[civsoc-mw] NYT on disinfo firms. Important in light of elections.

Mon Jul 26 11:58:12 CAT 2021

The Interpreter

Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming

Back-alley firms meddle in elections and promote falsehoods on behalf of
clients who can claim deniability, escalating our era of unreality.

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Empty vaccine vials at a vaccination site near Munich in May. Online
disinformation campaigns targeting everything from vaccine manufacturers to
elections have become a booming business.Credit...Matthias
Schrader/Associated Press

 <https://www.nytimes.com/by/max-fisher> 

By  <https://www.nytimes.com/by/max-fisher> Max Fisher

July 25, 2021

In May, several French and German social media influencers received a
strange proposal.

A London-based public relations agency wanted to pay them to promote
messages on behalf of a client. A polished three-page document detailed what
to say and on which platforms to say it.

But it asked the influencers to push not beauty products or vacation
packages, as is typical, but
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/business/pfizer-vaccine-disinformation-i
nflueners.html> falsehoods tarring Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine.
Stranger still, the agency, Fazze, claimed a London address where there is
no evidence any such company exists.

Some recipients posted screenshots of the offer. Exposed, Fazze scrubbed its
social media accounts. That same week, Brazilian and Indian influencers
posted videos
<https://netzpolitik.org/2021/spur-nach-russland-was-hinter-der-influencerka
mpagne-gegen-biontech-steckt/> echoing Fazze’s script to hundreds of
thousands of viewers.

The scheme appears to be part of a secretive industry that security analysts
and American officials say is exploding in scale: disinformation for hire.

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Private firms, straddling traditional marketing and the shadow world of
geopolitical influence operations, are selling services once conducted
principally by intelligence agencies.

They sow discord, meddle in elections, seed false narratives and push viral
conspiracies, mostly on social media. And they offer clients something
precious: deniability.

*	Refer your friends to The New York Times.

 <https://www.nytimes.com/share> They’ll enjoy a special rate.

“Disinfo-for-hire actors being employed by government or government-adjacent
actors is growing and serious,” said Graham Brookie, director of the
Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, calling it “a boom
industry.”

Similar campaigns have been recently found promoting India’s ruling party,
Egyptian
<https://www.graphika.com/reports/coordinated-inauthentic-bee-havior/>
foreign policy aims and political figures in
<https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/us-pr-firm-steps-contested-elections
> Bolivia and Venezuela.

Mr. Brookie’s organization
<https://medium.com/dfrlab/facebook-removes-assets-connected-to-brazilian-ma
rketing-firms-56ccefadd653> tracked one operating amid a mayoral race in
Serra, a small city in Brazil. An ideologically promiscuous
<https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/April-2021-CIB-Report.pdf>
Ukrainian firm boosted several competing political parties.

Editors’ Picks

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s.html?action=click&algo=identity&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&
imp_id=533908914&impression_id=b3722780-edf7-11eb-b838-6fd4be61efd8&index=0&
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s.html?action=click&algo=identity&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&
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Chases Her Nation’s Legacy

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pression_id=b3724e91-edf7-11eb-b838-6fd4be61efd8&index=2&pgtype=Article&pool
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ant=0_identity&action=click&module=editorContent&pgtype=Article&region=Compa
nionColumn&contentCollection=Trending> 

<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/23/dining/bulgogi-recipes.html?action=click
&algo=identity&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=687175447&im
pression_id=b3724e91-edf7-11eb-b838-6fd4be61efd8&index=2&pgtype=Article&pool
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nionColumn&contentCollection=Trending> Bulgogi, Any Way You Slice It

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In the Central African Republic,
<https://graphika.com/reports/more-troll-kombat/> two separate
<https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/car-takedown-may-2021> operations
flooded social media with dueling pro-French and pro-Russian disinformation.
Both powers are vying for influence in the country.

A wave of anti-American posts in Iraq, seemingly organic, were
<https://www.graphika.com/reports/capture-the-flag/> tracked to a public
relations company that was separately accused of faking anti-government
sentiment in Israel. 

Most trace to back-alley firms whose legitimate services resemble those of a
bottom-rate marketer or email spammer.

