The Russian disinformation campaign that resulted in a criminal indictment had been pushing articles from Fox News and other conservative websites.
Jon Swaine of The Guardian tweeted:
The Russian influence campaign allegedly pushed articles published by pro-Trump all-stars: InfoWars, Breitbart News, WND, Fox News, True Pundit – and vote fraud research by Judicial Watch https://t.co/KRNRWcMQNV
— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) October 19, 2018
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Sure enough, if you read the complaint, the Russians were pushing conservative articles and modeling their disinformation targeting Republicans on Fox News, Breitbart, and others:
[pdf-embedder url=”https://www.politicususa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/khusyaynova_complaint.pdf”]
Interestingly, Facebook has claimed that they are getting a better handle on the Russian fake news issue, but they still sold $60,000 in Facebook ads to the Russians, and $6,000 in Instagram ads, which suggests that despite their crackdown on political traffic, Facebook is still failing at handling the disinformation threat. The answer for Facebook has always been the same. Manually, verify publisher with actual human beings, and only let verified publishers into Newsfeed. The AI isn’t working. It is discouraging legitimate political traffic, while the Russians and others still get through.
The Russians/Trump/Fox News axis of fake news is going strong. The Russians have deeply embedded themselves into conservative media. They are pushing Fox News stories because Fox and Russia share the same goal of propping up Donald Trump. Much of conservative media stopped worrying about facts years ago. The change in conservative media mirrored the Republican Party. As Republicans substituted belief for fact, their media followed along.
The result is an easy to manipulate environment that is ripe for the Russians to dupe those flag-waving red hat wearing self-described patriots into betraying their own country.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
