Chicago Sun-Times reporters Tom Schuba and Frank Main report on the Russian disinformation campaign that will be centered around the Democratic National Convention in August with the aim of stoking chaos and boosting the campaign of convicted felon Malignant Loser. Here's their introduction:
When the Democratic National Convention hits Chicago in August, demonstrators are expected to take to the streets to draw attention to a wide range of causes — immigration, police misconduct, abortion, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
What they might never know is how much Russia and other nations will have been aiming to influence the marches and demonstrations near the United Center and McCormick Place convention sites, experts on disinformation say.
“The eyes of the world are going to be centered on” the convention, says Max Bergmann, a former State Department official who says Russian has long sought “to exploit our divisions.” “There’s going to be protests, and I think that’s sort of red meat to Russian intelligence services.”
Bergmann, a program director with the Center for Strategic International Studies, a Washington think tank, says the convention is ripe for foreign influence campaigns to “sow chaos” and potentially stoke violence.
Some online influence efforts have become highly sophisticated. They don’t just focus on spreading propaganda and disinformation on social media and through their own fake news websites, according to Bergmann and others, who say Russians are now building sites that look nearly identical to mainstream Western news outlets with the aim of duping people as they spread their message...
The reporters go on to detail the involvement of such shady characters as former Florida sheriff John Mark Dougan, a traitor who fled to Russia to avoid criminal charges, and Russian national Aleksandr Ionov, who's coordinated the efforts of a number of "activists"/ agents seeking to create dissension and chaos by promoting and publishing Russian propaganda. You can be sure that fascist MAGAt extremists are getting involved, too, especially after the conviction of their cult leader:
... Most posts discussing — and in some cases cheering for — violence and destruction at the Democratic convention have originated on far-right platforms, along with disturbing conspiracy theories about the upcoming event.
A recent search of [disinformation and extremism tracking company] Pyrra’s computerized tracking system found numerous such posts, including one on the social network Gab — a hotbed for racism and extremism — that said: “The more insanity and chaos at the DNC convention in Chicago the better. Riots, fires, assaults, I’ll have my popcorn ready to watch it all implode.”
Antibot4Navalny, another group that researches Russian misinformation efforts, says pro-Kremlin computer robots posing as real people on X in recent weeks have been promoting articles focused on border security and immigration to the United States.
One of those articles was published by Breitbart News, a far right outlet previously run by Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon...
Most of this Russian crap will easily find its way into places like Gab, X, Facebook, and the Fox/ OAN/ Newsmax wurlitzer, where this is their bread- and- butter content. The real challenge will be to keep it from seeping into mainstream media where the malign influence could do much greater damage if decisions are made to amplify it (see: "but her emails!" and "just asking questions").
Please take some time to read the full article. Then forewarned is forearmed.
BONUS: There's more on yet another Russian malign influence campaign, this time with Iranian involvement as well.
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