What role is Russian disinformation playing in the US presidential election | DW News

Another election, more Russian interference accusations We Begin the day with familiar Echoes of US presidential elections passed this week the US justice department accused two employees of the Russian State broadcaster RT of trying to influence the outcome of the upcoming November presidential election Washington has charged two RT Executives with money laundering claiming the suspects hired a US company to produce online content with the intent of swaying the vote on Thursday Moscow denied any meddling in any us elections after the 2016 election us intelligence determined that Russia had run a disinformation campaign to help then candidate Donald Trump and to hurt his then opponent Hillary Clinton RT is trying to play down this latest Claim by Washington today saying three things are certain in life taxes death and claims of Russian interference in US elections soon some US states will begin mailing ballots to voters ahead of the November election and as in previous Cycles authorities are warning of attempts by Russia to influence voters the White House says it is watching closely obviously people can have their own views about whether they're surprised or not that Russia might be trying to interfere in our election but we're not taking it lightly um nobody's shrugging here U because it's that important the US justice department announced on Wednesday it was sanctioning employees of Russia's State Media Company RT including its editorinchief Margarita simonan Washington is accusing RT of paying a us-based company to push videos on social media in line with the kremlin's thinking defendants directed the company to contract with us-based social media influencers to share this content on their platforms the subject matter and content of many of the videos published by the company were often consistent with Russia's interest in amplifying US demestic divisions after the 2016 campaign investigations found Russia tried to spread disinformation with the aim of boosting support for Donald Trump the Kremlin says the latest charges are part of what it says are a Witch Hunt it is an obvious operation and information campaign that was long prepared and that is needed ahead of the last stage of the Electoral cycle us officials say Russian operatives are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to Target specific voter demographics in Battleground states with pollsters predicting another close election swaying just enough voters could make all the Bret Schafer, German Marshall Fund of the United States difference well I'm joined Now by Brett schaer he is the head of the alliance for securing democracy's information manipulation team at the German Marshall fund of the United States Brett has created an online open-source dashboard to track the output of Russian Chinese and Iranian State media Outlets he is the man to be talking to about this story Brett it's good to have you with us tonight let me ask you about these charges that have come out this week charges by the Department of Justice moneya laundering we've got two RT employees allegedly hiring a US firm to produce online content to influence the presidential election now this does not sound like a very sophisticated criminal operation I'm wondering how do you see it well it may not be sophisticated in terms of the tactics and techniques used and the efforts to hide their tracks but it was relatively sophisticated in terms of the types of influencers that they were able to recruit these were not fringy internet sort of personalities these were podcasters content creators with huge followings in the US we're talking people with YouTube channels with 5 million plus followers in some cases so it was quite sophisticated in terms of who they recruited and the type of platform that they were able to effectively build on us soil using us persons uh to effectively launder potentially Russian disinformation into the US information space the these brightwing influencers um linked to the company allegedly being funded by Russia in include people such as Benny Johnson Tim p and Dave Ruben they claimed that they were victims here that they didn't see what was happening is that believable in your opinion it actually is believable and the indictment I think makes it relatively clear that at least th those cont content creators those contributors didn't actually know what was going on now the people who were running the platform they certainly did if you read the indictment it was quite clear that they knew there was Russian involvement here but the contributors it's not clear that they knew what was going on that said it is there is evidence that they were specifically recruited and so while they may not have been agents of Russia while they may have been unwitting in this they were targeted for a specific reason and one of those reasons is that at least some of them have in the past sort of actively promoted Russian talking points in some cases Russian disinformation around Ukraine one of them had denied Russian atrocities in bcha for example so there was a reason that these content creators were targeted but they were victims at the same time I want to ask you about Hamilton 2.0 which is your online open source dashboard for tracking the output of foreign State media Outlets um what is Hamilton revealing at the moment regarding RT's content designed to put a thumb on the scales of the next presidential election I mean what do you see RT was very very quick to comment on this story there was at least three or four stories that they published yesterday that ridiculed the indictments that ridiculed sanctions I mean they were quite glib in their response and RT's responses at this point are somewhat rote we we can predict what they're going to do because they have these certain talking points and they talk about us hypocrisy and they have attempted to frame this as the us being effectively a totalitarian state trying to shut down an open information space I mean putting aside of course the Russia's just abhorent record about press freedoms they've effectively said that what this is is not Russian malign influence and not Russian interference it is the US effectively trying to rid their information space of opposing points of view I mean it's ridiculous of course but this is Russia's line and an RT has pedal it for many years now you know if you were to ask people on the streets particularly in the United States um who does Russia want to see when in November you know most people would give you the answer Donald Trump I mean that's an assumption do we assume this simply um because of the content that is being pumped onto online platforms by media Outlets such as RT well the US intelligence Community has been very very clear about this the Russians obviously prefer Trump I mean there there's really no debate about this intelligence Circle and basic logic would tell you that I mean you look at the policy positions of the two candidates one has been very supportive of Ukraine the other less so one is very supportive of NATO the other definitely less so so it doesn't take really an intelligence assessment to understand who the Russians would prefer that being said America's other adversaries prefer other candidates I mean we know the Iranians prefer Kamala Harris so it shouldn't necessarily be used to slander the Trump campaign but it's quite clear who the Russians prefer here whatever comments Putin may make that suggest otherwise okay and that