Investigation into the Double Ganger – Investigating a Russian Propaganda Campaign that Disturbed Artificial Intelligence and Impersonated Social Media
In July, the Justice Department said it disrupted a Russian propaganda campaign that used artificial intelligence tools and relied on fake social media accounts impersonating Americans to spread disinformation in the U.S. and other countries. It said the effort involved an editor at RT.
The Justice Department said the effort was meant to influence voters in the U.S. and elsewhere.
The Russian employees indicted by the US were working with Tenet Media to make hundreds of videos in support of Russia. They are accused of conspiracy to violate the foreign agents registration act and money-laundering for alleged work with Tenet Media.
As part of the Doppelganger investigation, the DOJ said it seized 32 internet domains used in the effort, and named Russian companies Social Design Agency (SDA), Structura National Technology (Structura), and ANO Dialog as being involved in the effort.
First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Kiriyenko was involved in the effort, it said.
Attorney General Garland made the announcement at the meeting of the election threats task force, set up to address the threats against election officials and administrators. He said the investigation remains active.
The comments of “Ha!” and ” 2016 called and it wants its clichés back” were among the responses of an office poll, according to a statement byRT ahead of the charges.
Russia isn’t the only enemy of the Kremlin: the indictment of a Russian influence campaign against Russian President Vladimir Putin
It’s not the first time the US has accused Russia of interfering with elections. Russian agents were accused of election interference after the 2016 election. In 2020, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report finding President Putin condoned an influence campaign meant to support Donald Trump’s ascendance to the White House in 2016.
“Russia remains the most active foreign threat to our elections,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told senators in May at a briefing about election risks.
The operators of a fake news website that is linked to the Kremlin have been sanctioned by the U.S. and the European Union.
The Treasury Department also sanctioned 10 people and two entities allegedly connected to the scheme. The State Department announced that it would not issue visas to people who are involved in covert influence activities on behalf of Russian media organizations.
Microsoft says that the campaign recently used fake French-language sites to push false claims of corruption at the Paris Olympics and to warn of potential violence.
The bot farm used AI to create the fake profiles on X, formerly known as Twitter. The accounts posted support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and other pro-Kremlin narratives. The editor at the Russian state-owned outlet has been accused of organizing the effort. The project was funded and run by a Russian intelligence officer.
The influence campaign, which was allegedly directed by members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, created media brands or closely mimicked existing ones to spread Russian government propaganda, according to the US. They created fake personas of non-Russian citizens to post comments.
“This seizure underscores what the U.S. government and private sector partners have warned about for months: the Russian government and its proxies are aggressively speeding their covert efforts to seed false stories and amplify misinformation directed at the American public.”
According to the indictment, Afanasyeva told the company to blame UK for a terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall in March of 2019: even though the group claimed responsibility. One of the contributors was happy to cover it.
Tenet allegedly received some $9.7 million from RT, according to the DOJ. According to the indictment, $8.7 million was given to the production companies of three unnamed commentators. It was rumored that either Johnson or Rubin was contracted for $400,000 per month to make four weekly videos. The nearly $10 million Tenet Media allegedly received from RT “represents nearly 90%” of funds deposited in the company’s accounts, the DOJ claims.
Johnson, Pool, Rubin, and Southern did not immediately respond to requests for comment; none are accused of wrongdoing. Johnson said he was disturbed by the allegations in the indictment and that he and others were victims in the scheme. Pool said that he as well as the other people were deceived and should the X allegations prove true, I would be a victim. Rubin retweeted Pool’s post.
The case of Lauren Chen vs. Liam Donovan in the Tenet Media in Tennessee, as revealed by a federal indictment
Tenet was founded in 2022 by Lauren Chen, a conservative Canadian YouTuber, and her husband, Liam Donovan, whose X profile describes him as president of Tenet Media. Chen hosts a show on Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV and is a contributor to right-wing activist group Turning Point USA. She wrote for a couple years.
Federal officials have accused Russia of using unwitting right-wing American influencers in its quest to spread Kremlin propaganda ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“The company never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Wednesday.
Afanasyeva also urged the influencers to share the company’s videos on their own channels, and got annoyed when she didn’t think they were promoting them enough, according to the indictment.
Johnson said he had been pitched by a “media startup” and had “negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated.” The most recent video that he has uploaded to the Tenet Media channel is from August 29th.
The Tennessee company offered lucrative terms, according to the indictment. A $100,000 signing bonus, $400,000 a month, and an additional performance bonus were paid to aInfluencer in exchange for four videos a week.
Afanasyeva also allegedly requested the company post a video of “a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia” — likely a reference to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who traveled to Moscow in February. According to the indictment, a producer at the company told one of the founders “it just feels like overt shilling,” but was told to “put it out there.”
I didn’t get influenced in that way. There’s no change in my perspective or nature. said Matt Christiansen in a live chat on Wednesday evening. “How am I unwittingly duped into saying someone else’s words when I wrote every one of them?”
“Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show and the contents of the show are often apolitical,” Pool wrote. “The show is produced in its entirety by our local team without input from anyone external to the company.”
The influencers were unaware of the project’s Russian connections. The three people who posted statements on X describe themselves as victims. Southern did not respond to the request for comment.
The indictment accuses Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva of working with the company’s founders to disguise their true source of funding. They told some contributors that the company was being backed by a wealthy European banker named Eduard Grigoriann. Grigoriann was not actually a person according to the indictment.
“While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests, such as its ongoing war in Ukraine,” the indictment said.
Source: How Russian operatives covertly hired U.S. influencers to create viral videos
Where are the real RT operatives? Renée DiResta, author of The People Who Turn lies Into Reality, and her interview with RT
Renée DiResta, author of The People Who Turn lies Into Reality, said that buying authenticity online is a better use of money than faking it.
What sets the RT operation apart from many other interference efforts is that it appeared to reach a real audience, thanks to the recognizable names attached.
