This is a great series. But, and sadly, I think there's an omission only partly addressed in the third episode. Many Americans--not just Trump, not just this administration--are absorbing the lessons of active measures (even if unacknowledged) and are now either using them or considering using them as a means to an end. I'm afraid that too many of our politicians and their supporters are now viewing theses measures as legitimate tools to achieve what they believe are outcomes in their best interests. Trump has been great at promoting this idea. Just consider his repeated exhortations to Mitch McConnell to "go nuclear" and eliminate the cloture rule for legislation because if the Democrats were to control the Senate, they would do just that (and of course Senate Democrats have indicated they would consider this). It's also apparent that many Americans are quite happy believing what they want to believe, and to operate insofar as they can within fact-less or alt-fact constructs that can at least provide rationalizations for behavior that can't be objectively condoned. This circumstance provides fertile ground for foreign disinformation campaigns to thrive but also for domestic, organic disinformation to similarly achieve what Russian and other disinformation is doing: fracturing and weakening one's political or other opponent and the very fabric of our society.
14
If we want to assign the blame, shouldn't we remember Guatemalan 'radio' by CIA, that was instrumental to overthrow the democratically elected Government? Maybe, KGB has a long history of disinformation, but the CIA has much longer one. And if it is OK for the US to use disinformation in 50s, why is not OK for Russia to use it now?
8
This should be a must read for every person in the US. It would be especially useful if we still had Civics classes in high schools across the land.
(I'm hoping that by the time this comment is monitored the white type on white background problem will have been fixed.)
7
As "The Great Hack" documentary has suggested, companies like Cambridge Analytica (it's not the only one) have been used by Western governments to meddle in the affairs and elections of countries.
From the little we know about the Political Action Group (PAG) of the CIA's Special Activities Center (fka Special Activities Division, or SAD) - it is, after all, a covert unit engaged in covert activities - it too, has engaged and quite possibly still engages in similar activities.
So what is the best that one can say - that the Russians and Chinese now do it better than us? And therefore, that we should come to some global agreement about the extent to which countries are "allowed" to engage in covert/inherently illegal activities?
No chance of that. This is blowback.
5
EVERY TV stations in the US should be asked to broadcast the three-part series.
Some of the Fox News stations will probably decline it. Even so, almost certainly others will broadcast.
Particular attention should be given to localities where a large percentage of the population still thinks the mainstream media as "fake news". Not all such people will change their minds, of course, but the series will hopefully implant a seed in their minds.
15
Just finished viewing this 3-chapter series. Sadly, I found this to be just a reformulation of very old information. It would have been more helpful if a 4th chapter would have been created to detail recommended steps and policies that could be taken to fight this chronic problem. Russia pays no price for its activity. How can we make them pay a price and how do we get our government to do it? That would be useful information for me as a consumer/citizen.
6
Great series. My problem is with the video editing. When did this millenial (and post-millennial), “editing video for social” thing stick? The collage-look trend. What began as a creative fling turned into a commonplace, mainstream, and annoying technique. It often ends up masking bad editing skills and all the videos look alike. In this case, the NYT piece replicates the many videos posted on social media (Vox, Verge, Vice, and so on).
2
These videos are so amazing because we always knew that disinformation happens in our offices, in our families, in the form of invented gossip, desistabilizing everyone.
The worst is when definitive decisions, like choosing your vote in a president, are taken by fake news.
2
And Michael Flynn’s judge asked the prosecution why he wasn’t charged w treason.
7
It’s with the hubris of a proud fool that we minimize Russian skill and effectiveness in dividing our country.
Americans today suffer from a false confidence based on former success against the USSR and a current affluenza condition that put us at great risk.
5
"Moscow’s decades-long campaign to tear the West apart." Whenever you read hyperbole of that magnitude in the opening paragraph of a story you know that what is about to follow is some mixture of truth with a substantial overlay of propaganda, misdirection and speculation.
Did this "decades long" effort to undermine our democracy includes the period when we were funding and directing Boris Yeltsin's campaign for the Russian presidency and he was our fair haired boy?
Did it also includes the period where our boys from Wall Street were managing the transformation of Russia from a socialist economy to an extreme version of capitalism. A period of austerity when the average Russian life expectancy dropped by five years and the oligarchy of corrupt billionaires was created.
This story and those similar never answer another crucial question. What other nations or foreign nationals also use social media to "influence" American opinions, including views during an election cycle?
We know many nations seek to "influence" US policy by hiring lobbyists. Some make contributions to local foundations. Others, like AIPAC work hand and glove with registered PAC's and other organizations designed to influence our elections without it appearing to be by their direct hand.
What Russia has or hasn't done may or may not stand out from these other efforts. But from these stories we will never know. And that unfortunately is by design.
3
Russian meddling in the 2016 president election is not a hoax, but most of it was legal and its effects are exaggerated.
Russian intelligence operatives allegedly hacked DNC and Clint campaign email and released it to Wikileaks. The revelation that the DNC was stacking the deck against Bernie Sanders to ensure Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination energized Sanders supporter in the final primaries, but Hillary won the nomination anyway.
A Russian oligarch ordered 13 of his employees to conduct a social media campaign to persuade U.S. voters to favor Trump over Clinton, but most of their efforts were legal. There is no law against foreign nationals meddling in U.S. elections unless they violate the Federal Election Campaign Act. The Russian trolls mostly planted social and political commentary, some of which supported Trump and some of which disparaged Hillary. That was legal.
The trolls also purchase paid political ads. Some of the ads, which were legal, addressed social and political issues. However, some supported Trump and undermined Clinton; that’s prohibited by the FECA. But the total amount spent oh advertising was a few hundred thousand dollars. PACs and candidate campaigns spent billions. If Russians trolls swung the 2016 election on such a paltry budget, all campaigns would hire Russian trolls instead of Madison Avenue advertising/marketing agencies.
4
@William Case Russian funneling millions of dollars to NRA as a conduit to support Trump is a fact. The responsible investigation by the Federal Election Commission into the details of this fact is being blocked by the Republican members of the FEC. Which, I suppose, is also "legal." Coverups and stonewalls are legal, in many cases such as this. No less harmful to Truth and US Democracy.
13
Russian meddling in the 2016 president election is not a hoax, but most of it was legal and its effects are exaggerated.
Russian intelligence operatives allegedly hacked DNC and Clint campaign email and released it to Wikileaks. The revelation that the DNC was stacking the deck against Bernie Sanders to ensure Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination energized Sanders supporter in the final primaries, but Hillary won the nomination anyway.
A Russian oligarch ordered 13 of his employees to conduct a social media campaign to persuade U.S. voters to favor Trump over Clinton, but most of their efforts were legal. There is no law against foreign nationals meddling in U.S. elections unless they violate the Federal Election Campaign Act. The Russian trolls mostly planted social and political commentary, some of which supported Trump and some of which disparaged Hillary. That was legal.
The trolls also purchase paid political ads. Some of the ads, which were legal, addressed social and political issues. However, some supported Trump and undermined Clinton; that’s prohibited by the FECA. But the total amount spent oh advertising was a few hundred thousand dollars. PACs and candidate campaigns spent billions. If the Russians trolls swung the 2016 election on such a paltry budget, all campaigns would hire Russian trolls instead of Madison Avenue advertising/marketing agencies.
The Times cannot show a single vote that was changed by any of this nonsense. By contrast, Democrats changed the rules in California and took (stole?) several improbable House seats. Who is cheating, and who is telling the truth.
And you cannot prove votes weren’t changed. Russia did not go to all this trouble not to change votes. Otherwise why would they have bothered?
8
Can we please stop using the word "meddling" for what the Russians are doing? It is way too mild a term for what is happening. Why do people pick a word and then get on the bandwagon so that everyone uses the same word. How about "attack or assail" "undermine" "aggressively subvert or sabotage"? Nosey neighbors meddle, friends meddle, hostile foreign governments trying to tear our country apart are not meddling.
6
The scandal is that our news media has always been atrocious. The Yellow Journalism of the turn of the last century should have woken us up, but we like our media entertaining so it only got worse. How are we going to create a reliable ethical journalism now that the major broadcasting companies are not underwriting it? We need robust legislation bringing back the Fairness Doctrine and establishing standards for all news media.
7
Can the press *please* come up with a more effective way to describe Russia's actions than "meddling"?
Meddling is what Scooby Doo and the Mystery Gang do to unmask a spooky villain, not what a foreign adversary does to corrupt our most fundamental democratic process.
5
Well, wasn't that depressing. I totally agree with the concept but unfortunately our leaders are not the brightest bulbs on the string of lights. Until we can get some intelligence and critical thinking into the media and the government, we are doomed.
Thanks for this video.
2
No, it is not a hoax.
Its effects are vastly exaggerated by those using it as an excuse for the defeat of the establishments of the two parties.
It was not Russians who caused Independents and much of the left leaning Democrats to reject Hillary.
She did that herself, cemented when she traveled at key times for California and New York money instead of flyover country votes. It showed who She really is, as well as missing opportunities she could not buy back with that money.
Why Trump? He was last candidate standing after all the establishment figures like Bush III and Hillary were eliminated. Of course Cruz was impossible, who are you kidding? He could barely win his seat to the Texas Senate.
4
The amount of time you spend on the "Pizzagate" content suggests that you think that this absurd disinformation actually changed the minds of voters. Are you suggesting that people actually BELIEVED that Hillary Clinton ran a sex ring in the basement of a pizza shop, and there were large enough numbers of these people to sway the election in Trump's favor? Where are these large numbers of easily duped people that would believe such a thing? They should be easy to find and interview if so many people were fooled. Amazingly, we haven't seen anything like that even though it's been 2 years since the election.
2
It is STILL all over Social media. I run into comments about Pizzagate almost everyday.
7
Adam,
Good work, well done, and thank you!
There is, naturally, a Rabbinical story that applies. A man spreads a false rumor about a business competitor, then in a moment of good conscience comes to regret it. Ah, think of that nice picture of "Gorby" as you call him apologising to President Reagan. The man confesses to his Rabbi and asks what to do.
"Well," says the Rabbi, "I want you to take your pillow from your bed, beat the chicken feathers well, and throw them out your window into the wind."
The man does so, and the next time he sees the Rabbi he tells him about it. He asks the Rabbi why he had told him to do such an odd thing.
"Now I want you to go pick up all the feathers," says the Rabbi.
"But that's impossible. The wind has blown them everywhere."
"Of course it's impossible," says the Rabbi. "What good did you think it would do confessing the tales you had spread?"
9
What an exemplary piece of journalism! Both rigorous and visually attractive, these 3 segments are so meticulously researched and craftully edited they are hardly like anything else in the media. Now they should reach as wide an audience as possible, including younger citizens all around the world. This is the kind of contribution that can boost media literacy everywhere, a vital tool to navigate the news noise and reinvigorate our democracies. From a Spanish subscriber, kudos to the team and thanks to the editors!
8
I am new to the Times, and so glad I am able to see this series-!
P.S. I love the show The Americans, ( FX show based on KGB couple in the 1980's) -and I just finished the 6 seasons -very timely -
1
Your work is very interesting hence enjoyable.
One nano-kvetch -
you go to the trouble to distinguish between propaganda and disinformation, convincing someone of something and deceiving someone into believing something, then one of your experts refers to active measures, which you classify as "disinformation, as "propaganda".
May we have some more instructional videos please, Sirs?
I enjoyed the videos.
One nano-kvetch -
You take the trouble to distinguish between propaganda, trying to convince someone of something, and disinformation, trying to deceive someone into believing something, then one of your experts refers to active measures, which you clearly classify as disinformation, as propaganda.
Sigh.
Anyway, thanks.
I remember having a conversation with a friend back in the early 2000s about whether the sudden and uncontrolled expansion of the exchange of unvetted "information" via websites, blogs, wikis, etc., was going to end up being a good thing or a bad thing.
He was all for it, believing that over time, "truth" would beat out the lies.
I argued that I didn't have as much faith in the average human psyche (or ethos), and that the continuous barrage of both truthful info and lies would overwhelm people's (and sociey's) ability to filter out the lies.
I feel like what I feared then has been borne out by what has transpired over the past few years, leading us to our current mess.
Unfortunately, my friend died a few years after that, so we'll never be able to have the follow-up conversation. Or maybe he'd feel lucky that he didn't have to live through what we're now living through?
