Pro-Russian Disinfo Campaign Uses Celeb Fakes

GNAI Visual Synopsis: A collage of various celebrities’ faces with speech bubbles containing misleading quotes, symbolizing the misleading nature of the disinformation campaign, against a digital network background.

One-Sentence Summary
WIRED reports on a sophisticated disinformation campaign targeting Ukraine, falsely using celebrity images to express pro-Russian sentiments. Read The Full Article

Key Points

  • 1. A deceptive ad campaign run by a Russian influence operation known as Doppelganger utilized fake endorsements from celebrities like Taylor Swift and Cristiano Ronaldo to spread anti-Ukrainian messages, reaching at least 7.6 million people on Facebook.
  • 2. The campaign, linked to Russia’s GRU military spy agency, exploited Facebook’s ad verification systems, bypassing them with images containing false quotes, effectively undermining support for Ukraine in European Union countries like France and Germany.
  • 3. Despite exposure by organizations like EU DisinfoLab and the nonprofit Reset, as well as the deactivation of some Facebook ads, the operation persists, with evolving tactics such as fake screenshots of verified Instagram accounts and doctored videos with dubbed audio.

Key Insight
This disinformation campaign highlights the ongoing battle against fake news and the sophisticated tactics used by state-linked actors to influence public opinion and geopolitical narratives, illustrating the challenges social media platforms face in curbing the spread of deceitful content.

Why This Matters
The manipulation of public perception through such disinformation campaigns poses a grave threat to democracy by fostering division, skewing electoral outcomes, and weakening the collective response to crises like the war in Ukraine; being well-informed about these tactics is crucial for sustaining informed democracies in the digital age.

Notable Quote
“Researchers at Reset believe that the campaign ‘exploits loopholes in Facebook’s ad verification and content moderation systems to foster hostility against Ukrainians and undermine EU support for Kyiv.’”.

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