Russian disinformation spreading in new ways despite bans amid Moscow-Kyiv: Report

After Russia inved Ukraine last February, European Union moved to block RT and Sputnik, two of Kremlin’s top channels for spreing propaganda and misinformation about war.

Nearly six months later, number of sites pushing that same content has exploded as Russia found ways to eve ban. y’ve rebranded ir work to disguise it. y’ve shifted some propaganda duties to diplomats. And y’ve cut and pasted much of content on new websites — ones that until w h obvious ties to Russia.

NewsGuard, a New York-based firm that studies and tracks online misinformation, has w identified 250 websites actively spreing Russian disinformation about war, with dozens of new ones ded in recent months.

Claims on se sites include allegations that Ukraine’s army has std some dely Russian attacks to curry global support, that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is faking public appearances, or that Ukrainian refugees are committing crimes in Germany and Poland.

Some of sites pose as independent think tanks or news outlets. About half are English-langu, while ors are in French, German or Italian. Many were set up long before war and were t obviously tied to Russian government until y suddenly began parroting Kremlin talking points.

“y may be establishing sleeper sites,” said NewsGuard co-CEO Gordon Crovitz. Sleeper sites are websites created for a disinformation campaign that lay largely dormant, slowly building an audience through incuous or unrelated posts, and n switching to propaganda or disinformation at an appointed time.

While NewsGuard’s analysis found that much of disinformation about war in Ukraine is coming from Russia, it did find instances of false claims with a pro-Ukrainian bent. y included claims about a hotshot fighter ace kwn as Ghost of Kyiv that officials later mitted was a myth.

YouTube, TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, all pledged to remove RT and Sputnik from ir platforms within European Union. But researchers have found that in some cases all Russia h to do to eve ban was to post it from a different account.

Disinformation Situation Center, a Europe-based coalition of disinformation researchers, found that some RT video content was showing up on social media under a new brand name and logo. In case of some video foot, RT brand was simply removed from video and reposted on a new YouTube channel t covered by EU’s ban.

More aggressive content moderation of social media could make it harder for Russia to circumvent ban, according to Felix Kartte, a senior viser at Reset, a U.K.-based nprofit that has funded Disinformation Situation Center’s work and is critical of social media’s role in democratic discourse.

“Rar than putting effective content moderation systems in place, y are playing whack-a-mole with Kremlin’s disinformation apparatus,” Kartte said.

YouTube’s parent company did t immediately respond to questions seeking comment about ban.

In EU, officials are trying to shore up ir defenses. This spring EU approved legislation that would require tech companies to do more to root out disinformation. Companies that fail could face big fines.

European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova last month called disinformation “a growing problem in EU, and we really have to take stronger measures.”

proliferation of sites spreing disinformation about war in Ukraine shows that Russia h a plan in case governments or tech companies tried to restrict RT and Sputnik. That means Western leers and tech companies will have to do more than shutter one or two websites if y hope to stop flow of Kremlin disinformation.

“ Russians are a lot smarter,” said NewsGuard’s or co-CEO, Steven Brill.

Im: AP