Massive Propaganda Attacks on the US

In recent days, descriptions of current Russian propaganda attacks on US society and politics have appeared. The scope and sophistication of foreign attacks on truth and civil comity are increasing. Yesterday, Rachael Maddow discussed how the attacks are being carried out. The propaganda includes a bizarre assertion that the US is prone to break into separate countries within 20 years as states simply secede from the union. A segment with democratic representative Sean Patrick Maloney, member of the House Intelligence Committee, discussed the reluctance of American social media companies to try to combat Russian lies and social attacks. Maloney commented that he has no confidence in Facebook's "moral compass."

Maddow's broadcast segments referred to an article by Lawfare that found a massive Russian internet propaganda campaign now underway. The Lawfare article describes huge Russian online propaganda operations run by an outfit called TheSoul Publishing (TSP). It turns out that TSP is the third largest presence on YouTube in terms of views and subscribers. Only Disney and WarnerMedia are bigger.  TSP operates at least 140 YouTube channels and 70 Facebook pages, including the YouTube channels 5-Minute Crafts, Bright Side, 5-Minute Crafts Kids, 5-Minute Crafts Girly, 7-Second Riddles and 5-Minute Magic. The point of that was to build a massive audience and people's trust. Lawfare researchers found that As of December 16, 2019, 5-Minute Crafts had more than 62.8 million subscribers, and about 16.6 billion views, while the Bright Side channel had over 32.3 million subscribers and about 6.3 billion views. All of TSP's channels YouTube were apparently created in 2016 or later.

TSP also operates on Facebook. Bright Side on Facebook claims to have begun in June 2004, but Facebook’s transparency measures show a start date of July 2, 2015. Bright Side has more than 44 million followers, as compared to the New York Times which has a Facebook following of 16 million. Lawfare comments on TSP:

It is run by Russian nationals and based in and managed from Cyprus, with U.S. operations housed in a shared work space in New York. It funds itself with ad revenues from YouTube and Google worth tens of millions of dollars. And in 2018, it purchased a small suite of Facebook advertisements targeting U.S. citizens on political issues—and it made those purchases in rubles. 

Indeed, TheSoul Publishing does create nonpolitical (and apparently lucrative) craft videos, reaching worldwide audiences. But it also creates political content, including pro-Russian versions of histories that contain inaccurate information. The social media platforms, which I made aware of TheSoul’s activities, have not taken action against the company—apparently having concluded that its activities do not violate their policies.

TSP history videos are posted on the Smart Banana YouTube channel. They are are pro-Russian propaganda. A fake history post from February of 2019 falsely asserts that Ukraine is part of Russia, and even weirder, it claims that Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev gave Alaska to the US in 1957. Real history is that the Ukraine is not part of Russia and the US bought Alaska from Russia in 1867.

In related news, a recent article by Wired magazine points to the rise of deepfake photos of fake people generated by artificial intelligence to set up fake social media accounts. Wired writes:

Facebook on Friday removed what it called a global network of more than 900 accounts, pages, and groups from its platform and Instagram that allegedly used deceptive practices to push pro-Trump narratives to about 55 million users. The network used fake accounts, artificial amplification, and, notably, profile photos of fake faces generated using artificial intelligence to spread polarizing, predominantly right-wing content around the web, including on Twitter and YouTube. 

It represents an alarming new development in the information wars, as it appears to be the first large-scale deployment of AI-generated images in a social network. In a report on the influence operation, researchers from disinformation groups Graphika and DFRLab noted that this was the first time they had seen the technology used to support an inauthentic social media campaign.

We are under attack

I have heard some people argue that the influence of Russia on America and its politics is low to non-existent. Evidence keeps piling up that Russian influence is large and growing in both size and sophistication. Russia has all the time and money it needs to keep finding ways to foment distrust in democracy, government institutions and each other.

For context, it is very well worth knowing that a spy who defected from the Soviet Union in 1970 asserted that most of the KGB's budget (about 85%) was for disinformation and social disruption campaigns against Western democracies and the rest was for spies and their activities. Other defectors have said the same thing. One source comments:

Later high-profile Russian intelligence defectors, such as Yuri Bezmenov, confirmed that the targeting of community groups and the subversion of western societies was a primary objective of the Kremlin. Bezmenov was granted asylum in Canada in 1970 and later worked for the CBC. In a 1984 video, Bezmenov describes the goals and tactics of KGB active measures: 

The main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion and [the] opinion of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower [are] spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process, which we call either ‘ideological subversion,’ or ‘active measures’ – in the language of the KGB – or ‘psychological warfare.’ What it basically means is, to change the perception of reality, of every American, to such an extent that despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country. (Bezmenov 1984) 

Historically, Russian disinformation and active measures have targeted democratic systems by attempting to undermine the society and institutions of the West through proxy organizations, distortion of narratives and the media, compromised individuals, agents of influence, and the manipulation of elections. The Kremlin’s tactics and objectives remain fundamentally the same today as they were in the 1940s. The main difference is, as former Kremlin insider Gleb Pavlovksy, who once worked on Putin’s election campaign, has said: “[I]n Soviet times the concept of truth was important. Even if they were lying they took care to prove what they were doing was ‘the truth.’ Now no one even tries proving the ‘truth.’ You can just say anything. Create realities” (Pomerantsev and Weiss 2014, 9).

Defense of Russia as a poor, threatened innocent nation is as much nonsense now as it was under Stalin. America is under a serious, sustained Russian attack and it has been for decades. Unfortunately, our president is working for the Russian government, via bribery and/or via blackmail. Americans cannot look to either the president or GOP members of congress to stand up for American democracy or the rule of law. Defense of nation will have to come from the people and the democrats.