Pro-Kremlin websites masquerading as American news outlets spread incendiary falsehoods ahead of the U.S. presidential election, the AFP news agency reported on Aug. 19.
Washington's rivals like Russia or Iran have been reportedly adjusting their propaganda strategies in the wake of a turbulent period in U.S. politics.
Using artificial intelligence, the fake media sites disseminated provocative false statements in the run-up to the presidential election in November. The number of fake news outlets has increased in the past few months, AFP said, citing disinformation researchers.
Fake websites, mostly created with the help of widely available artificial intelligence tools, fuel the spread of controversial and false narratives. U.S. officials are warning that foreign powers, including Russia and Iran, are stepping up efforts to interfere in the upcoming elections.
Several similar websites, owned by John Mark Dougan, a former U.S. Marine who fled to Russia amid racketeering and wiretapping charges in Florida, spread the false claim that the Democratic Party was behind the assassination attempt on Trump in July, AFP said.
The articles referred to an audio recording of an alleged conversation between former U.S. President Barack Obama and an unnamed Democratic strategist. A voice impersonating Obama said that getting "rid of Trump" would ensure "victory against any Republican candidate."
According to NewsGuard, an American disinformation watchdog, the audio was created using artificial intelligence. The fake audio is believed to be from an article titled "Top Democrats Are Behind the Assassination Attempt on Trump; Obama Knows About the Details" on an obscure website, DeepStateLeaks.org.
The audio was distributed through Dougan's 171 fake news websites network, citing DeepStateLeaks.org as the source. Their articles turned out to be AI-rewritten versions of the same story, NewsGuard said.
NewsGuard analyst McKenzie Sadeghi told AFP that Dougan's network is increasingly being used to spread political disinformation ahead of elections, and Dougan himself is "a key player" in the Kremlin's global disinformation network.
NewsGuard has identified at least 1,270 "pink slime" outlets, politically motivated websites that present themselves as independent local news outlets.
In July, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it had seized two domain names and searched over 950 accounts on X that were involved in a bot farm linked to the Russian state-run media outlet RT.
The bot farm used generative AI to create accounts for X, who often claimed to be in the U.S. The falsified accounts then spread Russian propaganda talking points aimed at the American public.
Top intelligence officials also revealed on July 29 that the Kremlin was using unsuspecting Americans and commercial public relations firms in Russia to spread disinformation about the U.S. presidential race.
Chris York
