Doppelganger, Hahaganda, and Food Supply Disinfo: Inoculated Newsletter (29.09.2022)
Welcome back! And welcome to a new season of The Inoculated newsletter. Keep on reading to stay on top of what's happening in disinformation.
Here's the 📰News:
- A Russia-based influence operation network has been operating in Europe since at least May 2022 and is still ongoing, according to EU Disinfo Lab. The campaign uses multiple “clones” of authentic media (including Bild, 20minutes, Ansa, The Guardian or RBC Ukraine) and targets users with fake articles, videos and polls by setting up Doppelganger websites.
- Telegram channels are leading German audiences to banned RT content, according to EUvsDisinfo.
- Russia is spreading falsehoods about food supply, according to the New York Times.
- Researchers Maria Domańska and Agnieszka Legucka chatted with Talk Eastern Europe about their new book on pre-invasion Russian disinformation.
- Sure, you've heard about prop-aganda, but have you heard of haha-ganda? When confronted with evidence that disproves their story, disinformation actors then turn it all into a joke, according to EUvsDisinfo. (We created an explainer of many disinfo terms – copypasta, anyone? – but we didn’t see hahaganda coming.)
🎁Bonus reads:
US politicians tweet far more misinformation than those in the UK and Germany – new research
Checks on information shared by politicians in Europe and the US showed those in the US shared more untrustworthy material.
Jana Lasser
What Happened When Twitter and Other Social Media Platforms Cracked Down on Extremists
In a Q&A with ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson, former intelligence officer and data scientist Welton Chang explains how conspiracy theorists and violent racists fled to smaller platforms. Once there, their remarks festered and spread.
A.C. Thompson
📲Tweet of the week:
Anyone who describes the impact of social media as simply amplifying or de-frictioning older phenomena - something I hear a lot at conferences - really doesn’t recognise the way it’s proactively designed and tested to give users a particular experience.
— Carl Miller (@carljackmiller) September 27, 2022
