Experts: Russia has new way to spread propaganda videos
Russia has devised yet another way to spread disinformation about its invasion of Ukraine, using digital tricks that allow its war propaganda videos to evade restrictions imposed by governments and tech companies.
Accounts linked to Russian state-controlled media have used the new method to spread dozens of videos in 18 languages, all without leaving telltale signs that would give away the source, researchers at Nisos, a U.S.-based intelligence firm that tracks disinformation and other cyber threats, said in a report released Wednesday.
The videos push Kremlin conspiracy theories blaming Ukraine for civilian casualties as well as claims that residents of areas forcibly annexed by Russia have welcomed their occupiers.
English-language versions of the videos are now circulating on Twitter and lesser-known platforms popular with American conservatives, including Gab and Truth Social, created by former President
Donald Trump.
In an indication of the Kremlin’s ambitions and the sprawling reach of its disinformation operations, versions of the videos were also created in Spanish, Italian, German and more than a dozen other languages.
“The genius of this approach is that the videos can be downloaded directly from Telegram and it erases the trail that researchers try to follow,” said Nisos’ senior intelligence analyst Patricia Bailey.
The European Union moved to ban RT and Sputnik, two of Russia’s leading state-run media outlets, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Tech companies such as Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram also said they would ban content from the outlets within the 27-nation EU, undermining Russia’s ability to spread its propaganda.
Russian attempts to get around the new rules began almost immediately. New websites were created to host videos that make debunked claims about the war. Russian diplomats took on some of the work.
The latest effort revealed by analysts at Nisos involved uploading propaganda videos to Telegram, a loosely moderated platform that is broadly popular in Eastern Europe and used by many conservatives in the United States.
Once on Telegram, the videos were downloaded and reposted on platforms including Twitter without indications that the video was produced by Russian state media. Hundreds of accounts that later posted or reposted the videos were linked by Nisos researchers to the Russian military, embassies or state media.
Some of the accounts appeared to use fake profile photos or posted content in strange ways that suggested they were inauthentic.
One example: a Twitter account supposedly run by a woman living in Japan only posted Russian propaganda videos — not just in Japanese, but also in Farsi, Polish, Spanish and Russian.
The account also cited or reposted content from Russian embassies hundreds of times, researchers found, showing again the close relationship between Russian diplomats and the country’s propaganda work.