5
Great dissection of the asymmetrical warfare Russia has been conducting against the West for some time. Russian tactics are to sow chaos and doubt and thereby create conflict and confusion. By proposing various conspiracy theories, the discussion is muddied and no clear dialogue about the truth of events emerges, thusly an analysis of cause and effect and proper reaction/action.
The war in eastern Ukraine's Donbas is a concrete example of the horrors of such Russian manipulation of information. In stoking fear in the pro-Russian segment of Ukraine's population by fueling conspiracy theories about American and Ukrainian aggression, Russia's efforts to maintain control over this territory has resulted in more than 10,000 people killed and over two million displaced in a war where the Kremlin officially denies everything, as the playbook dictates.
Today a presidential figure in the US is magnifying Russian efforts to sow doubt in the American system by referring to negative news against him as "Fake News". Trump is undermining the fabric of what has made America great, and the stakes are high. Either Americans wake up to this and educate themselves on how to recognize and combat it, or the State of this Union may very well deteriorate to eventual dissolution. Bottom line, Putin is winning this war, it's past time the US starts fighting back.
Excellent research and presentation, this needs to find a way to reach out beyond the "preaching to the Times readership choir".
7
Thank you for this informative series. I've been a long time advocate for media literacy education, and I understand now why this isn't enough.
What disturbs me is how outrageous lies are believed. I remember as a child being taught how Nazi Germany used this trick, and assumed, well, that lesson was learned. Wrong.
I hope media producers see this and create educational shows for Americans like the ones you featured from Eastern Europe.
As an elementary school teacher, I know more age-appropriate video content is needed to teach how to combat disinformation.
2
@kerricali So you believe the theory suggested by this video series - that enough voters believed *HRC was running a child sex ring in a pizza shop* - to sway the election?
The fake AIDS origin hoax didn't cost any lives, but the Latin America organ stealing hoax directly and indirectly cost many lives. Starting in the 70's the Soviets planted fake news that American's were kidnapping children, cutting out their organs, and sending them to the US for transplant. Even though there was no evidence, and no practical way organs for transplant could be used in this way, government officials, police departments, and most of the population completely believed the fantastic stories. Many in the US believed them too, including Noam Chomsky who used the stories in his anti-US articles. Any American in Latin America during the 70's and 80's was under suspicion, and at least one tourist was killed, but that isn't the worst of it. An untold number of people on the transplant waiting list died without a donor due to the ghoulish impression of transplantation left by the propaganda and urban legends. The propaganda inspired a long list of fictional stories also portraying organ donation as ghoulish. To this day the Soviet propaganda is depressing support for donation and dooming many good children, women, and men, of all races and income levels, who could be saved. Somewhat more serious than the AIDS propaganda.
5
When I visited the KBG museum in Tartu, Estonia about 7 years ago with my wife and children, I learned it was an underground jail to imprison dissidents. At that time, I thought the world was entering an era of promise and possibility. I felt hopeful. I met some of the famous dissidents at a church service in Tartu.
When I read in the NYT about a cyber-criminal in Riga, Latvia who drained millions$ from a poor bank in Muldova Russia about 4 years ago, I thought it was kind of creepy.
When I became certain about a year ago that Trump was enabling the attack-on-Truth virus to spread from "within" our democracy, I became more vigilant and determined to never give up -- to not let Trump wear us down with his con-game.
He will not win from within. This opinion video makes me even more vigilant.
Of course, there is no collusion, it's blatantly obvious --- for all those who are paying attention -- it's right in front of our nose. The pattern is clear. They're trying to make our heads spin.
Not any more. The pattern is clear.
6
I look forward to an article on the tactics used by the West over the last several decades.
2
@Alice Bartels
That would be great, wouldn't it? You can be highly confident "sources and methods" concerns would hobble any attempt to produce such an article. "National security" concerns cover an infinity of crimes and hypocrisy.
4
House and Senate members know they are out of their water when it comes to technology. Historically, the US failed to believe another country is smarter than the US and it's this superiority that is has lived on - and we've seen the technically illiterate House and Senate members attempt to investigate technology platforms.
Hundreds of millions of persons' personal data have been breached across hundreds of databases for over ten years and not one reform expectation. Equifax is still trading at $100/share.
Why has no special commission or panel been appointed, comprised of technology experts, to look at technology issues instead of leaving it to the illiterate?
The commission could be charged to: investigate, define, expose, and establish specific criteria for how anyone's personal information is collected, manipulated, shared, and secured across all media: facebook, google, mySpace, myLife, YouTube, etc.
We need standards similar to those of HIPAA for how our data are handled and for validating real information from made-up information
6
A president who works not just solely for himself but most effectively for Putin. Not for the welfare of the American people, not to uphold the constitution; his sole concern is and has always been himself. We the people are the only ones who can save ourselves and it ain't going to be easy or fast. The midterms were the first real shot at taking back our government. Now we need to make it work on our behalf as it should.
2
This is a very thoughtful, well thought out, professional video and I appreciate the work that went into it. I just don't know how to make those I know watch it and learn something.
Us versus Us. That is how it feels. And I don't see it getting any better when so many are so wilfully ignorant.
Watching this, right after reading Rolling Stone's "Jim Jones and the Lessons of Jonestown" truly makes me envision the end of this country and many of its citizens.
1
I hope Zuckerberg and company watch this . Congress should play it for them the next time they testify.
8
What's disturbing is that right wing news and the president are mimicking Russian disinformation. Is it deliberate or are they "useful idiots" for Russia? The result is the same; a country divided. It is imperative to find out if these groups and the pres (shown in your last segment) are working for Russia or share the same goal of the destruction of the US. God speed, Mr. Mueller.
10
I just ordered a large pizza, no meat, I'm a vegan, well, most of the time and i ordered 8 baby cribs and 12 cots for toddlers for my basement and yes, i do have a basement. Catch me if you can. I'm planning on running for POTUS and with my millions or is it billions, i can never keep track, i will be elected, and there will be no more lies. Our country and yes, the whole wide world will be at peace, we will all love each other, and everybody will be rich. I haven't quite decided rich in what, but don't worry it will be something, and nobody will need to watch anymore enlightening NY Times videos as i will erase all traces of stupidity in our species leaving only one or two humans left with the stupid gene. Yes, it's two, but my secretary is telling me they are of the same sex. I believe my secretary. It will all be okay. Don't you feel better already? Of course you do. Now for the pizza. I have enough for everybody.
1
This series of videos is a comical propaganda stunt itself: the US, Britain and Israel are past masters at espionnage and disinformation and here it all sounds as if ONLY the bad Russians did it (they do, of course). Here is what we could learn from NSA whistleblowers and what the US & Israel did to Iran:
"We built in attacks on Iran’s command-and-control system so the Iranians couldn’t talk to each other in a fight. We infiltrated their IADs [Intelligent Assist Devices], military air defense systems, so they couldn’t shoot down our planes if we flew over. We also went after their civilian support systems, power grids, transportation, communications, financial systems. We were inside waiting, watching, ready to disrupt, degrade, and destroy those systems with cyber-attacks. And in comparison, Stuxnet was a back- alley operation." Wow, this beats Russia!
Also the Russiagate story has been debunked by several reporters (Maté, Porter and Parry before he died) and some high level academics (Ferguson et al) and even fierce Putin critic Masha Gessen wrote in the New Yorker,
"Loyal Putinites and dissident intellectuals alike are remarkably united in finding the American obsession with Russian meddling to be ridiculous."
The "fraud of fraud" is a GOP conspiracy but the conspiracy theory about collusion is itself a conspiracy theory (as former FBI/CIA agents claim McGovern, Binney) which was started by the Clinton team (read the book Shattered).
Bob Woodward also saw no collusion.
4
I actually just read all of that.
2
Lack of education makes the population gullible. Most fake news is obvious to those with a morsel of knowledge. Teach students how to think, and fake news has no chance to bloom.
11
The revelation by Facebook today that they have deleted over one billion accounts as fake is staggering.
Social media seems to be the best unwitting or witting idiots and the mechanism for transmission.
All those platforms need to be stopped, and all those users need to wise up.
1
The first several times that I tried to watch episode 1 the NYT app told me that the video was no longer available. Glad that I kept trying.
2
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Republican lies will pass into history. - George Orwell (updated)
Required viewing. Hats off to all involved.
4
No, you don't get it. China is attacking every tech company that it has infiltrated. They're gathering data, their playing acting parts and they're attacking the best American engineers in the process.
It is 100% intentional and a part of their war.
We're at war with China. If you realize it or not, well, that will make the difference.
What concerns me most after viewing all of the episodes is that our political leaders (especially the Republicans) seem slow to address this because they think that disinformation is serving their needs in terms of getting out the voters that like an "us versus them" view of the country. Obama is looking more naive every day unfortunately (and I say this as a Black American who loved the guy). So we need not only to put the truth out there, but to find a way in which we as American can focus on what we have in common and having compassion toward one another. This was the magic of Dr. King and "we shall overcome." As a Black American I think even the most racist White man loves his kids, wants meaning in his life, wants safety in the community, loves the outdoors, clean air and water. And somewhere in the most racist White man is the courage to stop hating once he can take in the humanity of people not his same skin color. I hope we can find a way as a country to fight for that.
6
With the way our country is now, the Russians can be mere spectators. After all, our political system is highly polarized (thank you, Newt Gingrich and acolytes like Mitch McConnell), the man in the White House is unhinged and can't tell the lie from a truth, and much of his base thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread.
Whatever the Russians are spending on their disinformation campaign can be better spent on vodka and caviar and they can put their feet up and watch us destroy ourselves from within.
7
Sounds like the perfect scare tactic to rein in our freedoms. So that we can never have a disruption of plans like we had in 2016? Snowden tried to worn us that this will happen. This tactic has been happening in places like Egypt for a while now.
Also our heavenly Father has written about this and THE TRUTH will dispel all their lies!
1
This is an outstanding series and a call to action!
To anyone who has lost a friend, or become estranged with family due to a political or ideological discussion/argument we need to contact them, apologize, and share this series. Thanksgiving is the perfect time to share this information.
As a country, we need to come together, and to talk with each other with compassion and true listening to understand other points of view. It has been challenging to wade through all of the disinformation, but we must do our best to find the truth. We need to acknowledge our own mistakes based upon information, and to forgive others who have made mistakes based upon information. Instead of trying to win arguments, we will be better served by trying to find truths, rather than bolstering our arguments. This can help the country, and is a true patriotic behavior in our democracy.
This series is an outstanding first step in the healing process.
5
This video should be REQUIRED watching for all congress.
Also, all schools need to show it to our students and start teaching them what "disinformation" means. This is VITAL for our democracy to last.
5
Thank you! This is THE MOST ALARMING article I’ve read in decades. Thank you for speaking the truth, something not done anymore.
3
Thanks for the impressive work. This article is journalism at its best. Respect!!
5
Mentally confused people who are experiencing great stress in their lives can be dangerous to themselves and others.
I hope that Secretary Pompeo, Melania, Ivanka, Jared Kushner and any other powers-that-may-currently-be-in-the-White-House
these days are keeping are an especially close eye on guns, knives, ropes, toxic substances and nuclear footballs that may be lying around.
3
Great Work!
There is another mode of psycho-social chemical warfare going on. It frames migrants as threats to the assets of citizenship. This is the dominant political chemistry of the Bannonites world-wide and it works powerfully in nations whose assets of citizenship have been radically diminished by budget cuts, austerity, privatization, pollution, and financial crises.
Precursor 1: sensory proof of diminishing conditions
+
Precursor 2: imagery of multiply desperate migrants.
bring part two together with part one as its 'cause'.
The only antidote is a plan to radically improve and increase the assets of citizenship, right around the world. This involves exactly the kind of complex thinking that the warfare sabotages.
I have great concerns over the effect on our citizens from being barraged by the news, fear, he ate through the Facebook social media. One of the comments I read oh under the film said we have to rain them in. At that point I just exploded. Simply becauseWe needed to be raining in the hosts of talk radio shows who have been spewing this heat and stirring in rousing people to the hateful action for decades as well as the fox news organization whose whole purpose from its beginnings was to evoke this rage that now feels the population. So if we can’t arrange them in what good will it do to rain in Facebook and other social media operations.
Deleted from the President's remarks to supporters at a 2020 rally:
Thanks to my efforts, our country will soon be torn by extremists, hatred, prejudice, violence… "I feel I have nothing more to contribute".
