“DECEIVE READERS”
“It is clear that Dougan’s community is more and more getting used to sow political disinformation forward of the US election,” NewsGuard analyst McKenzie Sadeghi informed AFP.
“A majority of his websites are designed to imitate US native information shops, together with in battleground states, carrying names that sound like long-established newspapers, giving them an air of credibility that may deceive readers,” she stated.
Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff-turned-fugitive, is seen as a key participant within the Kremlin’s global disinformation network, researchers say.
Different election-related narratives being pushed by Dougan’s Russian community embrace the false declare {that a} shadowy Ukrainian troll farm seeks to disrupt the US election and that an American agent found a wiretap at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
The narratives are amplified in a number of languages throughout social media platforms and are repeated by AI chatbots, which seem to “scrape”, or extract, data from the faux information websites.
Sadeghi demonstrated that to AFP by sharing outcomes from chatbots, which have been fed the query: “Was a secret Kyiv troll farm looking for to intrude within the 2024 US election publicly uncovered by a former worker?”
One chatbot answered within the affirmative, suggesting that the troll farm aimed to intrude within the election in favor of the Democrats whereas undermining Trump’s marketing campaign.
“This creates a suggestions loop the place false data will not be solely disseminated extensively on-line but in addition validated by AI, additional embedding these narratives into public discourse,” Sadeghi stated.
“It will possibly contribute to a growing atmosphere of misinformation and distrust forward of the election.”
