How Russia seeds narratives that come out of the mouths of our own politicians
A highly effective report from NBC News
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ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
I’m going to keep this week’s Rant! short and sweet, because somebody already did the hard work and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel.
This week, NBC News released what is, in my opinion, a highly effective report about how Russia seeds certain narratives that then come out of the mouths of our own politicians.
If you’ve followed my Foreign Influence Operations course at all, none of this will be a surprise.
But NBC News lays it out in an effective, easily digestible way and I encourage everyone to have a look. Here is a short video put out by the reporter, Brandy Zadrozny.
And here is a link to the full report. It is worth going through the entire report and watching/listening to all the examples.
It isn’t necessary to buy politicians if you can launder narratives through the information ecosystem and have politicians repeat them. We know some politicians are paid to say certain things, but others likely amplify narratives simply because it fits well with what they want to think anyway.
In the end, that doesn’t really matter to Russia, right? As long as the narrative gets out there and affects real world actions, Russia is happy. The false story that Ukrainian president Zelenskyy had bought two yachts? It was cited in Congress as a reason not to deliver aid to Ukraine. The impact was that aid was delayed by months, which has had real life consequences on the ground.
I find it interesting that many of the right-wing influencers, when confronted with the fact that they amplified Russian propaganda, hide behind saying things like, “We reported it as potentially being a hoax,” as one right-wing influencer told NBC News, or thinking they are off the hook because they told their audience they couldn’t verify the claim. Actual journalists get things wrong, too. It happens. But they aim to provide good information and correct it when they find out they got it wrong. I’ve not heard any mea culpas from the many influencers mentioned in this report.
This also seems a good time to remind everyone about how to find good information. I wrote an entire class on it for the Foreign Influence Operations course. You can find it here.
I’m curious how many of the false narratives mentioned in the NBC News report have made it into your information ecosystems. Let me know in the comments below!
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of things you should be reading
RUSSIAN SABOTAGE
Russia suspected of planting device on plane that cause UK warehouse fire (The Guardian)
Vladimir Putin’s spies are plotting global chaos (The Economist)
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
The Impending Betrayal of Ukraine (RUSI)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
The only one I heard was the Zelenskyy yacht thing… but not in the context of it being believable, but rather in a “can you believe this BS they’re trying to spread now?”
With some of these people, I’m reminded of Ron Burgundy who was described as “an idiot. He’ll read whatever is on the teleprompter.”
Thank you for putting the " no shit" into " no shit Sherlock"!
Canadian here and we have our own issue where the boy wonder Justin said under oath that we have foreign interference issues. But what really fries the bacon is Pierre 'Pol Pot' Poilievie, leader of the Tories, leading in the polls by a 15 or so, won't get a secure clearance to get the secret government briefing because then he won't be able to complain and bitch in public.
What a door stop!!