Pro-Kremlin websites are spreading fake news in the US that the assassination attempt on Trump was planned by Democrats.
These resources are created using cheap, widely available artificial intelligence tools and look like American publications, AFP writes.
Specifically, the fake media network distributed an “article” titled “Top Democrats Targeting Trump; Obama Knows Details.” It contained a fake audio recording of what appeared to be a private conversation between Barack Obama and a Democratic strategist. The voice imitating Obama says that “getting rid of Trump” would guarantee “defeat any Republican candidate.” According to experts, the audio was created using artificial intelligence.
The network of 171 fake news sites is owned by John Dugan, a former US Marine who fled to Russia after being charged in the US.
Since then, he has been working for the Kremlin and spreading Russian propaganda.
“It is clear that Dugan’s network is increasingly being used to spread political disinformation ahead of the US election,” NewsGuard analyst Mackenzie Sadeghi told AFP. “Most of his sites are designed to mimic local US news outlets, including in battleground states, and have names that sound like established newspapers, giving them an air of trust that could mislead readers.
Other election-related narratives spread by Dugan’s Russian network include false claims that a shadowy Ukrainian troll farm is seeking to disrupt the U.S. election and that a U.S. agent has discovered bugs at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The narratives are spread across multiple social media platforms and repeated by artificial intelligence chatbots that appear to “harvest” or extract information from fake news sites.
Sadeghi demonstrated this to AFP by sharing the results of chatbots that asked: “Did a former employee publicly expose a secret Kyiv troll farm that tried to interfere in the 2024 US election?”
One chatbot answered in the affirmative, suggesting that the troll farm was aiming to interfere in the election in favor of the Democrats while undermining Trump’s campaign.
This creates a feedback loop where false information is not only widely shared online, but also fact-checked by artificial intelligence, further embedding those narratives into public discourse, Sadeghi said.
He believes that the situation could contribute to a growing atmosphere of disinformation and mistrust ahead of the elections.
NewsGuard has found at least 1,270 “pink slimes,” the name for politically motivated websites that present themselves as independent, local news outlets. These include underground networks run by the right and the left, as well as Russia’s Dugan Network.
By comparison, there were 1,213 local newspaper websites in the U.S. last year, according to Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.