Deleted from the President's remarks to supporters at a 2020 rally:
Our country will soon be torn by extremists, hatred, prejudice, violence… "I feel I have nothing more to contribute".
This series is brilliant and why I pay to support journalism.
6
I feel like the young woman who started with the tiny budget (I apologize; I forget her name) who so angry when she first found out about the Russian Aids Disinformation Campaign. This is both well thought out and well researched trio of videos/articles. I am definitely enlightened. Thank you.
2
This is a very powerful and important piece of journalism, albeit quite disturbing (!), so Thankyou! Should be required viewing for all ! Extremely well done!
5
Mr. Ellick and Mr. Westbrook, this is excellent work. Incidentally, I am writing my thesis on covert action: Needless to say, with this series you have inspired a few thoughts I will include in my conclusions. Thank you.
3
This is all about as shocking as learning that there is gambling in Vegas. We have various ways of disseminating information. The problem is not with the form of the media, it is with the people transmitting and receiving it, and mainly the latter. Our citizens should be alert and discerning enough to filter the information they receive and make judgments based upon it. Unfortunately, our education system has failed. First, by allowing polemic teaching methods, identity politics and mandatory political correctness to make US education, itself, into a form of of progressive indoctrination. Second, and very much related, our addiction to social media makes many us live in an echo chamber where we only receive information that supports the preconceived notions that are consistent with our indoctrination. Third, and much more important, American education, supported by the new obsession with equality, has taught us to fear liberty and personal accountability, preferring instead to rely on the various forms government imposed fairness.
People who believe in liberty and personal accountability don't fear fake news by Russia or CNN, they trust themselves to figure out the truth. What we fear is that some group of know-it-all progressives will empower Facebook to be not only a transmitter of information, but an arbiter of what people can see and read. And remember that Facebook was just caught firing one of its most successful executives simply for being a Republican.
2
Frighteningly great information! This series should be mandatory watching for ALL Americans, hell, everyone on Earth for that matter.
4
Strange that the NY Times, most of the media and the democratic party are not similarly outraged by theft of trillions from the American working-middle class due to the treason of our 1% moving several million manufacturing jobs to China, China's NOT free trade tariffs on US made goods, the theft of intellectual property and counterfeiting of name brand goods and the poison killing of 10,000's of Americans with made in China fentanyl. All of which have been achieved through a combination of bribes to our political class and a decades long mass propaganda disinformation campaign by China and our criminal 1% to the effect that all this degradation of our nation is really good for Americans! The illogic of all this only makes sense when one considers that the additional billions that have flowed to our 1-10% in the last 4 decades have been made possible by their access to 100's of millions of no-rights essentially slave workers in China et al, while Russia is not a similar nation sized slave labor plantation that our elites can exploit. Therefore, it does make sense that Russia is now the designated scape goat for most of the evil in the world, because it does not hurt our 1%s bottom line to hold Russia accountable while ignoring what the much more dangerous to the average American Chinese aggressors do. And of course because ultimately, when the US and China are in WWIII in a few years the sons and daughters of our 1% that caused the war will not be the ones fighting and dying.
This reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” A small town begins to experience anomalies that suggest an extra terrestrial presence which sends the town into panic, chaos and finally a murderous brawl as they try to weed out the “dangerous alien” among them. The punchline being that the aliens are on a distant hilltop laughing at killing off the townspeople by simply turning a few lights on and off.
Great article!
3
The only reliable (and immune to 'disinformation') way for 'we the American people' or any people in any country to clearly judge whether they and their country are being manipulated is to simply ask themselves whether their leader is acting like the president of a democracy or like an Emperor him/herself, and whether their country is acting like a basically functioning democracy or acting like a democracy-attacking Empire --- with hundreds of excessive military bases throughout the world, with massively excessive military budgets on weapons of mass destruction, with vast income and wealth inequality [High Gini Coefficients], tremendous percentages of people in prison, wild (and possibly illegal) financial speculation that continually imposes general economic collapse on the people, and acknowledged lack of any concern for 47%, or more, of the population.
If an Emperor acts like an Emperor, shouts like an Emperor, and exercises extra-legal powers like an Emperor ---- while their country is made to act like a bullying Empire, their country militarily or financially 'Lords' over other countries like a global Empire, and if their country acts like an arrogant Empire in not cooperating, or actually lying to, other weaker countries about everything including murder of journalists ---- then it's a pretty good guess that that country is doing as much or more 'disinformation', propaganda, and deceitfulness as any other country that it's pointing at as a 'bad actor' or Empire.
4
I am teaching about the disinformation spread by Otto von Bismarck's infamous Ems Telegram that instigated a war between France and Prussia in 1870 to my high school students and will use this as a companion to the show the ways that disinformation has been used over time. Disinformation is nothing new but technology has made it incredibly more effective and complex. Thank you for making this engaging film!
5
Anonymity is the great enabler of lies and propaganda. The FaceBooks, Twitters and hundreds of other "social media" sites let anyone say/show almost anything - no verification, no responsibility. REAL news is eclipsed by garbage strewn by cowardly voyeurs who live for click-baiting, anarchy and hatred. Trump is the "King of the Hill" when it comes to this abuse and he has begun to legitimize these lowest of human traits. He thinks he is immune to law and truth - we'll see when Mueller releases his findings.
The cowardly surfers, bots, disenfranchised zealots, white supremacists and amazingly ignorant think they can say anything to anyone with no consequence. Lives have been lost by cyberbullying, others ruined by false accusation and actions of insane true believers.
It is time to hold people accountable for their actions on every front. Universal ID and verification must be enacted on all platforms. That would not limit free speech or violate any Constitutional freedoms, but it would raise the bar to a civil platform, something that Donald Trump cannot understand.
3
To root out disinformation, I subscribe to NYT.
5
Great project. Thank you for your work on this.
3
"---stop spreading lies themselves". Liberal and neoconservative journalists take note. The reason we are in this mess is because of the lies told before the invasion of Iraq which were repeated ad nauseum by the press we had previously trusted to tell the truth. Not to mention the "spreading of democracy" to Libya and Syria.
The Democrats lost the presidential election because their candidate was divisive and had supported the aforementioned invasions. So-called Russian interference is a smelly red herring.
Facebook is far from perfect but it gives ordinary people a chance to express their opinions for the first time in human history.
1
This has the potential to cause people to stop and think differently about how they consume information. I, for one, will be sharing this series with those in my life that seem to need it.
2
This is a sterling example of excellent journalism. We need more of it. Kudos to all of those who produced it.
4
We must be careful how we define truth. To say that the President, and an organized movement around the globe, has denied observable reality is one thing, but if anything this movement has shown us that "truth" -our label on facts, not the facts themselves - is the product of systems.
1
Censorship is a Must.
The Public is too stupid to understand what is right and what is wrong. Sure this is a democracy but we need to help them to think right. They need the Elites like us to help see the right light.
Putin has nothing on, Dick Cheney, Steve Bannon, Brad Pascale, Robert Mercer (Cambridge Analytica), Bill Shine, Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh and too many Fox News commentators to post.
6
International ocial media require federal regulatory oversight by one or more federal agencies with subpoena and fine levying power.
The originating "provenance" (aka, sources) of information ("news") must be forever attached to all digital copies and to all links referring the information.
And all digital identities should have full access to data collected about them, and full rights to "own" and control the data, collected on their behavior or associated with their online identities via the credit scoring agencies, credit agencies, and other institutional data sources.
Social media companies amass an enormous amount of data on you, the hapless digital consuming prole, even if you actually have no social media accounts and never visit social media sites. The NY Times should do a series on how that infrastructure of "beacon pixels" works, as well.
1
What a great fact and opinion based view on the most effective weapon today. A lie machine, able to shot on any target with no need to carry about borders or moral or ethic. I really hope that people in power in our democracies find a way to save the way we live in freedom today.
2
Great series, enormously helpful. I am grateful for your superb level of journalism.
4
As noted in the videos, there are ways to fight this (we could start by televising fact checking like they do in Latvia), though of course, as other commenters have pointed out, there are many people in our government and media who benefit from disinformation and will therefore do nothing to fight it.
The videos put a lot on the shoulders of Facebook and Twitter, as they should, but all media has a responsibility to verify stories before they put them out there. Internet service providers should also police the websites being run on them. For those worried about the 1st Amendment, the ISPs don't need necessarily to shut those websites down (though in the case of InfoWars the conspiracy theories were inciting violence) but there could be warning labels when a website is opened, such as "Warning: This site has repeatedly published inaccurate and misleading information".
Once we get rid of Trump, a cancer in our country, there must be a wholesale effort on the part of everyone putting information out there (incl. Fox News!) to use facts, even in opinion pieces. To paraphrase Senator Moynihan, we can have different opinions but they should all be based on the same facts.
1
Thank you for this! May I humbly and ardently request that the NYT creates and produces a show or series or section or segment similar in purpose to the one in Latvian prime time? (Shown at 5:25 in Episode 2 https://nyti.ms/2z5zy0e)
The civic and readership value of such a novel American service would be a very worthwhile experiment, of which this segment is itself essentially a pilot. I bet your editors know the people who could get it made.
2
The Times could be a lot smarter about the Russian campaign outside of this investigative piece. The comment pages are full of very probable Russian propaganda, but directly challenging the trolls is not allowed. It is a very vexing issue.
2
My first thought was Dick Cheney and his disinformation campaign to rationalize the Iraq war.
1
Ironically this video series ends by spreading the New York Times version of disinformation. Yes this is supposed to be in an “opinion section”, but it is loaded with facts which are intermingled with opinion in the same way that disinformation is.
As the paper of record, the New York Times bears a higher responsibility to report facts rather than opinion, presented as facts. Yet the anti-Trump, out of context clips at the end, distort the reality of who Trump is and what has happened involving him.
Fortunately Americans are starting to learn to ignore the New York Times, and other opinion- infected media, and just weed out from it the part that still is good. What a shame that the so-called “brilliant” minds in the modern media can do the same thing with Trump
@T M
Which of the facts that are presented that help form the opinion of the Times are incorrect?
The clips don't distort Trump, they are Trump as we've seen him at rallies and speeches. And they support the opinion - by his behavior - that Trump is both well practiced at using disinformation (truthful hyperbol is what he called it in his book) and a pawn of disinformation.
If what you say about Americans are starting to learn to ignore opinion- infected media FOX News, Limbaugh, Breibart, etc. would all be dying now.
2
@Marie There are many examples of "facts" (eg, the reference to "Sweden" at 13:44) and also explicit strongly biased statements by the narrator (eg, "Not even the KGB could have dreamt up a useful idiot as prominent..." at 14:00).
A fair minded person will not attack Trump (or anyone) for a claim before giving it an open minded look. Furthermore, fairness requires one not nit-pick in a legal way, but look at the point the person is making in context.
In the case of the "Sweden" quote, I happened to watch the same report that Trump based his statement on (ref: his tweet 10:57pm on 2/19/17). Though Trump made a factual error about when the events in Sweden occurred, a fair-minded person who also watched that report would know exactly what he was talking about and have to agree that his larger point was valid. But that was ignored throughout the liberal press.
Please note that I'm not claiming Trump is more accurate than others. I'm just using this one example to illustrate how opinion (esp. rooted in negative emotions) distorts things to such an extent that the facts fade into the background. Anyone who has experienced dealing with an angry ex-lover will know exactly what I mean: all facts are fogged over by negative emotions that will not allow clear thinking.
Indeed, such a situation is a microcosm for the "divorce" that has taken place between the left and the right in the US. It's much easier to hate than to understand and care for a person enough to really listen.
@T M - would know exactly what he was talking about
Trump is the President. We are not supposed to divine his meanings as happens in royal courts.
And such a statement cuts both ways. He can't hide behind "I didnt' say that" when he makes his meaning loud and clear to everyone. White supremicists and criminals wouldn't glom onto him if he wasn't making his meaning clear.
Fair and open minded is what we gave George Bushs and Ronal Reagn. Trump is an altogether different dangerous animal.
If you find a thief in your house what does a fair and open-minded person do?
1
Why is it legal to propagandize the American public?
So Mitt was correct? Woulda thunk it? Did he see
who Putin really would become - the merciless tailor making king Donald’s new robes.
1
It seems that Trump our president is either a very useful fool, or he is just working for the KGB. Where are the patriotic Republicans?!!!!
