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| Russian Bots are reshaping America's elections |
As the
Department of Justice ramped up its criminal investigation into Rudy Giuliani,
the U.S. intelligence community was sounding the alarm bells. Russian
disinformation was no longer just a specter; it was infiltrating the very
fabric of American society. Our intelligence experts were convinced that the
Kremlin was pulling the strings, manipulating influential Americans and key
institutions to push its own agenda.
It’s a grim day when the FBI has to step
in and warn Giuliani, members of Congress, conservative media outlets like One
America News, and top U.S. government officials that they’re being played by a
sophisticated Russian disinformation campaign. And the kicker? It’s almost as
if they didn’t see it coming—though you’d think they would, right?
This wasn't a new game, either. The
Kremlin’s deception campaign had been in full swing for quite some time. So,
buckle up and read on. Watch the video at the end of this article to get a
deeper look into just how pervasive and powerful Russian disinformation has
become, influencing not just our leaders, but the American public at large.
For
example, a shadowy building in St. Petersburg, brimming with keyboards clacking
away, as Russian trolls ramp up their assault on America. This isn’t just any
fly-by-night operation—it’s a pro-Putin, oligarch-funded machine known as the
Internet Research Agency (IRA). In the first half of 2018 alone, this troll
farm spent nearly as much as it had in the entire previous year, pushing their
total budget to over $35 million between January 2016 and June 2018.
The U.S. intelligence community was on
high alert. They warned us about a new breed of hi-tech graphics that would
take online disinformation to a whole new level of insidiousness. Enter the era
of “deep fakes”—creations born from rapid advances in deep-learning algorithms.
These aren't your average Photoshopped images; they’re hyper-realistic videos
and audio recordings of real people saying and doing things they never actually
did. It’s like something straight out of a dystopian novel, but it’s happening right
here, right now, in the digital trenches of social media and beyond.
As
the 2024 U.S. Presidential campaign heats up, brace yourselves for an onslaught
of hyper-realistic disinformation—not just from Russia, but from a growing
number of governments, non-state actors, and individuals. This isn’t just some
distant threat; it’s a looming reality. The capacity to craft convincing lies
using state-of-the-art fake evidence is taking a giant leap forward, and we're
all in the crosshairs.
No wonder U.S. Cyber Command is stepping
up its game, targeting individual Russian operatives in a bid to deter them
from meddling in our elections. They’re making it crystal clear: American
operatives know who they are and are tracking their every move. The Justice
Department has already unearthed a Russian campaign of "information
warfare" aimed at swaying both our past and future elections.
Here's something that might pique your
interest: a website called Polygraph.info. Unlike what you might expect, it's
not run by the White House, State Department, or CIA. Instead, it publishes
recordings of Russian trolls, obtained from a source with Kremlin ties, thanks
to one of its enterprising reporters. Polygraph is a relatively new player in
the fact-checking world, a small but mighty effort by the U.S. to expose
Russian misdeeds and counter their propaganda.
One video, in particular, made my stomach
churn. It showed how former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was pushing Russian
propaganda. It's a stark reminder of just how deep and insidious this
disinformation game has become.
You’re going to love my spy thriller, MISSION
OF VENGEANCE. Picture this: a former Russian KGB agent, Yury
Bocharov, defects to the U.S. and blows the lid off a sinister Russian troll
farm. This operation is hell-bent on spreading disinformation to undermine
America’s influence in the Caribbean. Here’s a taste from the novel:
*
Bocharov
took out his smartphone and slid it across the table to Corey. “I spent all
last night talking into the speech-to-text app. There’s sixty pages of
transcripts of all I can recall that was on the flash drive. Putin and Markov
have a plan of disaster for the Caribbean. Spetsnaz
assassination teams are in place. The flash drive had their locations on
it. Putin has rejuvenated the KGB and reinstated the Cold War ‘Active Measures’
strategy against the U.S. throughout the Caribbean, which Putin views as America’s
vulnerable back door.
Morrison
asked, “Active measures? That’s going back to the sixties. When the Soviet
Union collapsed, Russia promised the CIA that it would abandon ‘Active
Measures’.”
“It
never did. Just like in the sixties, Putin today is spreading disinformation to
discredit the U.S. This time, in the Caribbean. As you recall, the KGB
convinced Americans that the U.S. government assassinated Martin Luther King,
Jr. In the eighties they spread gossip that your CIA created the AIDS virus at
Fort Detrick, Maryland.
Now,
we have social media. Putin sent Boris Markov to the Dominican Republic to take
over my business. My DVD bootlegging business has become a front operation for
a Russian troll factory. Markov sent dozens of hackers from the St. Petersburg
Internet Research Agency to my estate, along with the same bloggers and
journalists who hijacked your 2016 elections. They write fake news articles
about how the U.S. attempts to exploit the Caribbean nations, then post them in
social media and newspapers throughout the Caribbean.”
“How
far is their reach?” Corey asked.
“Roughly
146 million Americans and Caribbean citizens see a constant flow of
disinformation in several hundred Caribbean newspapers and on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr and Google+…
all originating from my estate in the Dominican Republic. Hundreds of Bots and
trolls spread the disinformation…black state conspiracy theories, constant
reports of the U.S. screwing over Caribbean nations. I listed each hacker’s
name on my smartphone app.”
*
As
the snippet from MISSION
OF VENGEANCE reveals, Russia has been leveraging social media to
spread disinformation since the 2010s, when platforms like Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube started to gain serious traction. The masterminds behind this
operation? Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA), deploying web brigades and
bots to flood these channels with misleading content.
By late 2017, Facebook estimated that up
to 126 million users had been exposed to content from Russian disinformation
campaigns. Twitter found 36,000 Russian bots spreading tweets about the 2016
U.S. elections. And now, as we approach the 2024 elections, I can't help but
wonder—how many are active this time around?
For a real eye-opener, check out the video
What’s
Happening With Russian Disinformation. It’s a wake-up call for all
of us, explaining how Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections
was just a piece of a much larger puzzle. Their ultimate goal? Undermine
confidence in democracy. Now, they’re setting their sights on the U.S. justice
system and the upcoming 2024 presidential campaign.
Stay informed, stay vigilant. The battle against disinformation is far from over.
Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and authors the ‘Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster’ series. Check out his latest spy thriller, ‘Mission of Vengeance’.
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