Disinformation Watch 5 February 2024 |
A regular newsletter covering the latest news about disinformation, including case studies, research and reporting from the BBC, international media and leading experts in the field. |
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As media and fact-checking organisations get a grip on state-run disinformation campaigns, the people behind the spread of misleading information adapt their tactics to flood the conversation with ever more fake news, designed - it seems - to waste fact-checkers’ time while simultaneously claiming to be “just asking questions”. This comes as 2024 starts with a flood of disinformation, spread both by state actors and conspiracy theorists, making this year - one of key elections around the world - a fraught time for organisations whose business is trusted news, and those who support and promote democracy and truth. As well as disinformation and misleading narratives about elections and politics, anti-vaccine rhetoric plays a part in the rise of diseases which would normally be suppressed by widespread vaccination. There are also cases of disinformation targeting the idea of national identity, designed to stoke anger among extremists, and to drive a wedge between communities. Can artificial intelligence - already being used by malign actors to spread disinformation - become a weapon in the fact-checker’s arsenal too? Using AI to fight AI may sound absurd, but the creation of new detection tools is a must when bad actors are constantly adapting their tactics. |
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New anti-Ukraine disinfo campaign aims to bog down Western media and fact-checkers |
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An online disinformation campaign which is apparently linked to Russia involves not just the spreading of anti-Ukrainian false news, but also challenges Western media outlets to waste their time verifying it, Agence France Presse reported on 29 January. It does this by setting up inauthentic social media accounts, or taking over dormant ones, which then ask news organisations to check out fake news stories.
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Researchers have called this new disinformation campaign operation "Matryoshka" after the famous Russian dolls. The stories they push toward news outlets are always anti-Ukraine, and many stem from memes or misleading content originally posted on pro-Moscow Telegram channels. The motive, the "Antibot4Navalny" collective says, is to interfere with the work of fact-checkers by giving them worthless content to verify, and to give visibility to this false information. It’s thought that Matryoshka is an evolution of the previous Doppelganger campaign, which posted false information in the guise of legitimate broadcasters such as the BBC and CNN.
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Germany uncovers pro-Russia disinformation campaign on X/Twitter |
A massive pro-Russia disinformation campaign against the German government has been uncovered, the Guardian newspaper reported on 26 January, citing data seen by journalists from Der Spiegel newspaper. The country’s Foreign Ministry commissioned the investigation into the campaign after it suspected it was being targeted by bots, and digital forensic researchers found tens of thousands of fake accounts. The content was aimed at souring public approval for Germany’s part in supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia, and to give the impression that Berlin’s pro-Kyiv policy is wavering. It is thought to be linked to the Doppelganger campaign, as readers were urged to click through to fake sites resembling known media outlets.
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France accuses Russia over “mercenaries” claim |
The French Ministry of Defence has said that Russian claims that up to 30 French mercenaries were killed in a Russian attack on a building in Kharkiv are false and part of Moscow’s ongoing disinformation campaign against France. In a 26 January press release (pdf format, in French), the ministry said that the original Russian reports on the “incident” appeared on 17 January, and were followed five days later with a list of “French mercenaries” said to have been killed in the attack. However, three of those named on the list came forward to say that they are volunteers supporting Ukraine on the front line, and that they are also not dead. It is also suggested that the lists of fictional casualties are either shoddily collated or are the result of generative AI bots, with AFP pointing to one “victim” named as “Air Jordan, born in 1986”.
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Warning over Russian disinformation in Africa |
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An opinion piece in Kenya’s influential Nation newspaper on 26 January argues that Russia is being encouraged by international inaction over its invasion of Ukraine to employ its aggressive tactics elsewhere, including Africa. Lilian Olivia Orero, an expert researching election interference in Africa, says that Moscow is using its tried and tested
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disinformation tactics to convince people across the continent that Russia is the only nation with their interests at heart. The Russian campaign also made claims that western news stories about the war and Russian atrocities were fakes intended to discredit Africa’s newest ally. Ms Orero urges Kenya to beware - with much of the country’s trade coming from Europe and America, “there is a lot to lose by falling into Moscow’s orbit”.
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Ugandan internet propaganda network exposed by the BBC |
A BBC Verify investigation has uncovered a network of fake social media accounts in Uganda. Under false identities, it spread pro-government messaging and targeted critics with threats, Marco Silva reports. The vast majority of the nearly 200 accounts involved used stolen images as profile pictures - often social media photos of models, influencers, and actresses from across the world, but their behaviour - often posting the same content within minutes of each other - showed a level of coordination. It is unclear how successful this network may have been in actually shifting people's views of the government, as very few of its posts earned large numbers of likes, comments, or shares.