4
Love to get a transcript…
This is a great series. I just finished Episode 2, and I'm wondering if there was any Russian influence on Brexit? Just like in the states, where they stirred up white supremacists to rally against Muslims' rally. It seems likely they would have also had a hand in poking and prodding around at the UK, stirring up nationalism and anti EU sentiments just prior to the vote on Brexit, or perhaps even introducing the Brexit movement and then sowing the discord that invites it? Anyway, just a theory I'm asking about, not saying this happened.
4
Sorry, but I didn't like it. I kept thinking of "Operation Abolution" as I was reading it. That was a US government propaganda film blaming the Soviet Union for demonstrations against Joe McCarthy's House Unamerican Activites Committee.
The vid was full of unchallenged talking heads, and newspaper clippings flying by too fast to read more than the headlines. It made the "Russian Playbook" look like a real book instead of a metaphor. The video itself could be the subject of a critical thinking class. While I'm pretty sure that Russians are interfering in our elections, this isn't the way to prove it.
1
This was SO interesting; great job! Three videos was not enough, though!! Anyone have any books on this topic that they recommend?
1
Well done Adam B Ellick and team..this is a terrific work of investigative and educational journalism. .. I eagerly await episode 4 , wherein George Bush and the disinformation service convinced millions of Americans and governments all over the world that weapons of mass destruction were the justification to invade Iraq...Let he or she who is without sin cast the first stone...
2
We risk our country if we underestimate the Russians. My grandparents used to say, “ beware the Russian bear”.
2
Always love your honest exposés. (Your crucial in-depth report on Trump’s financial gaslighting, for instance). PBS’s special reports and Frontline in particular have given us excellent condensed information for years, also. Sadly, the NYTimes is preaching to the choir. A ‘biography’ of Fox News would be fascinating to the already informed, though.
1
I wonder if the Russians also used their disinformation campaign to sell us a bankrupting war in the Middle East? or maybe they were the ones who pushed the whole WMD story on the American people? or maybe it was their idea of a tax cut for American oligarchs along with health care subsidies for the poor getting the ax? Maybe it was the Russians who made sure we would get to live in a surveillance state, a secret torture & drone program, suspend our Habeas Corpus & persecute our whisteblowers? or take our men & women to fight on multiple fronts around the world turning 2 wars into 7? The Russians must be responsible for our defective voting machines, hiding our ballot boxes, gerrymandering & suppressing our vote in so many ways in many of our Southern states with large minority populations. I guess the Russians are so nefarious they have been able to construct the biggest income disparity this country hasn't seen since the Gilded Age, bust up our unions & give billions of dollars in tax breaks & grants to multinationals that don't need it. That wouldn't bring about any resentment or anger, naah, no, no way! It's Russia's fault!
3
The most wonderful job! Big thanks from the occupied Crimea!
1
In the aftermath of national elections giving us a plethora of obvious cerebral dullards, I would suggest a national Presidency, Senate, HoC test, akin to the SATs, be devised to assess the mental acuity of public servant's ability to pick through false information vs. reality.
It can be an open book test, but no help allowed.
1
Nice bit of melodrama, guys, but the simple straight line is Disinfo > ABC, Dan Rather > Reagan > Gorby. We all knew that at the time. Dan Rather speaks the truth... "A Russian Military publication reported... " Disinfo was HUGE news. Just as huge as "Fake News." And, yes, we all knew/know it didn't stop when the Wall fell. Andropov, Yeltsin, Putin, the oligarchs. We the people never trusted FSU, even if your video pals from USG patted themselves on the back and told themselves disinfo was over after the Wall, and sent Soros in to unwittingly finance more of it with his democracy projects. It's all pretty transparent and always has been. Short memories as usual in the good ol' USA.
Take a look at some of David Samuels' reporting from the mid-90s for a little refresher course in our own Disinfo campaigns in FSU/Eastern Europe and then draw some lines from there to Balkans War, Kosovo, Madeline Albright, Victoria Newland, Bill and Hillary Clinton. I'd like to see that video, please.
1
This readers is thankful to the times for sharing some of its trade secrets.
Don't you find it weird that this video series hasn't broken the internet yet? Is it just due to a lack of interest from the audience? Could we even suspect an active effort from Russian s to sink this story ? The quality of this series is just epic, from the edition, the music, the animation and visual effects, to the actual script of the story, it was just pure perfection, every aspect of it was well thought of, even the link to share it on social media! This piece of work sets the bar way up high for any in other news media producer around the world.
5
Excellent work. Is it just me or did Part 2 also accurately describe the Trump playbook in many ways? Pretty amazing strategy for a real estate developer to come up with.
2
President Trump on August 13, 2018 signed the U.S. military spending budget of $892 billion for the period October 1, 2018 through September 30, 2019. The FBI and Cybersecurity Department of Justice were allotted a mere $8.8 billion. This paltry amount reflects the will of a president who chooses to live in denial of the cyber war now being waged between the U.S. and Russia. At the same time he wages his own damaging disinformation war which is dividing and tearing apart the social and democratic fiber of this nation for his own self interests and insatiable thirst for power at the expense of a country under attack.
What a perfect storm Trump has created for the brilliant strategies of Mr. Putin to weaken and destabilize the U.S. through the power of fake news among other active measures. It's working and costs a lot less than a budget of billions of dollars to be effective.
2
Excellent and illuminating. Unfortunately there are just too many people who refuse to listen or comprehend the significance and there are those in the media who use misinformation to advance political agendas-. And of course there are those at the top of the totem pole who thrive on misinformation and blatant falsehoods.
2
I stopped watching because the music was so irritating. The seventies saxophone would be fine period mood adder for a small portion of the time but it's too much and detracts from the information. I'm sure the KGB wouldn't have used it! Please edit most of it out.
1
I've shared this series with 80 college students in my lens media courses this term. The episodes are an aesthetic untangling, having a Millennial friendly media cadence, of one of the greatest threats to the future our Republic and it's citizens.
2
@Stephan Make sure to remind them that it's an op-ed that plays loose with facts.
I haven't watched these videos (yet), and kudos to the NYT for branching out into other forms for relating a story. But I still prefer to read my newspaper, since then I control how fast or slow I ingest the information. It's bad enough to be reading from a screen half the time, that itself is a huge change from the pleasure of reading a hard copy (which I still get delivered!). Sigh. The comments section is fun though.
2
We citizens of the US are a rather malleable people. Why does none of this Russia hysteria look at the US history as it relates to Russia. Besides invading the country in 1917, something Russia has never done to us, we have broken the promise made to Gorbachev that we would not expand NATO into the Eastern Bloc nations that were a part of the USSR. We directly influenced their elections that gave the Russian people Yeltsin as president, who opened up the country to the oligarchs, but sadly for those corporate vampires in the West, they didn't get the financial blood they sought since the transition kept control of powerful Russian industries in house. Look at any map of where US bases are, and you will see we have Russia surrounded with dozens and dozens of military bases (a part of the 200 or so we have throughout the world. Russia measly couple, the others being early warning stations in case of nuclear attack. Our faux problems with Iran are directly related to Russia because we want more bases in the underbelly of Russia and to counter China. So, all of you who are getting alarmed at the great terror of Russia, might just remember how easily many of you were fooled by George Bush's supposed weapons of mass destruction. There are other purposed behind this propaganda that have noting to do with US security. It's about US power and its drive to cudgel any nation that objects to it. One only need to see the lies put forth about Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, ad nauseum.
2
Excellent content and so needed. Do/could you provide in other languages? I do civic engagement workshops with low-income families and would love to show this. Our families speak Spanish and Mandarin. A discussion guide with recommended resources for further study would also be helpful. Thank you!
5
My biggest concern is that many national and state politicians *aside* from the president have readily adapted to the preponderance of fake news. I must believe that these representatives realize and understand that this disinformation environment is a national security imperative. However, some are using this knowledge to their political advantage by deliberately undermining the epistemic foundation of the public forum upon which they ostensibly debated and were voted into office. If they deride legitimate criticism and bad press as just fake news, does that not make these representatives complicit in the attack on our country? Is this not a dereliction of their duty?
Adam B. Ellick and colleagues: Bravo!
This should be required viewing in all US civics, journalism and international relations programs.
4
I've been noticing a disturbing new trend in 'fake news' (or at the very least, extremely 'suspect' news), on the local level...
I can think of a number of local initiatives which a given politician was said to be supporting, or being against. This positioning was reported by 'someone' or else a group, with an online presence. My strong suspicion, especially as I learned more about the particular initiatives and the various players involved, was that in fact, it was someone on the other side, trying to use reverse psychology to 'trick' people into either siding or going against a certain campaign or policy, when in reality, if the readers had all the facts, might determine that in fact the opposite were true. It seems some people are figuring out that if your 'enemy' supposedly thinks or votes one way, that you will think and vote the opposite way. And that 'opposite way' might be just what the other side wants you to go for.
So not only now do we have to worry about blatant fake news, but news that's a bit more clever...trying to use reverse psychology.
Moral of the story? Always question the source of anything you read. FB, Twitter, etc. are not 'sources'. If you read something on FB or Twitter, unless it is specifically posted on someone's own FB Wall or is in someone's own Twitter feed, then you need to dig back to find the original source. Never trust what you read. Understand that all sides will do and say whatever, in order 'to win'. Do your research.
4
This just goes to prove that all things come to those who wait. Tell that to our media here when it comes to incessant polls and election night prognostications. All the chaos that causes only plays right into the hands of what the Russians are already patiently doing.
In the same way that people and their societies in the erstwhile Soviet Bloc are the best source of techniques to squelch disinformation, former Republicans who have deserted Trump but remain 'conservatives' should be embraced so that they can help excise him .
They know the enemy and must be enlisted in the struggle to defeat it.
Very interesting and informative series! It’d also be interesting to do a series on the formation of Fox News, as well as it’s formula to keep some people hooked.
2
I guess the military industrial complex and its supporters in the arms industry, along with the status quo MSM, need a new bogeymen to justify all that spending to keep the neoliberal hegemon in place. Frankly, I think those who have gone bonkers over the great Russia menace don't realize the catastrophe that awaits us as we arm space, upgrade our nuclear weapons, and pull out of long standing treaties. In this shrinking, heating up world, all we can count on is the drive to expand control of the world and the cold, irrational, and deluded thinking of the psychopaths. Onward. The end is near for better or worse.
2
Latvia and the Ukraine have prime time TV shows that counter Russian disinformation. I suggest at least one of the main USA TV networks mount a prime time political fact-check show. I think it could attain enough audience to supplant the present entertainment news fluff being aired.
1
Wow! Well done - and needs to be circulated - this should go viral. The history of Putin’s efforts must be understood - their willingness to play the long-game - we must stop our instant gratification games and dig in. It’s going to be a rough ride in 2020..no I mean 2019....no I mean from now on.
2
The last few lines of part one state that the main objective of our Soviet or Russian enemy was to turn white against black, black against white, whites against Hispanics = divide our society into contending groups. Interesting thing is that that has been precisely the behavior of the democratic party and our neo Marxist academic and extreme left since the end of WWII with all their hair brained talk of no more melting pot but rather a cultural diversity "patchwork quilt"(apparently in collusion with the KGB). And via their blowing every unfortunate event in this nation up into an alleged race crime. So it seems that the NY Times has not cared if its efforts provoked anarchy that burned down city blocks, lost us battles in the Cold War, discredited the police because a cop killed a black or brown criminal, and so that community ends up with no law and order for a decade .. it seems as long as those deaths fit its apparently not thought out agenda. So in other words when the NY Times and the major media tear our society apart its OK, but when the KGB does the same thing by almost precisely the same means of spin on events and selective emphasis of facts its evil. H'mmm. And please don't tell me that when our "liberals" do things that kill many thousands or ultimately start a civil war that kills many missions that's good because they have good intentions. The NY Times in print record of contempt and hatred of ~50% of the people in this nation soundly disproves that.
2
How’s the winter in Russia this year? Pretty nice here in the US
1
When people find a justification for their strongly held beliefs, little will change their thinking. America is/was a compromise based on divisions and the discussion of who's a real American has been with us since the march westward . Long held regional stereotypes, our shortcomings in achieving equality, our gun culture, two party political system and a corrupted news information system makes disinformation so easy here; little wonder why a moderate political base doesn't exist anymore that can win.
Thank you for this excellent video on "disinformation". I hope it becomes widely used in middle schools and high schools.
