Russia shifts to influencers to spread disinformation, DOJ alleges

Troll farms and bots on social media have ceased to be the primary tools of Russian propaganda. Now, the Kremlin prefers to use influencers who have large online followings and are credible to their audience.

Russian authorities reportedly funded the social media company Tenet Media. The United States Department of Justice alleged that two Russian government employees transferred nearly $10 (CAD 13.5) million to the company.

Meanwhile, Politico reports that in the indictment, it was mentioned that although influencers claimed they were unaware of Tenet's connections to Russia, they received compensation exceeding $400,000 per month. "Influencers with a fanatic following are far more successful at spreading disinformation than bots and trolls," observes Pekka Kallioniemi, a Finnish disinformation researcher and author of "Vatnik Soup," a book on information wars in Russia.

The expert also emphasizes that prominent influencers find it much easier to spread disinformation than even widely operating internet trolls. Online creators often have millions of views, and their content even reaches public media.

According to the expert, social media had already been used by Russian propaganda before. Russian agents created websites or news blogs whose content was fully generated by artificial intelligence.

"It is also worth mentioning that probably they are using AI now and in the future, because it’s just automating things. It’s so much cheaper and also more effective. You can create huge volume by using AI. So for example, what Russian operatives have done is create fake news sites or blogs, and the content on these blogs is completely generated by AI, but sometimes they inject Russian narratives or propaganda manually. There are hundreds of these blogs," warns Pekka Kallioniemi.