BBC Verify’s Marco Silva shows in a thread on Twitter/X how he and his colleagues conducted the investigation. |
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Culture war in Bulgaria over non-existent plan to ban poem |
Claims that Bulgaria’s most influential poet Ivan Vazov is being “banished” from the country’s classrooms to placate migrants are false and another chapter of so-called “culture wars” being used by extremists to sow division, US-funded RFE/RL reported on 26 January. Bulgarian officials have stressed that no such plans exist, but it is a narrative amplified by Kremlin-friendly websites and public figures. According to RFE/RL the controversy started after the words of an opinion piece on its website about Bulgarian national identity were, in the words of its author, “twisted and distorted”. However, populist figures, politicians and websites known for publishing disinformation have interpreted the article as being part of a government plan to pull Vazov’s poem “I am a Bulgarian” from schools. Other pro-Moscow figures take a further leap to say that a “war” has been declared on Bulgarian culture, a trope that is widespread among extremists in the West.
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Misinformation fuelling global measles crisis and other diseases |
The global spike in measles cases is being fuelled by vaccine hesitancy as a result of false claims about vaccines, says Gavi, the international vaccines alliance, of which the UK government is the largest donor. The organisation’s 26 January report says that “while many factors are at play, what is clear is that misinformation is undoubtedly a major threat in spreading killer childhood diseases like measles”. The World Health Organization says there has been a 45-fold increase in measles cases in Europe in 2023, while major outbreaks are being reported in Africa and Asia. Gavi says that in the UK at least, hesitancy to take the Covid vaccine has snowballed into mistrust of vaccines in general, a view that still lingers after the Andrew Wakfield claims about the MMR vaccine were debunked.
Misinformation is also fuelling a rise in Covid cases, US broadcaster PBS reported on 18 January. Public health experts and doctors are worried that statements such as that from Florida governor and former presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, who claimed that each vaccine booster shot “increases your chance of getting Covid”, are misinforming the public about the efficacy of vaccines. PBS cites experts who say some of the misinformation coming from social media and political leaders draws on rhetoric and fears long used by anti-vaccine advocates. “Targeted misinformation can negatively impact communities that are repeatedly exposed to it,” Professor Sander Van der Linden of Cambridge University told PBS.
Misinformation and vaccine safety fears are fuelling diphtheria deaths in Nigeria the Abuja-based Daily Trust newspaper reports. According to UNICEF, the current diphtheria outbreak is “the most severe outbreak in recent global history, despite the fact it is a vaccine-preventable disease” Vaccines are widely available, but the Daily Trust found “shockingly low” levels of uptake, some through lack of access, but others because they had heard inaccurate information about vaccines, often through peer pressure. There are also cultural problems, such as the belief that something free must have a hidden agenda. But one Nigerian epidemiologist put low rates down to apathy rather than ignorance, fuelled sometimes by witnessing adverse effects.
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Disinformation fuelling violence in Ireland’s asylum debate |
The issue of asylum in Ireland has become increasingly contentious after violence and a spate of arson attacks, law professor Ciara Smith writes in the Australia-based explanatory journalism website The Conversation. Professor Smith describes a “perfect storm” of disinformation in which increasing immigration and a housing crisis has led to claims that “Ireland is full” and immigrants are taking resources away from citizens. She says the emerging far right in Ireland has been spreading damaging tropes and seeking to capitalise on protests by local communities against the opening of new asylum reception centres.
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Europe looks inwards at threat of election disinformation |
Upcoming EU elections in June are a “prime target” for disinformation, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported on 25 January, quoting the Union’s Foreign Affairs and Security representative Josep Borrell. While there is a danger of misinformation from abroad, there is also a risk of the same coming from inside the EU, such as that from EU politicians themselves.
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Misinformation spreads in China on ‘civil war’ in Texas |
Amid the escalating border standoff between Texas and the White House over illegal immigration, misinformation has spread in China that the Lone Star state has officially declared war to secede from the US, BBC Monitoring’s Kerry Allen reports. Posts with the hashtag #TexasDeclaresAStateOfWar have been viewed and shared thousands of times on the popular social network Sina Weibo.
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Navigating malign influence campaigns: A guide for journalists and newsrooms |
Reuters Fellow and Washington Post journalist Regine Cabato has published a paper on how journalists and researchers can work in “fractured realities” where disinformation and malign influence campaigns dominate political reporting. Her research was based around her and other journalists’ experiences during the 2022 election campaign in her native Philippines. She urges media workers to be selective when amplifying claims, so as not to amplify them further; exercise caution when interacting with disruptive actors; and to ensure everybody in the newsroom is doing the same. The full paper is available via the Reuters Institute website (pdf format).
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Podcast: 'I regret posting online that I was Madeleine McCann' |
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What happens when you think AI is lying about you? |
BBC Technology Editor Zoe Kleinmann tries to find out who - exactly - is responsible when potentially libellous Generative AI content is published about an individual. It’s not a hypothetical investigation, she began her investigation after discovering suspect information about herself on social media, and ran into dead-ends from both regulators and the legal profession.
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AI-driven audio deepfakes “weapon of choice” in election disinformation |
The Financial Times reports that Generative Artificial Intelligence “deepfakes” are emerging as a leading threat to elections around the world in the coming year. The advent of cheap and effective AI tools mean that it is now relatively simple to create a realistic-sounding audio clip that can be used to discredit a political opponent, and recent advances mean that voices sound “less robotic and more natural”. With AI-created audio often harder to detect than video, there is now a concerted effort to create effective detection tools to counter the threat.
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