To help with improving media literacy, what if a gameshow awarded prizes to contestants who could identify an example of "disinformation" in a list of 3 statements? The "2 truths and 1 lie" game format could be informative and entertaining.
2
As a journalist and video producer, I am quite jealous! This is an excellent piece of journalism and video production.
It should be a wake up call, although I’m not confident it will be.
Just another reason Jim Acosta needs his hard pass again!
2
This is so good! Thanks very much for putting this video series together. In watching the first video, I was struck by the idea that no longer do the Russians have to go to the Third World to start disinformation and fake news. Now, they can go direct to Fox News, and any of the many fake news websites, YouTube channels, etc. that are out there.
Hoping this is a wake-up call for Americans to start doing their own due diligence and stop falling for every news story that seems to match up with their political ideology.
4
RT is a very effective weapon used by these purveyors of disinformation. Say 90% of their info is honest journalism that brings them respect and followers. Then, when they need to alter people’s opinions or behavior about something they use the channel knowing that the viewers will respect everything they say.
If this doesn’t bother you nothing will.
2
Wow, these videos need to be seen by every single person in America. The scary part are the people who don’t even realize they’ve been duped.
The question I have is how serious a threat is Russia. If they succeed in tearing the country apart is that good enough reason to start a war against them?
Perhaps we need to play catch-up and start massive campaigns against Putin. Perhaps we already have.
BREXIT. there’s no doubt in my mind that Russia’s influence was enough for brexit to pass. Getting the UK out of the EU was just what Russia wanted. Breaking up NATO too. Clearly Trump gets his news from a source that is tied to Russian garbage. Why else would he be so against it?
The possible benefit to Russia’s game playing is that it backfires. That whatever outcome they desire may in fact lead to the opposite and hurt them more. Say if the American people are so disgusted by trumps behavior that we destroy the gop for decades. That would not be good for them.
USEFUL IDIOTS. Perfect term for trump and his crue. They’re all useful idiots. They attract one another. Who would have thought a useful idiot would become president? And that we have so many of them in the US.
God help us, idiocy is attacking us and may actually win.
6
This is a clever way to present a complex topic, and I enjoyed getting this information
My question is why do some people believe disinformation and others do not? When the JFK second shooter tale became known, why did some people take it as fact and others say “nah”? I have relatives who accepted the FB story that Obama gave a Christmas speech in which he never said the word Christmas. When I sent them the real speech they unfriended me. Boo hoo. BTW these are people with college educations.
I would be willing to bet that there are people in the Ukraine who believe the disinformation despite the efforts to get the truth out.
That said, when FB first became a hit the disinformation blossomed. I cannot believe that all of it came from Russia. There are US citizens who seem to crave the Other Side.
What to do? I have no idea.
44
We just have to keep on keepin’ on telling the truth.
1 1 does not equal 3, no matter how many times someone may claim it’s so.
But separate from clear FACTS - let’s be honest with ourselves as humans: we have totally different religions. Different deities. We are adept at creating our own realities and really truly BELIEVING in the ‘facts’ put forth by belief in whatever is specific to that particular religious world view. I don’t think there’s any way to avoid having a certain percentage of the populace just living in fantasy land.
10
@Wolfe
As has already been discussed in many other editorials, some are taken in by those they consider to be 'powerful'. Similar to deities mentioned in this thread. Others are so enthralled by social media that it becomes their ONLY source of information. Facts are only 'believable' based on your choice of information source. Being critically aware of information and questioning is either way too difficult for some and laziness on the part of others.
However, asking those who choose to believe information that cannot be corroborated for why they choose to believe, you will never get an answer as they don't have one. If they do, you can bet that it's something that was tweeted.
1
@Wolfe
It's called 'Self-deception' and it has a powerful biological basis. you can find it in rudimentary form in most mammals, some birds etc. It starts as a camouflage for strategic thought that might get one in trouble. So that one can consider options like not confessing to theft.
But in humans it also provides a basis for protecting oneself from new information.
1
You could trace this as far back as the Czarist forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
1
Perhaps we should require people to
go into re-education camps if they're caught watching RT ?
For a country like America that thinks we're smarter than every one else we really are a bunch of dummies. Enough of us believe whatever they're told and we never question what is an obvious lie. The corporate rich of America seems to want to keep education standards just high enough to provide workers without the ability to recognize obvious lies. How we fight these attacks I do not know.
2
Sunlight is a disinfectant, that’s how we counteract it. And never give up.
This is interesting but still merely a sugar high as to what the real problems and solutions are in combating the lies from Russia and this current White House.
I think it should have been much longer and the Rowan Atkinson impersonator narrating made it less impactful for me.
The general public must be made aware that this is an issue of national security. Being that the health and well being of our county is in jeopardy, certain laws or bureaus should be engaged to protect us from this assault. In this regard Congress or the Justice Department should be energized to actively fight this threat. At the very least, it would seem to me, spreading disinformation should have with it a consequence like either having your account suspended, making it necessary to provide a retraction or apology for spreading disinformation, a tally of the number of disinformation stories you have shared, or means by which someone can notify when someone is spreading disinformation.
To this end there probably needs to be a non-partisan commission determining a known truth much like the investigators in your story. It probably already exists in the FBI though their findings need to be shared and disseminated through the country.
The greatest, slow motion threat to our country has been making truth relative - a concept perpetuated by the Right for decades now to sow doubt into our news sources. It now seems about time to nip it in the bud and call out the lies when and where they occur. I know this could amount to a truth patrol but there have been and will continue to be dire consequences for our inaction.
1984
1
This is a most useful narrative to use with my students. The linkage in part one back to the KGB work is very telling. There was a gasp in the room when they saw Putin's face appear on the paper floating below the surface of the developer bath.
I am old enough to recall the 80s attempt to dupe us. I am intrigued by the uncritical regard of Reagan (forceful leadership on this issue, yes, but so forceful it nearly led us to war). I think, once again, the film demonstrates how much we owe to Gorbachev that the cold war did not end with a bang.
Thank you, NYT. I will be showing this in my college English class this week, while they still have time to revise their research papers. Hopefully it'll save me from what can be an excruciating slog through the most ridiculous and frightening source claims imaginable.
1
Excellent research on the viral memes, but they are harmless without an effective delivery vector.
There are four factors of effective messaging: duration, intensity, repetition, and proximity – we get those from our social media channels, the virus carriers.
Smartphones are the infektion interface.
Where does this come from? We don’t need Russia. FoxNews has no equal. TV is easy-peasy for electronically challenged geezers (like trump). What a propaganda machine. The biggest retirement enclave in the US, The Villages in FL, pumps Fox over public loudspeakers. 3/4 are republicans & some have enough bravado to egg Dems houses before elections....75 year olds!
Thank you for your excellent work here. I hope Robert Mueller's investigation provides supplemental material sufficient to bring about some change. I will use your video in my college course on Lying. Trust is a primary precondition for society to exist, and we must push for transparency and critical thinking.
Thank you New York Times for these informative and well done videos on fake news. I plant to share this with my family and friends.
Good lord, as if propaganda is a Russian invention. The US and UK invented public relations (which used to be called "propaganda" in more honest times--"public relations" is public relations for "propaganda.").
It's the American oligarchy that, more or less collectively and automatically (sans "conspiracy"), manufactures consent. It's the American oligarchy that tries to limit debate via all the usual methods all of which can be found in the book or film of Manufacturing Consent. (Here's the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrBQEAM3rE&t=7s.)
And no matter what is found to be the case with the Russian troll farms, or whatever else, it's the American oligarchy that had the largest effect on 2016 and every other election we've ever had. Let alone the effect on *policy*.
Perhaps that entirely obvious fact is why the Chomsky-Herman propaganda model, which is about Us not Them, gets virtually no play, as opposed to highly publicized, well-placed little film-lets about What They Did, which, at worst, still pales in comparison.
But such a convenient way for the media to ignore that it elevated Trump for profit! Why else did I see CNN cut away from an major Sanders address on foreign policy to focus on a mike soon to catch Trump's rants?
And the Democratic Party's embrace of neoliberalism for decades, and refusal to actually campaign in 2016 (slight exaggeration), isn't Russia's fault.
Sure, whatever bad the Russians did, even though we do it and worse, is bad. True.
4
@Doug Tarnopol -
While Russia served as the example, and was identified as a key contributor of disinformation via active measures, I believe the point emphasized at the end, was the disinformation can come from many sources and we need to be prepared whatever the source. Even if it is the President of the United States and his administration.
It is important to add, in addition to The "Seven Commandments..." the following powerful interacting processes and their outcomes; predictable and unpredictable ones. A culture which enables both complacency and complicity regarding harmful words and deeds by its diverse citizenry. The anchoring, by traditions, laws and regulations, as well as "principles of faith," by many faux-faithful, of a WE-THEY culture which violates, daily,in documented and undocumented ways.A created, selected and targeted "the other(s)." A culture and lifestyle which enables, permits, and all too often fosters, unchallenged, willful blindness of ummenschlichkeit. Willfull deafness of unnecessary experienced existential pains-physical, psychological, social, spiritual, economic, political, and many more types. All around US. And willful ignorance about...
which enables description about... to become a generalizable explanation of...Proven, documentable facts, stakeholder fictions as well as fantasies to become "goulashed." Anchored. Transmitted. A political reality, whatever the underlying "isms" and ideologies, of an elected
or selected policymaker being personally unaccountable for the temporary or more permanent outcomes of their harmful words and done-deeds.At all levels. A central issue for creating well being is choosing to develop the necessary daily skills for discerning between: relevant generalizable "data." Derived information. Created understanding. All of which are to be questioned.
1
Regarding information to deepen splits in society: Just as rapists are the No. 1 cause of rapes, racists are the No. 1 cause of racism. This transference of guilt to the Russians is just that, a convenient escape hatch to avoid responsibility for what we have created in our country. Look in the mirror all of you who fed on this red meat of division.
3
This is a great start, and should be the biggest story in the news, every day. I know others have been covering it from a more academic perspective for a long time, but this concise series really delivers the essence of it understandably.
3
Thank you for this in-depth presentation. It should be taught in schools.
1
Fascinating...as unsettling as the recent documentary "Active Measures." The fact that the current administration is in denial is what makes this all the more chilling.
2
Thank you, thank you, thank you - this series must be shared at every school in the country.
2
Thank you Excellent explanation of Russian's role in disinformation. Now the problem is how to approach the Disinformation- In - Chief Trump? Guess what we have to do is protect a free press and demand a Congress who really do their jobs - calling out all disinformation.
5
What’s missing from this otherwise excellent report is the role of Fox News and Breitbart. https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-new-book-details-the-damage-done-by-the-right-wing-media-in-2016
7
This is such an incredibly informative series but I'm struck by its "Opinion" label. Why did this not come out of the news division?
4
@SouthernBeale Because most of it isn't factual, like their premises about the effects of the PizzaGate story. It's an op-ed full of propaganda and fear-mongering. It's Disinformation about disinformation.
Trump is conspiring with several people to commit various crimes including treason with Russia. Its being done for money, its that simple!
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
4
Excellent! Everyone should view this series.
3
It will be interesting to know how the Russian missinformation shaped the curiculum of colleges and universities. Excellent videos. Thank you!
1
Impressive research and absolutely brilliant delivery!
Thank you for this Adam.
9
Excellent journalism. It need much more exposure to cut through the avalanche of fake news and conspiracy theories.
7
I'm in the middle of writing an article on propaganda and I see your three videos. Thankyou for doing your homework Adam. This is exactly what is needed at this time - a comprehensive picture of the Kremlin's disinformation campaign and the scary way that the West is acting like a sitting duck and even enabling Putin. I have been calling out what I figured out was Russian propaganda on FaceBook, but I had no idea that it this disinformation campaign went back so far and was so well organized. Meanwhile, in Washington DC we have a "useful idiot" who has totally bought into Putin's "active measures".
15
that's quite funny report, you guys just picked on the. my country Egypt has been plagued with this just hours after our revolution. From accusing revolutionaries as fifth column to spreading news suggesting that someone named Mohammed is a Christian dude. You guys just got burned by it now. My only suggestion, just check the source of the information, and when your friend is telling you something just nod your head to him/her in (order not to lose the friendship) and then go and check
1
You live under a president whose every word is a lie, so now you are blaming Russia for fake news?
How about showing a chart of income inequality; of how much per day, week or month we spend on Endless War; of how much the one percent rules the country and buys the politicians with tax cut money recycled back to them.
