Russia is accused of influence campaigns against the U.S. voters
The DOJ investigation of a Russian propaganda campaign that allegedly used artificial intelligence to propagate disinformation in the U.S. and other countries
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 that the effort was carried out by an editor at RT.
The Justice Department said that the attempt was meant to influence voters in the United States and other places while bolstering pro-Russian policies.
The Russian RT employees indicted by the US, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, allegedly worked with Tenet Media to produce hundreds of videos that support Russia’s aims. They are accused of conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and with Tenet Media for their alleged involvement in money-laundering.
According to the DOJ, Russian companies ANO Dialog, Social Design Agency, and Structura were involved in the effort that resulted in the seizure of 32 internet domain names.
The effort involved Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, including First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko, it said.
The Biden administration used Wednesday’s announcements to warn malicious actors against interfering with US elections. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement alongside the announcement of the RT employees’ indictment, “and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”
The findings were dismissed by the organization, which said their responses in an office poll included comments like “Ha!” and “2016 called and it wants its clichés back.”
The Russian Campaign Against Vladimir Putin: A Human-Inspired Anti-Democracy Inspiral at the U.S. Capitol
The US has accused Russia before of interfering with elections. After the 2016 election, law enforcement accused Russian agents of election interference-related crimes, including computer hacking. The Senate Intelligence Committee investigated and found that President Putin supported an influence campaign in favor of Donald Trump.
The most active threat to the elections is Russia, according to the Director of National Intelligence.
Some efforts have been linked directly to the Kremlin, including a network of fake accounts and phony news websites given the name Doppelganger, whose operators have been sanctioned by both the U.S. and the European Union.
In March, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned two Russian companies, Social Design Agency and Structura, as well as their founders, for launching a network of fake accounts and phony news websites, saying they carried out the campaign “at the direction of the Russian Presidential Administration.”
The fake French-language news sites were used by the campaign to push claims of corruption at the Paris Olympics, according to a Microsoft report.
The bot farm used artificial intelligence to create fake profiles on X. The accounts posted support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and other pro-Kremlin narratives. The effort and the AI software behind it were organized by an editor at RT, the Russian state-owned media outlet, the Justice Department alleged. The project was funded by the Kremlin 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 also allegedly created fake social media personas of non-Russian citizens to post comments.
The United States and its private sector partners have warned for months that the Russian government and its proxies are aggressively attempting to seed false stories and amplify propaganda directed at the American public.
Prosecutors say in the indictment that Tenet and its founders—who also go unnamed in the indictment but are right-wing influencer Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan, according to corporate records—actively concealed the company’s links to Russia from the individual creators.
According to the DOJ, Tenet earned around $9 million from Russia. The production companies got about 10% of the total, according to the indictment. One, referred to as “Commentator-1”—the description appears to be of either Johnson or Rubin—was allegedly contracted for $400,000 per month for four weekly videos. The DOJ claims that Tenet Media received nearly $10 million from Russia, and that it presents roughly 90 percent of funds deposited in the company’s accounts.
None of them are accused of wrongdoing and did not respond to requests for comment. “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment,” Johnson wrote on X, referring to himself and his lawyers, “which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.” The statement released by Pool said that if the allegations prove true, he as well as the other commentators were deceived and are victims. Rubin retweeted Pool’s post.
An X-Ray Indictment of Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva: The Canadian Woman and Her Husband founded Tenet
Lauren Chen, a Canadian woman, and her husband Liam had founded Tenet, according to an X profile. Chen is a contributor to the right-wing activist group Turning Point USA. She wrote pieces forRT in both 2021 and 2022.
Federal officials said that Russia was using Americans as a way to spread propaganda ahead of the president’s election.
Attorney General Garland said that the company never disclosed its ties to the Russians or the millions of followers it had on social media.
The indictment states that Afanasyeva 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.
Johnson said he had been pitched by a media startup and had a standard arms length deal terminated. His most recent video on Tenet Media’s YouTube channel is from August 29th.
The Tennessee company offered lucrative terms, according to the indictment. One influencer was paid $400,000 a month, a $100,000 signing bonus, and an additional performance bonus in exchange for four videos a week.
A video of a political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia is likely a reference to Tucker Carlson, who traveled to Moscow in February. A producer at the company told one of the entrepreneurs that it felt like shilling but was told to put it out there.
There wasn’t a lot of influence over me in that way. There’s no change in my perspective or the nature of my content,” said Matt Christiansen, another Tenet Media contributor, in a livestream on Wednesday evening. I don’t know how I ended up saying someone else’s words when I wrote every single 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 created by our local team and not anyone else in the company.
The project has Russian connections, that were not known to theinfluencers. On Wednesday, Johnson, Pool, and Rubin posted statements in which they stated that they were victims. Southern didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The indictment accuses Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva of working with the Tennessee company’s founders to conceal the true origins of its funding. They told some contributors that the company was being backed by a wealthy European banker named Eduard Grigoriann. “In truth and in fact, Grigoriann was a fictional persona,” the indictment said.
“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
Invisible rulers: the story of Renée DiResta and the RT operation, and how to get rid of a fake persona
There are better ways to use funds than to create fake personas, as was discussed in Renée DiResta’s novel, invisible rulers: the people who turn lies into reality.
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.
