McQuade: Fighting Russian disinformation must be a team sport
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin meets with students at Harbin Institute of Technology in the northeastern city of Harbin on May 17, 2024. Photo by Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, AFP, Getty Images
By Barbara McQuade
Bloomberg Opinion via Tribune News Service
Russian disinformation continues to poison U.S. politics via our social media platforms. As the tactics grow more sophisticated, our best defense may be building resilience rather than hoping to eliminate it.
Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced two law enforcement actions relating to a covert Russian disinformation campaign. First was an indictment charging two Russian state media employees with engaging in a scheme that can best be described as laundering disinformation. By duping special media influencers into sharing Kremlin propaganda, the defendants were able to conceal the source of the lies.
According to the indictment, the two employees of RT, formerly known as Russia Today, paid almost $10 million to finance and direct a company in Tennessee to create online content “to shape ‘Western’ opinion.” That company, reported to be Tenet Media, in turn hired prominent right-wing influencers to publish videos on TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube that spread pro-Russian content. The indictment alleges that the videos aimed to weaken American opposition to Russian interests, such as the war in Ukraine. According to an analysis in Wired, the most common phrases were “Ukraine,” “misinformation,” “massive attack free speech” and “racist toward White people.” The influencers have said that they are victims of the scheme — or what Russians would call “useful idiots.” (RT issued a statement in response to the allegations that appeared to be a mocking denial.)
Barbara McQuade is a professor at the University of Michigan Law school, a former U.S. attorney and author of Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America.
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