5
@Bartolo Dude, one outrage at a time, OK? Just because there are a *lot* of them to cover doesn’t make this one any less important.
5
what?
because of high income inequality we should not pay attention to russia's playbook of spreading propaganda to destroy democratic institutions?
2
Russian meddling may not be a hoax, but that does not mean we need to take it seriously. Facebook and other social media are rife with ridiculous stories and claims that we have all learned to filter out/ignore. The hysteria about Russian disinformation serves two purposes, one purposeful, one perhaps not. It purposely seeks to discredit Trump's victory. It also casts a pall over our First Amendment right to express ourselves, to include our right to read and believe any ridiculous thing we choose.
3
Oh please, fake news is as old as the Republic and certainly goes back further. One would think a bunch of people with Journalism Degrees would have heard of James Callender.
Here's someplace to start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Callender
4
I'm sorry was Texas a swing state in 2016?
1
Two years ago I wrote a lot of this in a lengthy article (never published). With recent revelations, there are now only two points from my piece that aren't well described in this series.
1. The press has been an enabler of Russia's disinformation campaign for a VERY long time. With the exception of a few print sources, journalism is now too busy covering more profitable crime stories (yellow tape journalism), and encouraging controversy (arguments from both sides), with very little real reporting of actual news like this. (This may explain why the public has lost trust in the profession)
2. I believe the GOP must have known their propaganda service (Fox News, talk radio, etc.) was being co-opted long before the 2016 election. When mainstream GOP candidates started losing someone in the Party must have figured out the Russians were behind at least some of this. Their possible complicity should be researched.
Other than these two points, this is an EXCELLENT series, entertaining and informative. (It also must be popular, since watching it today has been difficult with lots of buffering)
3
Disinformation is also used as a means to sway elections.
Strategic Communications Laboratory, which is the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, used in the Trump campaign, has influenced elections in Italy, Latvia, Ukraine, Albania, Romania, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, India, Indonesia, The Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Colombia, Antigua, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, St. Kitts & Nevis, and Trinidad & Tobago.
This group is self described as a data mining and data analysis company. Based on results, communications will be specifically targeted to key audience groups to modify behaviour in accordance with the goal of SCL's client. The company describes itself as a "global election management agency".
Interesting that Mercer, Bannon and Flynn all had interests in SCL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group
7
Sorry, there's no evidence the Russian state funds the Internet Research Agency.
So more fake news in this video.
2
Very well done and very much worth the time to listen to. Indeed, maybe I could say that it is (for once) actually making use of technology to help improve our awareness.
In my university days, I spent several semesters trying to learn Russian. I still remember my professor giving some lectures very reminiscent of this, though through the slow means of a few students listening to a lecture in a classroom. We did not have the power of the internet at that time, so my education is on the past means, not the present.
As I reflected on his lessons while listening to this piece, I reckon that even this only scratches the surface on how subtle and intricately weaved "active measures" are. He would go into depth on things that seemed quite innocuous to use students. We were all like dumb cows staring blankly at him as he would pick these things apart.
To be fair about facebook, most of the people I interact with promote strike up conversations that are mutually beneficial and it is good for keeping in contact with good people too. So technology, properly used, can be a force for good. Nevertheless, it would be naive to think that it cannot be used to stir up all sorts of trouble too.
I'm glad I somehow stumbled on this one in the NYT feed, it was well worth the effort to listen to a few times.
1
It rather harms the credibility of these claims that they are presented in the style of totalitarian propaganda.
3
I'd just like to leave a comment and suggest a reporter- literally any reporter- look into the fact that Russian disinformation assets (be they real people or bots), form protective layers of disinformation around the social media comments of GOP members of congress.
Also, the fact that WH talking points, those of satellite goons such as Dan Scavino, etc... match up perfectly with the Russian disinformation.
Someone working GOP messaging is also working with Russia. The GOP and Russia are helping each other with this campaign.
THIS. CANNOT. BE. COINCIDENCE.
No matter how many times I type comments like this I feel like I'm going to be perceived like I belong in a psych ward.
Here's a start: Seth Rich.
Russian bots had that story pre-primed on social media before Fox News even picked the story up from their local affiliate. Ask yourself how that could be possible? Ask yourself how much darker that story is when you consider Fox News, The White House, or both, possibly worked directly with Russian disinformation operatives in advance of that story.
The most important fact I want to know about this disinformation campaign, when all is said and done, is: "how much did the GOP know, benefit, and assist?"
Who wants to be the reporter who finds that out and cracks that story open? If not you, it's going to be Mueller.
7
Russia has been meddling with the US since the 40s. This is nothing new, and nothing that favored one party or another. They want to divide. NYTimes, stop helping them.
2
But as of Nov. 13th 2018, we've never seen any proof of these claims that Russia interfered in the US 2016 election.
It's always half truths and conflation.
4
Thanks for the videos. They are good, have good (not terribly surprising) content, and yes are a bit frightening.
I wonder, however, what the artful production values will mean to those who need to be reached? It seems it may be interpreted as a good tale spun, but not taken for much more than entertainment.
1
thank you for so many examples,
for reminding us to remain motivated by truth and
to look for solutions instead of debating facts endlessly.
what used to be: "if you can't beat them, join them",
is now: "if you can't beat them, disjoin them."
"divide - deny - and CON_quer" like it used to be.
just get hold of enough tax evaders and money launderers.
we need the funds they withhold from public coffers - if we want
to assure good education and more than 'media literacy 101'.
1
Waw, just every American citizen should watch this documentary. Great Work NYT, real journalists, proud to be a reader of your journal.
2
Is this really something to be concerned about? Now if I was an American rich PAC donor I would be very upset because these Russians are making it harder and more expensive for me to influence an election. But as a voter why should I care who is trying to influence my vote? It may be Putin or it may be a Koch PAC. It may even be the DNC. What’s the diff?
3
Fair point. Some regulation is needed in case of Super PACs.
2
This is thoroughly depressing, but absolutely necessary to know about. It should be required viewing for everyone.
We are being attacked by Russia, by our own government, and by capitalism in the likes of Facebook and the tech industry, as well as any other corporation that lies to the public (Big Pharma, the oil and coal industries etc. and companies who create false contests between cities to get data and billions in concessions), and those that buy political influence. We have long-standing cultural (tribal) divisions based in the first place on original misconceptions about people outside our tribe, and which are now being manipulated and exacerbated by disinformation. Add to that religion which, particularly in the fundamentalist formulations, runs on intractable doctrine and antagonism to anyone outside their fixed belief system. And – religion can’t be challenged because it has a “divine” source, a source that brilliantly exploits each of the seven commandments of fake news.
Did I miss anyone?
Each of us, for our own individual reasons, participates in a variety of ways in a matrix of these fake news sources. Perhaps a starting point in the fight against lies would be at the personal level in which we not only arm ourselves with media and critical thinking skills, but begin to question our participation, no matter how small, with those who lie and thus our enabling of them.
3
The Russians have an end game. We better be prepared.
3
Excellent stuff. Legacies do not disappear overnight, and the KGB's legacy in foreign interference is easily one of the USSR's greatest. Please make sure everyone sees this. ESPECIALLY people living in rural areas.
1
Russian "active measures" work especially well in the United States because people here, by and large, do not learn about the world by reading newspapers -- that takes way too much time away from other activities, such as posting to Facebook and Instagram.
Rather, Americans like blogs, chat rooms, and YouTube videos, which do not distinguish between facts and fiction and opinion. Sound bites, "takeaways," and similar morsels of information, served up with pretty graphics, is what most of us here are able or willing to digest.
The only hope is to educate our children to read more critically and to think and discuss ideas. This three part video series should be required in all middle- and high-school classrooms.
110
@Frank J Haydn No, what you suggest is not the “only hope” and also will never work. The reason has to do with basic human nature which is largely neglected by the media and intellectual types.
It is basic in human nature to confuse one’s opinion with fact. Even good scientists (who go to great pains to insulate their work from their opinions) repeatedly are ensnared by their opinions and thereby invalidate their hard work. I know. I’m a referee.
The videos tell us that “fake news” is nothing new. But anyone who understands human nature knew that long ago. Further, what is more basic is that “fake facts” are nothing new. Conflating facts with opinions is as old as the deception in the garden of Eden.
To this day nearly all believe that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Is something to be desired. Truth and Life however are on the other tree. Only those who know themselves will be able to escape from the devil of opinion. Alas, there are very few even willing to consider that possibility today.
3
@Frank J Haydn
Valid point.
I used to have a neighbor who one day started espousing on the "fact" that Jewish people are responsible for the 2008 crash and are in charge of all the financial institutions around the world and are the cause of all the financial problems facing the poor and middle class.
I asked him where he got his information from, and he replied blogs on the internet.
Fortunately he moved.
2
As Nikita Khrushchev said while I was in high school or maybe even junior high school, "We don't have to invade the United States we will destroy you from within." I had no idea that Russia was already spreading and continues to spread disinformation. I thought along the lines of a Manchurian candidate.
Now it appears we have both threats.
77
Way to go Adam!! I get about 2-3 fake friend requests per day on my Facebook account. I recognize them as fake, but I would hazard a guess that it’s a very large percentage of Facebook accounts out there that are not real. It’s so disturbing. Thank you for assisting the discussion!
Older people often take pride in their ignorance of all the “silly details” about the internet and social media. Younger people are naive about the fact that our nation is actively a target for hostile regimes. The combination is dangerous. Those with the power have no capability and those with the capability have no incentive to address the problem.
This is a really important topic and your film is excellent.
38
Well I'm shaken to my core. What a way to start the day. I have a question that must be asked.
Donald Trump, Fox News and other right wing disinformation peddlers are so good at what they do, I must ask if any of these people been trained, schooled, or overtly led in any way by Russian agents? I'm asking if they are willing participants in acts of disinformation, both in technique and in substance.
The reason I ask this question is that these people aren't smart enough to figure out such a game plan. There is a big difference between being a an unwitting pawn and a willing participant. This opens the door to investigating any contact between these media celebrities and Russian agents or those in their employ.
Now I realize that my question could in fact be construed as disinformation because it has uses three of the criteria.
1) There is a kernel of truth to it.
2) It initially appears outrageous.
3) It feeds off of political divisions.
Hey, I learn fast! This is how the game is played. All need is a useful idiot to spread the question. But my question is serious in that I hope Mueller and the FBI are pursuing such leads. Or are they in on it too? See how it easy this is.
59
@Bruce Rozenblit: what about LIBERAL fake news? where is that originated from? what conspiracy is behind it?
1
Concerned Citizen: can you give an example of liberal fake news?
12
@Concerned Citizen, good point. Disinformation does not exist only on one side of the spectrum. In fact, effective disinformation will take advantage of contentious issues / policies (e.g., items that polarize). Those of us that continue to lambaste only one political party as 'causing' or 'contributing' are actually feeding into the very mechanisms which make disinformation so effective.
Is the right contributing to disinformation? Yes. Is the left? Yes. Let's all put on our adult pants and recognize that the best way to solve this is together.
5
Can someone clarify for me what these "Opinion Video Series" represent?
As slick as the production is for this piece, I do wonder why my subscription dollars I dutifully pay each year are being so heavily invested in a video series with an apparent agenda being pushed, rather than towards funding bureaus in foreign countries.
With all due respect to Mr. Ellick, this can hardly pass as journalism. There's no attempt to get the opinion of anyone with an opposing view. There's no interviews or quotes from Russian government officials. It's a slick piece of art, for sure. But Orwell told us long ago that all art is propaganda. And this is no exception.
5
There appear to be some factual errors in your documentary. According to the State Department's Foreign Affairs Note "The USSR's AIDS Disinformation Campaign" (July 1987; https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100908296), the "Patriot" was set up by the KGB in 1962 in order to publish disinformation. That is, it was never an Indian newspaper per se.
Patriot in 1983 published an anonymous "letter to the editor" datelined New York from a "well known American scientist and anthropologist" who wished to "remain anonymous." The letter implicated scientists at the CDC in Atlanta, who the letter claimed had traveled to Africa and Latin America to identify "highly pathogenic viruses" not found in Asia or Europe. The information was "analyzed" at the CDC and at Fort Detrick, Md., where a new "biological weapon" was created.
It was not a Soviet military publication that picked up the story 2 years later, but rather a Soviet weekly called "Literary Gazette" -- the publication of the USSR's Writer's Union. One Valentine Zapevalov on October 30, 1985 authored a lengthy article repeating the claims in Patriot.
