X, in addition to on area of interest platforms comparable to Gab and Rumble, the researchers stated.
Working from greater than 1,500 RT articles revealed final 12 months, the researchers appeared for web sites that featured comparable content material or metadata, limiting their search to outcomes geolocated within the United States and Belgium, the European Union’s de facto capital.
Some of the websites have been most likely circulating RT’s content material with the community’s permission, the researchers stated, whereas others had plagiarized RT with out its information. The websites could have been ideologically aligned with the Kremlin, or extra intent on driving site visitors to spice up visibility or advert income. Some of the websites disclosed that they have been reposting RT content material. (Man Stuff News ended its copy of the article about Mr. Putin’s arrest warrant by posting the online tackle of the unique RT story.)
Verbatim replicas of RT articles appeared on media retailers affiliated with governments in Cambodia, Iran, Nigeria and Yemen, in addition to on one Lebanese outlet owned by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Lebanese militia. Researchers linked one web site to a conservative Catholic on-line ministry in Texas that had posts about abortion, candlemaking and, in an instance lifted from RT, the dearth of assist after an earthquake in Syria.
Researchers famous that RT was removed from the one Kremlin media outlet being laundered. As main elections strategy within the European Union and the United States, Russian disinformation operatives have honed their methods. Recent movies that includes artificial voices and different indicators of manipulation by synthetic intelligence focused right-wing American voters with faux messages about President Biden. Fake information organizations crafted by Russian operatives have mimicked precise American retailers whereas selling Kremlin propaganda; one former sheriff’s deputy in Florida who acquired political asylum in Moscow has constructed greater than 160 such faux websites.
