Dictating Russian Malign Influence Campaigns in the U.S. after Ukraine: RT America and the Election Threat Task Force

The Department of Justice said it had disrupted Russian malign influence campaigns in the US that were meant to spread Russian government propaganda.

The effort was meant to reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster pro-Russian policies, and influence voters in the U.S. and elsewhere, the Justice Department said.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a lot of American cable distributors discontinued the production of RT America, the US channel. The video scheme allowed RT to covertly reach American audiences without a presence on the airwaves, the indictment alleged.

As part of the Doppelganger investigation, the DOJ said it seized 32 internet domains used in the effort, and named Russian companies Social Design Agency (SDA), Structura National Technology (Structura), and ANO Dialog as being involved in the effort.

The effort involved Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, including First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko, it said.

The DOJ set up the election threats task force to counter growing threats against election officials and administrators after Attorney General Garland announced the charges at a meeting. The investigation is still going on, he said.

In a statement on its website ahead of the charges, RT dismissed the findings, joking that their responses in an office poll included comments like “Ha!” and “2016 called and it wants its clichés back.”

The Russian Embassy at the Kremlin: a Russian Company that Markets Warped Political and Cultural Correlations on Social Designs and Structura

Russia is attempting to undermine the Democratic presidential nominee, exploit social divisions, sow distrust in democratic institutions and erode support for Ukraine, which is why the United States intelligence and security officials have been warning for months.

In May the Director of National Intelligence told the Senate that Russia was the most active foreign threat to our elections.

Some efforts have been linked directly to the Kremlin, including a network of fake accounts and phony news websites given the name Doppelganger, whose operators have been sanctioned by both the U.S. and the European Union.

In March, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned two Russian companies, Social Design Agency and Structura, as well as their founders, for launching a network of fake accounts and phony news websites, saying they carried out the campaign “at the direction of the Russian Presidential Administration.”

The fake French news websites were used to spread rumors of corruption and warn of possible violence, according to a Microsoft report.

The fake accounts on X were created by the bot farm. The accounts posted support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and other pro-Kremlin narratives. The effort and the software behind it were put together by an editor at the Russia state-owned media outlet, the Justice Department said. The project was funded by the Kremlin and run by a Russian intelligence officer.

The company’s co-founding duo of Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan concealed their connection to Russia from the individual creators, according to the indictment.

The Justice Department identifies Tenet Media only as “US Company-1” but notes in the indictment that the company describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.” That language is identical to the description on Tenet Media’s website.

None of the above people are accused of wrongdoing. Johnson wrote on X that he and other celebrities were victims in the scheme and that they were disturbed by the allegations. Pool also released a statement on X, saying in part that “should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.” Rubin retweeted Pool’s post.

Tenet Media has a network of online creators who are known for their conservative politics, such as Johnson, Pool and Dave Rubin. In addition to the followings of the network’s individual creators, which collectively number in the millions, Tenet Media itself boasts more than 315,000 followers on YouTube and thousands more across Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.

Investigating a Media Startup for Kremlin Propaganda: An Indictment against Johnson, Pool, Rubin, and Right-Wing Influences

Federal officials have accused Russia of using unwitting right-wing American influencers in its quest to spread Kremlin propaganda ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Attorney General Garland said the company did not reveal its ties to the Russian government to the millions of followers it had.

According to an indictment, Afanasyeva was annoyed when she did not think they were promoting them enough, and she was urged to share the company videos on their own channels.

Johnson said he had been pitched by a “media startup” and had “negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated.” His most recent video on Tenet Media’s YouTube channel is from August 29th.

The company from Tennessee made a lot of money according to the indictment. An additional performance bonus was paid in addition to $400,000 a month, $100,000 signing bonus, and four videos a week.

Afanasyeva also allegedly requested the company post a video of “a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia” — likely a reference to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who traveled to Moscow in February. According to the indictment, a producer at the company told one of the founders “it just feels like overt shilling,” but was told to “put it out there.”

“There was no influence exerted over me in that way. In a video on Wednesday evening, Matt Christiansen said there was no change in his perspective or the nature of his content. I was deceived into saying someone else’s words when I wrote all of them.

“Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show and the contents of the show are often apolitical,” Pool wrote. The show is produced by the local team in complete darkness without input from anyone outside the company.

The project has Russian connections and the influencer didn’t know it. On Wednesday, Johnson, Pool and Rubin posted statements on X describing themselves as victims. After being contacted, Southern did not respond to the request for comment.

The Tennessee company’s founders are accused of working with Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva to hide the true origins of their funding. They told some contributors that the company was being backed by a wealthy European banker named Eduard Grigoriann. “In truth and in fact, Grigoriann was a fictional persona,” the indictment said.

“While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests, such as its ongoing war in Ukraine,” the indictment said.

Source: How Russian operatives covertly hired U.S. influencers to create viral videos

Up First: A Podcast on Influencers, Influencers and Adversarial Hats: The Story of Renée DiResta

Renée DiResta is the author of Invisible Rulers: The People who turn lies into reality and she stated that buying authentic influencer is a better use of money than creating fake ones.

The recognizable names attached made it appear that theRT operation reached a real audience.

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Apalachee High School Shooting Suspect Russian Media Scheme Featured in Up First Newsletter from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

The FBI had prior warning about the 14-year-old accused of fatally shooting two students and two teachers and injuring nine others at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., the agency said on X. Authorities received several anonymous tips in May 2023 about online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time. Those threats contained images of guns. The FBI interviewed the 13-year-old suspect as well as his father. The father said they had hunting guns but the teen didn’t have unsupervised access to them. The boy denied making threats. The sheriff’s office alerted local schools to monitor him, but there was no probable cause for arrest or additional law enforcement action at the time. Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said the teen would be charged with murder and tried as an adult.

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump and the Justice Department are set to appear in a federal courtroom today for what could be the last hearing in his election interference case before the November election. The winner of the presidency and Trump’s legal fate are up to voters this year. The violent siege at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was accused by a D.C. grand jury of Trump’s actions. If he reclaims the White House, he’s expected to direct new Justice Department leaders to drop the landmark case.

Grammy-winning folk duo Gillian Welch and David Rawlings have made a career singing about hard times. They are currently living one of their songs. A tornado destroyed their Nashville recording studio four years ago, flipping their career and making them upside down. But they’ve turned disaster into inspiration with their new album Woodland, named after their once-shattered studio. We needed to make some art or forget who we were if we didn’t want to go crazy.

Source: Details on Georgia school shooting suspect. And, Russian media hired U.S. influencers

David Herasimtschuk: From Salamanders to Salmon, Bears and Mountain Lions: A Photometric View of Forests across the Pacific Northwest

For the last decade, photographer David Herasimtschuk has captured images of forests across the Pacific Northwest, documenting the inhabitants of the last remaining old-growth ecosystems. From salamanders and salmon to bears and mountain lions, his photos illustrate not only the beauty of the forests and the creatures that call it home but also the symbiotic relationships that are vital to the planet’s welfare.