Monash University
The Biden administration has accused Russia of carrying out a sustained campaign of disinformation targeted at American voters with the aim of influencing the outcome of November’s presidential elections.
Associate Professor Emma Briant, (Associate Professor of News and Political Communication, Faculty of Arts) says:
“The US Department of Justice indictments today give vital evidence to illustrate how it’s not just bots, trolls and ads we need to worry about in the disinformation wars… this is a classic example of how old school covert intelligence techniques of funnelling money and narratives to unethical distributors have been turned into a complex digital influence industry propelling racist and divisive propaganda through our social media networks under the guise of journalism. While the influencers taking the money are given claims they were duped, they are given deniability by an influence industry hiding in the shadows while they continue doing Russia’s bidding with little regulation stopping them.
“This is a result of Russia ‘privatising’ influence covertly after its outlet RT was taken off-air in many countries. I discuss the transformation of this sprawling Industry in my new book co-edited with Vian Bakir, The Routledge Handbook of the Influence Industry. There is little transparency over these companies and influencers, allowing many to abuse ‘free speech’ arguments and claim they are persecuted while gathering millions of followers on social media platforms, as though Russian handouts of $100k a video aren’t enough. All the while of course real journalists are targeted, suppressed and murdered by Russia and other authoritarian states without a murmur of concern from these ‘free speech warriors’.
“We need more from our governments to clean up this industry, make those actors and networks of companies and individuals behind the lies transparent, and ensure algorithms don’t enable anyone to profit from hate and division while undermining our political debates and elections in this way.”
Read more in Associate Professor Briant’s book here
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