Job postings and employee LinkedIn profiles associated with Fazze describe
it as a subsidiary of a Moscow-based company called Adnow. Some Fazze web
domains are registered as owned by Adnow, as
<https://netzpolitik.org/2021/spur-nach-russland-was-hinter-der-influencerka
mpagne-gegen-biontech-steckt/> first reported by the German outlets
Netzpolitik and ARD Kontraste. Third-party reviews
<https://www.trustpilot.com/review/adnow.com?b=MTYxNzI4MDg2MTAwMHw2MDY1YmY1Z
GY4NWQ3NTA4NzA0MjRhYjQ> portray Adnow as a struggling ad service provider.

European officials say they are investigating who hired Adnow. Sections of
Fazze’s anti-Pfizer talking points resemble promotional materials for
Russia’s Sputnik-V vaccine.

For-hire disinformation, though only sometimes effective, is growing more
sophisticated as practitioners iterate and learn. Experts say it is becoming
more common in every part of the world, outpacing operations conducted
directly by governments.

The result is an accelerating rise in polarizing conspiracies, phony citizen
groups and fabricated public sentiment, deteriorating our shared reality
beyond even the depths of recent years.

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An Open Frontier

Image

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, testifying on Capitol Hill in
2018, after it was reported that Cambridge Analytica had harvested data on
millions of Facebook users.Credit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The trend emerged after the
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/mark-zuckerberg-testify-congr
ess.html> Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, experts say. Cambridge, a
political consulting firm linked to members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016
presidential campaign, was found to have harvested data on millions of
Facebook users.

The controversy drew attention to methods common among social media
marketers. Cambridge used its data to target hyper-specific audiences with
tailored messages. It tested what resonated by tracking likes and shares.

The episode taught a generation of consultants and opportunists that there
was big money in social media marketing for political causes, all disguised
as organic activity.

Some newcomers eventually reached the same conclusion as Russian operatives
had in 2016: Disinformation performs especially well on social platforms.

At the same time, backlash to Russia’s influence-peddling appeared to have
left governments wary of being caught — while also demonstrating the power
of such operations.

“There is, unfortunately, a huge market demand for disinformation,” Mr.
Brookie said, “and a lot of places across the ecosystem that are more than
willing to fill that demand.”

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Commercial firms conducted for-hire disinformation in at least 48 countries
last year — nearly double from the year before, according to an
<https://demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/posts/industrialized-disinformation/#
continue> Oxford University study. The researchers identified 65 companies
offering such services.

Last summer, Facebook
<https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/August-2020-CIB-Report.pdf>
removed a network of Bolivian citizen groups and journalistic fact-checking
organizations. It said the pages, which had promoted falsehoods supporting
the country’s right-wing
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/world/americas/Bolivia-Anez-arrest-warra
nt.html> government, were fake.

Stanford University researchers
<https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/us-pr-firm-steps-contested-elections
> traced the content to CLS Strategies, a Washington-based communications
firm that had registered as a consultant with the Bolivian government. The
firm had done similar work in Venezuela and Mexico.

A spokesman referred to the company’s statement last year saying its
regional chief had been placed on leave but disputed Facebook’s accusation
that the work qualified as foreign interference.

Eroding Reality

Image

Family members performing last rites on a Covid victim at a crematorium in
New Delhi in April. Social media manipulation has extended to Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s government and its handling of the pandemic.Credit...Atul
Loke for The New York Times

New technology enables nearly anyone to get involved. Programs
<https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/how-disinformation-evolved-in-2020/>
batch generate fake accounts with hard-to-trace profile photos. Instant
metrics help to hone effective messaging. So does access to users’ personal
data, which is easily purchased in bulk.

The campaigns are rarely as sophisticated as those by government hackers or
specialized firms like the Kremlin-backed
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/technology/russia-troll-farm-election.ht
ml> Internet Research Agency.

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But they appear to be cheap. In countries that mandate campaign finance
transparency, firms report billing tens of thousands of dollars for
campaigns that also include traditional consulting services.

The layer of deniability frees governments to sow disinformation more
aggressively, at home and abroad, than might otherwise be worth the risk.
Some contractors, when caught, have claimed they acted without their
client’s knowledge or only to win future business.

Platforms have stepped up efforts to root out coordinated disinformation.
Analysts especially credit Facebook, which publishes detailed reports on
campaigns it disrupts.

