Americans do an excellent job of inadvertently and intentionally distributing misinformation on social media — but we get “a little help from our friend.”
Russia is engaged in a prolonged campaign to undermine democracy and trust in our institutions and in one another. It will continue long after the 2024 U.S. election. But we must be on high alert in these days immediately following Election Day.
Some of Russia’s efforts are so ham handed as to be laughable. Take its agent’s distribution of a false video purporting to show mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania being thrown away. Federal officials were able to quickly identify the video as a sham, aimed at “dividing Americans,” and warned us to expect more.
Russia’s efforts are not confined to U.S. soil. What it does overseas confirms what it is after in the United States. According to a European Parliament spokesperson, Russia made efforts to attack the integrity of the Parliament’s elections this year, with attempts to create confusion on topics such as whether the elections were “rigged,” the Russia-Ukraine war, climate change and migration. The New York Times reported disinformation also around sensitive agricultural issues. Russian sources were linked to a February artificial intelligence generated deepfake of a French news reporter falsely stating that Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, refused a trip to Ukraine because he was afraid to go.
According to reports described in FT Magazine, in February, 193 websites linked to Russia were identified by French officials whose purpose was “to spread pro-Russian news in French, English, Spanish and German,” and while dormant, were poised to be activated “to saturate the information space.” The German government revealed that in January Russia unleashed 50,000 bots on X that questioned German support for Ukraine. Joseph Borrell, the outgoing foreign policy head of the European Parliament, said: “The constant stream of lies is meant to plant the notion that all information is unreliable and untrustworthy. To make us suspicious about everything.” He concludes: “Disinformation weakens the social fabric, poisons democracies, because only information makes democracy possible.”
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Russia has a long history of disinformation efforts, going back to at least the early days of the Cold War between the United States and the then Soviet Union, starting in about 1947, just two years after the end of World War II. Then a key outlet for foreign audiences for disinformation was Russian TV.
The U.S. government established the Global Engagement Center to expose and counter foreign disinformation. In its special report, issued August 2020 during the final year of the Trump administration, the GEC classified Russia as “a leading threat.” It described the ecosystem of Russian disinformation as “the collection of official, proxy and unattributed communication channels and platforms that Russia uses to create and amplify false narratives all aimed at using “information as a weapon.” It concluded Russia “leverages outlets that masquerade as news sites or research institutions to spread false and misleading narratives.” Overall, “Russia has operationalized the concept of perpetual adversarial competition in the information environment by encouraging the development of a disinformation and propaganda ecosystem that allows for varied and overlapping approaches that reinforce each other even when individual messages within the system appear to be contradictory.” In other words, it is not about consistent false messaging across the board, it is about even contradictory lies that promote Russia’s goals.
No matter who had won the presidency, or which party controls the House of Representatives or Senate, Russia’s agents will be active in telling lies, and creating confusion, with the aim of further dividing Americans of all stripes, sowing doubt and distrust among us and of our institutions, and undermining our strength, which is our democracy.
Our United States did not come easy — eight years of revolutionary war, a struggle to enact a Constitution that could unite a disparate land, and a Bill of Rights to protect us. Let us hope that we do not help Russia undermine our democracy by our actions and distrust of our own institutions. No matter our partisan views, true, transparently provided information should be our own weapon.
Jim Hartnett, Navy veteran, attorney, strategic consultant. Graduate of Sophia University International Division (Tokyo) and holder of a Certificate in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.
(2) comments
Thanks for your guest perspective, Mr. Hartnett, but nowadays, it is not only Russia but China, North Korea, and Iran, to name a few. What shouldn’t be overlooked is that the U.S. is no angel and is guilty of doing the same sorts of things to other countries, perhaps on a greater scale. Wasn't the U.S. listening to communications of then German Chancellor Angela Merkel? And supposedly, Germany is an ally. Imagine what we’re doing to our “enemies”?
Disinformation is in the eyes of who dislikes the information. Why should we believe the Global Engagement Center more than anyone else? The intelligence agencies in the U.S. don't exhibit a sterling reputation. How about the shenanigans from the F.B.I.? How about those 51 former intelligence officials who colluded with the Biden campaign in regards to Hunter Biden? How about the fake news and lies from the mainstream media, repeated ad nauseam by Democrats?
Misinformation and disinformation or whatever you want to call it will continue. It is what it is and it’s up to folks, as always, to do their homework. These days, the reputation of who's reporting the information is paramount. For instance, any political news from the AP should be taken with a grain of salt, and more often than not, will be fake news or lies.
I would say it's the local disinformation that is causing the trouble.
If the Democrats wanted to prove that they are better people, they have all the advantages in San Mateo County. But it's local politicians - like Jim - that mess up every single infrastructure project. It's local politicians - like Jim - that sabotage Public Transportation. It's local politicians - like Jim - that have messed up our schools. It's local politicians - like Jim - that keep adding pollution and carbon emissions. It's local politicians - like Jim - that always ask for money to fix "equality and equity", but somehow the money always ends up in other pockets. If they want voters to come back they need to start fixing some local problems to have a showcase.
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