To quote the Foreign Affairs Note: "By mid-1986 the AIDS disinformation effort had evolved into a full-fledged disinformation campaign in its own right; A flurry of articles appeared in the Soviet central press from April through November 1986... these were replayed internationally by TASS and Novosti." Examples of the material disseminated by TASS are provided.
The only issue is what is the Russian endgame? Yes, they have created a lot more division and polarization, but not clear it has gotten Russia any where. That in itself does not elevate Russian power, economic influence or military might. They are just creating a mess, but the U.S. is still a very strong country and if the country is really threatened it always unites. They are really just playing small-ball with the limited resources they have, when real power is in economic strength, military strength and an intelligent and creative population, etc. Elevating Trump has psychologically weakened the U.S., but not with any real substance.
1
Of course Russia DOES do propaganda, plays media tricks and has spies as we do and have executed 'enemies/traitors' as we do far more often with our droning attacks and the many hundreds killed by our ally Israel with it's MOSSAD as any reader of Harretz will know having been informed of this.
We talk about meddling in other nations affairs while we are 'influencing' nations to the point of 'Regime change' (see Libya, Iraq, Syria) with levels of utter carnage that make those charges we make against Russia look like molehills.
Libya, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Honduras, Brazil, Venezuela and many more lands have suffered devastation backed by US tax payers money in the last decade alone. I don't read RT, I just have a functioning memory and read different papers from Europe and Haaretz that tell me many things NOT told me by the now very selective with the truth NYT.
Our destruction of these ME nations caused the refugee flow that turns Europe to the neo Nazi hard right as in Sweden. It is the racial bigotry in the US that got certain Americans to vote for Trump. The British and Spanish have their reasons but we blame Russia just as the DNC does for THEIR screw ups.
Scapegoating and demonizing are bad things as are the Nazis in Ukraine and the murders going on there. It is not only FOX that fails the 'fair and balanced' standard and having been accused of not being myself by several NYT readers without shame I will remind the readers here that Joe McCarthy was a bad man.
5
The fact that Trump has sat on the $120M allocated for combatting this threat along with perpetrating his own divisive rhetoric among NATO members and US citizens appears that Trump has the same goal as Putin's KGB.
3
Brilliant, coherent essay on the insidious attack on democracy. It’s a significant achievement and could mark the beginning of the end of this period of treachery, stupidity and mass hysteria. It deserves Pulitzer or Nobel recognition. Thank you.
4
This video essay speaks in such generalities that the warning it engenders could be used to create a case for stifling any free speech deemed by authorities to be Pro-Russia. Right now, since 2015, Russia has been at work supporting conservative candidates and viewpoints, not because they want conservatives to win, but because strengthening reactionary elements is the best way to "stir the pot," make America focus on internal issues and not notice Putin-takeovers.
But this article is so vague that if Conservatives chose to do so, they could reference it as part of a case to squelch Liberals, simply by screaming loudly enough in their echo chamber, which tends to "make it so." In order to be helpful, this video series would need to be very specific about the ways Putin has helped Trump and built dummy social media accounts to support disinform the US public about liberal causes.
I see that The New York Times placed these videos under "Opinion Video Series" and wisely did not claim them to be factual. Nice entertainment. File these under non-informational.
5
This rhetoric about Russia is irresponsible, and entirely unbalanced in its view of facts.
The art of inventing news and spreading it was much used in the Cold War, and the US had its own large organization. Key fact, it never really worked very well for either side, but they kept at it.
Before Russia did anything to Hillary's campaign, she did all that and more to Putin's presidential campaign in Russia. It didn't work there either. This was clear payback. It must be gratifying to Putin that she feels it so keenly, even though he must know it wasn't effective.
The Russian efforts were a tiny drop in the bucket of ad campaigns, and not especially well directed, as might be expected of people who know little of American politics.
They spent a few million among campaigns that spent billions. Small. And they spent it on both sides, not to any directed goal except to spin up extremists. The Democrats now gift them with yet more success spinning up.
This is just excuses for Hillary's campaign to tell donors, to avoid their anger, and to drive away challengers to the party dominance of Team Hillary.
Who is hurt by this? Most directly, Democrats are hurt by this departure from real insight and reform.
Also hurt is our country, which needs a real alternative that will both defeat Trump and do something with that victory to rebuild a damaged nation.
6
O.k., we got the message! It's absolutely, definitely not a hoax! But, how about airing, say, maybe just one argument to the contrary? For fun, of course! Not for the sake of journalism.
2
Excellent series. Bravo.
When can we expect a series on how main stream media has become a propaganda tool of past and present administrations? The build-up to the Iraq War is a fine example of what I mean. How about a few honest accounts of the trials and tribulations of Palestinians?
Ask any American today, why exactly Iran is an enemy of the US and you're sure to find a lot of blank faces and a litany of the usual anti-islamic clap trap as a rationale. When will journalists delve deeper into this propaganda? And I don't mean op-ed contributors that are influenced by a need to safeguard Israel.
Many readers here will poo-poo Fox 'News' - justifiably so - as propaganda tools of the Republican Party. Are there not similar arguments to be made about the Times or NBC?
We need a return of newspapers and TV news as disseminators of information rather than entertainment & profit generating enterprises. Whatever happened to media companies making money from 75% of their divisions and agreeing to break even with the News media in order to stay unbiased? Doing so was once seen as a necessary component of the American democracy.
My point - which might be awkwardly advanced - is that we need a return of quality investigative journalism. We need less 'opinion' pieces, particularly on TV. We need a few trusted media sources that will refuse to be adherents of one political side or the other.
3
I get my news from Trump tweets via the NYT. So helpful!
2
Great comment. No real world news, or what the US is doing overseas is allowed anymore. Truth may be harmful to “US interests” so the public may not know. All media corporations are required to follow this restriction to insure the foreign policy goes along as planned. Before the Reagan administration there were 50 news organizations, today six corporations dominate over 90%. We have “perception management “ by our own government sources.
1
It was a great documentary for the time it was running, 45 min. but it does disservice to the single biggest disinformation entity in the US for the past 20+ years, the Fox News, who has relentlessly waged the war against it's own population, exploited the useful idiots for the benefits of narrow political interests, attacking the POTUS, sowing racist and xenophobic conspiracy theories like Birther-ism.
Give the credit where it is due and don't shy away from the bitter truth. they are the 5th column and collaborationist of 21st century.
Fox News is the one that opens the castle from the inside for the enemy.
11
Brilliant. You've out-Frontlined Frontline!
1
Just watched episode 1. Fantastic work, thank you so much! This should go viral.
1
Eww! Viral? Like a social media meme? No thanks.
1
This is excellent; I only wish it were disseminated across the US. Is there a way to make these videos available to the general public that doesn't require paying for a NYT subscription after a certain number or articles have been read by a non-subscriber. Please make this available to everyone, and please strive to get other newspaper entities to carry/syndicate it. Thank you!
Probably a significant amount of what we consider historical facts have similar origin. There are key evolutionary weaknesses in how people deal with information. Ethics aside, kudos to the Russians who understood these weaknesses and put them to use.
1
What a terrific documentary. I appreciate it very much and the format of 3 episodes is very user friendly.
This is a true contribution to our knowledge. I've sent this link to all sorts who have loved it too. The X Soviet intelligence officers are exceedingly powerful witnesses.
Excellent work, thanks!
9
very good, thank you!!! Would be perfect to have it translated to several other languages
2
The most informative, useful, and clear-minded journalism I’ve come across this year. In a world today where most news is editorialized, this excellent work is categorized as editorial but is actually a fair presentation of the plain, hard to uncover facts. We can’t learn to constructively debate our differences until we admit we all have been duped by disinformation. Part 4 ought to trace some of our current citizen outrage back to its true sources. Bravo NYT!
4
This is a fascinating and informative series. I was particularly struck by something one of the Russians in the video said. I'm not quoting exactly, but, he said that fighting physical wars is stupid when you can destroy any nation by identifying and exploiting societal divisions and conflicts.
They don't need soldiers anymore. They have the internet. Why destroy valuable infrastructure and natural resources when you can win by simply breaking down the society that lives there.
As a self-governing people, we are loud and opinionated and confrontational, which can take a serious toll on all of us. There is already a frightening number of young people who say an autocratic government might be better, easier than a democracy.
We need to recognize what is happening. If we engage each other, listen, educate ourselves and stop believing everything we see on social media, there may be hope. We must stop seeing one another as the enemy.
1
With its smart graphics and its dictating voice this film reminded me of propaganda films like The Eternal Jew. It is just a random collection of facts shown in such a way that they seem to prove something. In this format you can make people believe anything.
Yes, Russia made propaganda. So did the US. What about the Tonkin incident? The lies that sold the whole world on the Iraq War? The endlessly repeated lies about who started the 2008 Georgia War? The systematic disinformation about what the US is doing in Ukraine? In fact the US - because it is much more interventionist than Russia - is spreading much more of such lies. So it is understandable that Russia is trying to undermine the credibility of the US to contain the damage.
Just today I saw that the BBC has also a report on fake news. But it stresses the local origin of fake news in India and Nigeria. The Times would have done better to follow the same path. It seemed on the road when it mentioned Pakistan but then it got seduced by the Russiagate hype. What a pity!
4
So it is ‘understandable’, you write. I take this as agreement with the material in the story. You think that undermining our democracy is understandable, and you then suggest unimportant and we should look away. A pity indeed.
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@Wim Roffel
Your quickness to dismiss raises questions about your motive, and then dropping the "Eternal Jew" tarnishes your credibility.
Even though I accept that the New York Times presents through a lens that tends to favor USA, there is sufficient fact presentation in this to show a credible story line about Russian practices, and it explains plausibly, events around "Pizzagate" and suggests Trump is employing similar techniques.
We don't have truth about a lot of events in the world. However, this report does acknowledge that Americans also interfere in election and do bad, wicked things in the world...then follows back to conclude with the culmination in a Russian plot; one report suggests the Russians didn't expect Trump to win the presidency.
They did better than they planned.
2
@Wim Roffel
Please do not compare the United States -- a beacon of freedom to millions around the world and the place where most emigrants come to live -- with Russia, which is little more than a wasteland of alcoholism, dysfunction and poverty.
1
Saddened to learn publications from India were used in 1983 by Kremling for sowing seeds of disinformation. Thanks...Hail the era of Triumph of Truth! Or as is India's motto: Satyam eva Jayathe! (Truth alone triumphs and never falsehood).
1
This is an antidote. Disseminate this broadly. Make your friends and family watch this series.
Serious suggestion to NYT:
Please mark off a below-the-fold corner of your front page with a heavy border around it, and put Trump's distractions, lies and diversions in there.
Call it 'Sandbox' or 'Trump Sandbox'.
It's what computer researchers do when they think a program is malicious or deceptive, they run it in a 'Sandbox' environment, isolated from doing harm.
Keep the rest of the front page and lead inside pages clean and truthful. Quarantine him and his deceits. It's a vital step in reclaiming the narrative.
83
Fabulous suggestion
4
How could volunteers get involved??? I wish you created a call for fact checkers, since Trump won't. I would sign up.
1
That's true that Russia tried to spread fake news, but are they really capable of infekting someone? In the US 0% of population watch Russia Today or reading some pro-kremlin News outlet. Only some specialists like our ex-envoy in Russia McFaul do such things on constant basis as the part of their job in Stanford and (I hope) future presidential bid. Since USSR collapsed, US constatly was gaining influence all around the globe. Our Broadcasting Board of Governors can trigger coup d'etat whenever the President wants (or Madam Secretary as was the case with Lybia, Egypt and Tunisia). So, thanks for the insight but I m sure we will win this fight.
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@Ivan Thanks for watching. Actually, RT is among YouTube’s most-watched news networks. Its English-language channel amassed 2.1 billion views and 2.2 million subscribers by 2017, roughly the same figures as CNN’s main YouTube channel. Fox News’s main channel had 600 million views at that time. RT collected an additional 3.3 billion views across roughly 20 other channels.
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@aellick Thank you for this information. I just stated some well-known facts about TV as for now it influences more people. According to your data, RT has a lot of Youtube followers and views , but maybe its just Russian activity to increase views? Maybe...
From my personal experience, I have never met a guy who watches RT.