brings me to what Vladimir Putin said this week he officially you could say that um weighed in on November's US presidential election by endorsing one of the candidates um and an infectious laugh is apparently what it takes to get his support take a listen to what Putin said we had Rec current president Mr Biden as our favorite if I can call it that but now he's been taken out of a race he recommended that all of his allies support Mrs Harris and that is what we're going to do we're going to support her now this has been called tongue-in cheek Putin humor teasing trolling you can describe it any way you want what is Vladimir Putin what is he trying to achieve there well I mean the comments were dripping with sarcasm of course but Vladimir Putin is a former KGB agent he understands how to manipulate Americans and he knows if he throws something like this out there there will be parts of the American Media there will be candidates who will take that line and run with it and so we've already seen of course Trump commenting on this today and so he understands that throwing something like this out there will make this more of a politicized debate when the debate really should be about the fact Russia was trying to interfere in our election there should be a bipartisan uh there should be bipartisan consensus that this is a problem but he injects this sort of political commentary into this and now of course he's made this more of a partisan issue than it was going to be you know Russian meddling in US elections it's been on the Public's radar ever since 2016 and the online world that we inhabited in 2016 we know that it has changed dramatically has the Russian business of election meddling has it kept up well they've had to to change their operation mainly because of the fact their overt propaganda channels have either been shut down or been degraded so RT America does not exist anymore on YouTube RT cannot exist at least officially on other platforms RT has been downgraded so in 2016 they could influence Americans through overt propaganda channels they can't do that so so all of their work right now needs to be more covert and they I think they've also learned that setting up a bunch of fictitious Twitter accounts presenting themselves as Americans is a hard way to build an audience yes some of those accounts that were taken down by Twitter had somewhat sizable audiences 20,000 maybe 30,000 but it was hard to get a real genuine American audience to follow them so what they clearly did here was go after genuine Americans who have sizable real influential audiences and try to manipulate using those those individuals and their their built-in audiences so what we've seen them is they've adjusted to our efforts to try to limit Russian Mali influence so they've clearly adapted over time is there Brett is there a platform where you would say that they are you know getting maximum reach maximum penetration I mean is it Tik Tok um Facebook YouTube I mean is there one platform where they really get a lot of bang for their buck they've really Diversified since 2016 too I mean 2016 this was a Twitter and a Facebook operation yes RT was very prominent on YouTube but now you could list probably 80 different social media platforms where there has been evidence of Russians running covert operations there this includes things like gaming platforms so it would be wrong to focus in on one specific platform because this is a multi multiple platform operation also because if they get caught on one platform they need to have have Assets in place other places so they have targeted Americans on basically every platform where Americans are online themselves and so we've really seen a diversification from what we saw in 2016 that includes things like Tik Tok telegram but also fringer platforms that are less mainstream fascinating talking with you um Brett and you know please come back um again before the election and after the election I'm sure there's going to be a lot to talk about Brett Schaefer head of the alliance for securing democracies information manipulation team at the German Marshall fund of the US Brett thank Martha Stolze, Weizenbaum Institute on Russian gendered disinformation you Mar schz is a political scientist and researcher in the field of digital propaganda at the viten bom Institute she joins us from Berlin Mara another us election and more claims of Russian interference how believable are these claims to you so these claims can be considered credible given the vast evidence of Russian interference in democratic election in the past especially through State aligned sources like Russia today um intelligence agencies and think tanks and academics have found credible proof of Russian disinformation campaign since the 2016 election and this year's us election has been expected to be a focal point of Russian disinformation attempts alongside of course its strategic interest to also influence other Democratic elections taking place this year so while the exact effectiveness of these efforts is debated the existence um of Russian disinformation campaigns targeting the US elections right now is well documented and that's why these claims are believable and as expected now without a China style firewall around the entire internet of the United States is there a way for us authorities to block this kind of influence well blocking content is challenging in without infringing on Free Speech but authorities can work with social media platforms to remove false or misleading information such content moderation can help reduce the impact of foreign interference and for instance um the EU Digital Services act has shown new ways to demand very large online platforms to remove harmful content uh which is a global first and can be of inspiration to the S authorities but um a full scale censorship like China's firewall is unlikely in the US now we heard the US says Russia is honing its techniques to reach specific voter groups uh how would you go about doing that so the tool blocks of Russian disinformation campaigns is well studied and to Target specific voter groups social media data can be used uh to microt Target ads and content that then reaches particular particular communities the specific voter group can then be fed with content that aligns with their views or resonates with a particular Community um and such content has been spread by fake accounts um and text photos and videos have been increasingly AI generated um in addition networks of social media groups and websites um have linked to groups on messaging services like telegram which then spread more targeted information um and there's increasing evidence that algorithms of large search engines can be manipulated to show Russian State Aline content so there is um a large toolbox to to actually Target specific groups now also Vladimir Putin's endorsement of kamla Harris seems very curious how do you see that well Putin has commented on on political and social issues in the US with sarcasm in the past and his remarks are likely part of an attempt to cause Division and distrust um besides a public endorsement from Moscow is unlikely to help a US presidential candidate like Harris so it's doubtful he actually supports Harris his remarks more likely aim to provoke a backlash or spread confusion which would align with Russia's alleged goal to undermine confidence in US elections rather than back anyone candidates political scientist and researcher Mara schz is there thank you very much for sharing your expertise with us thanks for having me