Still, some argue that social media companies also play a role in worsening
the threat. Engagement-boosting algorithms and design elements, research
finds, often privilege divisive and conspiratorial content.

Political norms have also shifted. A generation of populist leaders, like
Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, has risen in part through social media
manipulation. Once in office, many
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/business/rodrigo-duterte-facebook-philip
pines.html> institutionalize those methods as tools of governance and
foreign relations.

In India, dozens of government-run Twitter accounts have shared posts from
India Vs Disinformation, a website and set of social media feeds that
purport to fact-check news stories on India.

India Vs Disinformation is, in reality, the product of a Canadian
communications firm called Press Monitor.

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Nearly all the posts seek to discredit or muddy reports unfavorable to Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s government, including on the country’s severe
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/india-covid-death
-estimates.html> Covid-19 toll. An associated site promotes pro-Modi
narratives under the guise of news articles.

A Digital Forensic Research Lab
<https://medium.com/dfrlab/bogus-fact-checking-site-amplified-by-dozens-of-i
ndian-embassies-on-social-media-7b4b31004699> report investigating the
network called it “an important case study” in the rise of “disinformation
campaigns in democracies.”

A representative of Press Monitor, who would identify himself only as Abhay,
called the report completely false.

He specified only that it incorrectly identified his firm as Canada-based.
Asked why the company  <https://www.pressmonitor.ca/en/about-us> lists a
Toronto address, a Canadian tax registration and identifies as “part of
Toronto’s thriving tech ecosystem,” or why he had been reached on a Toronto
phone number, he said that he had business in many countries. He did not
respond to an email asking for clarification.

A LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhay-aggarwal/?originalSubdomain=ca> profile
for Abhay Aggarwal identifies him as the Toronto-based chief executive of
Press Monitor and says that the company’s services are used by the Indian
government.

‘Spamouflage’

Image

Demonstrators clashing with riot police officers in Hong Kong in 2019.
Networks disguised as news sites denigrated Hong Kong’s
protesters.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

A set of pro-Beijing operations hint at the field’s capacity for rapid
evolution.

Since 2019, Graphika, a digital research firm, has tracked a network it
nicknamed “ <https://graphika.com/posts/graphika-report-spamouflage/>
Spamouflage” for its early reliance on spamming social platforms with
content echoing Beijing’s line on geopolitical issues. Most posts received
little or no engagement.

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In recent months, however, the network has
<https://www.graphika.com/reports/spamouflage-breakout/> developed hundreds
of accounts with elaborate personas. Each has its own profile and posting
history that can seem authentic. They appeared to come from many different
countries and walks of life.

Graphika traced the accounts back to a Bangladeshi content farm that created
them in bulk and probably sold them to a third party.

The network pushes strident criticism of Hong Kong democracy activists and
American foreign policy. By coordinating without seeming to, it created an
appearance of organic shifts in public opinion — and often won attention.

The accounts were amplified by a major media network in Panama, prominent
politicians in Pakistan and Chile, Chinese-language YouTube pages, the
left-wing British commentator George Galloway and a number of Chinese
diplomatic accounts.

A separate pro-Beijing network,
<https://www.twreporter.org/a/information-warfare-business-disinformation-fa
ke-news-behind-line-groups> uncovered by a Taiwanese investigative outlet
called The Reporter, operated hundreds of Chinese-language websites and
social media accounts.

Disguised as news sites and citizen groups, they promoted Taiwanese
reunification with mainland China and denigrated Hong Kong’s protesters. The
report found links between the pages and a Malaysia-based start-up that
offered web users Singapore dollars to promote the content.

But governments may find that outsourcing such shadowy work also carries
risks, Mr. Brookie said. For one, the firms are harder to control and might
veer into undesired messages or tactics.

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For another, firms organized around deceit may be just as likely to turn
those energies toward their clients, bloating budgets and billing for work
that never gets done.

“The bottom line is that grifters are going to grift online,” he said.

Max Fisher is a New York-based international reporter and columnist. He has
reported from five continents on conflict, diplomacy, social change and
other topics. He writes  <https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-interpreter>
The Interpreter, a column exploring the ideas and context behind major world
events.  <https://twitter.com/Max_Fisher> @Max_Fisher •
<https://www.facebook.com/max.fisher.3760> Facebook 

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