2
RT is not dedicated to spreading disinformation. It is a spin machine, much like Fox. RT does spin, it is not even a true propaganda outfit. And about 7 % of the US population have access to RT's content. But anyhow, RT is never going to convince a lot of Americans. And anyway, the best way to convince people that you are right is by systematically engaging them in sometimes very animated discussions on issues that they care about. If you chip away at it long enough, you will be able to get through to these people, but you have to come from a place of truth to convince them, if you keep telling them lies, you won't get anywhere. Of course, it might take years or even decades, but in the end, you will be able to arrive at a place where you both agree. You know, not everyone is here to spread disinformation. Some people are playing an even longer game, a game of ideas, which will take decades of hard work before it starts to pay dividends. Just one guy at a time and a hundred passive readers on reddit, Facebook or YouTube, and eventually you start to see people embrace your ideas, embrace your view of the world. No amount of passively consumed propaganda or disinformation can ever achieve that. This stuff will never change minds, because it takes years to get a single guy to admit that your ideas are worth consideration. It is a battle of ideas, and the ideas that permeate the Intellectual Dark Web now will eventually dominate the world. They will determine the way we all live.
1
These videos are wonderful content for the many high school teachers who teach media literacy. I am trying to send the link by text message, but the text link box does not respond. Can it be enabled?
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@Jeanne Van Voorst Thanks. www.nytimes.com/disinformation can be shared.
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@Adam B. Ellick I love the URL, it's like I'm sharing disinformation, but it's the truth!
4
This should be required viewing in high schools. We should educate people to entertain doubt when a fact is presented, whether in Facebook or in the news. Check it out. Look it up. Make sure it’s true before to spread a lie.
5
I always feel so helpless when I see false information and especially the hundreds of people who fall for it online. The UN Pact for save, orderly and regulated migration is a great current example. When I (german citizen) read comments on an article about it from the german public newslout (ARD) the amount of profiles that suddenly changed their profile picture to a red stop sign saying "Stop the pact!" is truly unnerving.
And then I wonder, well how many of these are real people and how many of these are russian trolls or bots? Am I making it too easy for myself just pointing the finger at the Russians as an easy target? Or are all of them real and believers that the pact will flood europe with millions of people from Africa?
I think the problem truly lies in something you briefly talk about in chapter 3 - the nature of discours on social media. It it completely reliant on outrage. The more outrageous something is, the more attention, likes, retweets, shares etc. it gets. There are scientific studies that proof this, but it's such an obvious yet understated fact that we shouldn't need scientists telling us what Mark Twain (or whoever it was) told us over 100 years ago.
We need to bring some form of accoutability to for your words and actions on the internet into law. There are fringe cases in Germany where i.e. holocaust denial has prompted fines, but they are fringe cases.
I think we ought to remove a degree anonymity so people feel that their words have meaning. Verify!
1
@Andreas
Good points; I also think that "rationality" as a mental faculty needs to be explored rationally as something we bring to our thinking when we read the news.
I suppose that being rational means understanding motive, purpose, objectives for what we read and view.
While a high school teacher may teach "media literacy" as an antidote to "fake news," more important is to teach the means to discern fiction from non-fiction.
1
Video I is bone chilling. Will have to force myself the watch the rest.
2
This is astounding. Thank you to the New York Times and the editorial team for producing this. I'm an executive producer in television, and it makes me want to stay home all day and play whack a mole - somehow, someway - to fight against the falsehoods. I might add that I hope the Times will continue to be as vigilant as ever to the integrity and reporting of their journalists, so that the public trust in this institution as our beacon of truth remains strong and unaffected by the confusion around us. You are needed now more than ever.
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@GM MSM with a print heritage have a distinct advantage over TV. The NYT, for example, clearly distinguishes between fact, interpretation/analysis, and opinion by delineating sections and pages.
TV news seems to make little such effort to distinguish between them, and the lines become blurred. This is exacerbated by TV watching being passive, often background music to our lives.
As competitive as media is, has there ever been any discussion among TV executives of cooperating to develop an explicit standard of reporting with the goal of visually reinforcing the nature - fact, analysis, or opinion - of the parts of a broadcast? It could be discrete as a color-coded dot (trademarked to prevent mis-use) in the corner of a screen, similar to the way logos are shown.
For the major news outlets, I'm not suggesting TV media lacks rigor, only that viewers need help holding up their end of the deal.
2
We need a weekly TV show like they have in Eastern Europe to counteract all disinformation.
3
Outstanding. More, Please!
We need better ways and I would love to see more of that.
3
I remember back in the '80s followers of Libertarian candidate for POTUS Lyndon LaRouche standing on a Greenwich Village street corner passing out a self-published newspaper headlining how US Gov't released HIV/AIDS to kill of Blacks and heroin addicts. As a biotech scientist, I took a copy to read and was amazed how the stories were extensively referenced with real scientific papers to substantiate a made-up conspiracy conclusion. Clearly a sophisticated scam. Little did I or these duped Americans know this was a Russian misinformation plot. LaRouche followers totally bought into it.
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@filterman That is incredible. Thanks for sharing. We found a few surveys that suggested millions of Americans still believe in that lie, which we now know was born out of a Soviet disinformation campaign.
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@filterman
You can see an image of the newsletter you are referring to on the cover of the National Defense University study about the US State Department's Active Measures Working Group. Here is the .pdf file -- Kathleen Bailey, who at the time headed the Working Group, is holding a reproduction of the newletter:
https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratperspective/inss/Strategic-Perspectives-11.pdf
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@filterman This contradicts my initial reaction and is fascinating. At first I thought, hey, this is an education problem on our end. We need to ramp up spending on public schools; pause at the headline and think. Perhaps this may still work for today's disinformation environment of clickbait and rapidity. However combatting something with that much depth is beyond a reasonable ken. I keep coming back to: disinformation isn't going to stop, ergo, public education must be a national security concern.
4
Several readers ask if Mr. Trump has been trained in the art of disinformation.
My sense is no, but he is most definitely what the Russians call a "useful idiot."
Let's take an example... say, the story that Mr. Trump on October 28 cited, without offering any evidence, that “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners” are among the growing caravan of Central American migrants heading to the United States.
Let's say this story had originated in a third world newspaper; ideally, to serve as Soviet disinformation, the KGB would have had to plant it by paying the newspaper to run it.
Then the Russian media replayed the story.
Then, uncritically, say Fox News picks it up.
Only then would Mr. Trump's repetition of the story amount to true disinformation.
Incidentally, this is precisely how the AIDS story cited in this documentary originated.
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@Frank J Haydn
One report in the NY Times says the caravan started with a Facebook prompt to team up and hike "norte" together for asylum.
It would be interesting to find out if it did start with a facebook post and know the source.
We need a Minutemen militia against the Russian effort. A grass root effort. Like:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/13/politics/dad-hunts-russian-trolls/index.html
1
Ya like my "Amerika"? I've seen it elsewhere and adopted it last year for my pen name location. I loved your report. I feel really good I saw this all happening before. Great report! Thanks.
1
Of course the New York Times played a significant part in this campaign, willfully or not who knows. One could argue that the New York Times is still playing a part in this disinformation campaign along with most of the US media.
3
Gladly surprised to see that NYTimes is taking the next step on video production as this piece is not only brilliantly written but presented in an interesting and well produced way.
I guess the only opportunity would be to move the video to a more prominent place on the website or app.
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Why do you and the media pick up on the fake news and republish it? If you ignored it, it would die!
4
Trump, Fox and other purveyors of fake news appear to have learned the lessons of Soviet-style disinformation very well. All they need is a gullible populace, of which we seem to have a very large proportion. Chilling in the extreme, especially when one wonders just what kind of kompromat Putin has on our reality show president.
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Trump has clearly been a target for the KGB and successors for many years. He’s a perfect useful idiot. He had the money, the fame, and an unhealthy belief in himself to be president. They groomed him for years.
My question is why are Russians so unctuous? Why do they behave this way? I would even go so far as to say the entire country is a useful idiot. They’ve been brainwashed for so long, lacked an intellectual culture built up by a university system run by true idiots.
The only way to battle this nonsense campaign is by informing the population.
1
Holey Moley! This is frightening and so well put together. As entertaining as any Bill Maher or John Oliver episode. Pulitzer's all around to the creators of this three part VIDEO. And since it is a VIDEO, there is simply no excuse for people who say they are too busy to read 'long pieces' no matter how relevant they are, not to watch this most critical short series.
I need to watch them all a second time to fully grasp just how crucial it is for the entire pubic at large to all be on the same page about the hi-jinks (to put it mildly) played by the Russians and our lame attempts to keep up with it. I don't see how anyone could doubt or argue the veracity of the information contained herein. NY Times, you really crushed it with this one!
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@A. Xak Thanks for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed it.
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@A. Xak
You discredit yourself by mentioning Maher and Oliver, both bought and paid for propagandists. I myself, have doubts about the Video Series. It seems to make sense, but then again, it is now legal for our government to propagandize its citizens.
I read RT and watch a number of its programs. And I tell people "RT is where American journalists go when they've been fired by US media for telling the truth." Maybe the best thing to do is watch everything, and believe nothing. That is the attitude I take to the NY Times, and RT, as well as Fox News. There is a little bit of truth in all of them, and also, a lot of lies.
That is so obvious. Its stunning that so many people in U.S. not capable of connecting dots. Even more stunning, U.S. government can't do this either, or willing to exploit russian disinformation in their favour.
Great job NYT anyway. If people can't defend themselves from lies, someone should help them.
1
Great video - very informative and creative graphics. I have to wonder why this is a "Opinion Video Series". It's such an important piece, but think will be overlooked because it has so little to recommend it on the home page. Give it a bigger headline and/or more description. It must of been expensive to produce. Why not make it worth it by getting more viewers?
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@JK Episodes 2 and 3 are much more opinionated in pointing to solutions and assigning responsibility to the disinformation crisis. The Series was produced by our Opinion video department and the tone differs from that in our newsroom. Thanks for watching.
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@Adam. B. Ellick
The videos are fantastic. I learned so much. The tv series "Roots" was shown in school and I believe this should be shown to all 7 through 12 grades.
We need to educate our children. They need to understand what "critical thinking" means.
2
The lack of subtitles on these videos is a large accessibility oversight!
3
A very good set of videos, but the Russian disinformation started much earlier than the AIDS misinformation issue, a very important and nasty one still believed by many: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion, also in this country.
Wow.....very powerful.....very scary....incredibly informative.
3
Eye-opening and frightening. I understand wanting to believe stories that support our beliefs and I understand wanting to believe the sources from which they spring when they seem valid. But nothing is what it seems anymore. We arrived at the dystopian future. We have a volatile situation with the torrential streaming of lies in social media and worse, the lies spewing from the Trump. He needs to be reigned in by Twitter and the press. It's time to stop giving him a platform on which to spread lies, disinformation, hate speech. He has other ways to get his lies across. He's a public figure, duh, but it doesn't mean that everything that comes out of his mouth has value. Twitter...stop publishing his lies. Facebook...you're anti-social media. Congress...wake up. Who am I kidding?
6
Let's resurrect civics courses in high schools across America and include content like this video.
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No mention Vladislav Surkov. Adam Curtis of the BBC spoke of him a while ago.
I really enjoyed this! Can't wait for more
1
This is a great piece of journalism. It appears that our PM is also taking a few pages of out of this disinformation manual and spreading lies and exacerbating divisions. For example, leaders in the government have been propagating division through ideas like 'love jihad' (which is a term used to describe alleged campaigns under which Muslim men target women belonging to non-Muslim communities for conversion to Islam by feigning love); that there is a wave of 'Ghar Wapsi' (which is a term given by the Hindu organisations which are indulged in RECONVERTING people who were earlier Hindus but got converted to Islam or Christianity); or the more blatant untruths that ancient Indians were aware of plastic surgery as evidenced by Ganesha (a Hindu diety who has human body with an Elephant's face) which has been spouted by our Prime Minister too!
Looks like we need to invent a 'vaccine' for our minds against these disinformation campaigns!
3
@Reddy
India is home to "Patriot" and "Blitz" -- newspapers that have been on the KGB payroll for decades.
Russia and China are not America's friend.
5
I saw Part l of this excellent BBC production while in Europe. It is scary that on that very same day the President of the United States is sharing thumbs up with Vladimir Putin and insulting his host, President Macron and other European allies. Trump indeed is the “useful idiot”, but so many more are complicit. As I tour countries that lost their democracy at some time in their history, I worry about what will be our path..
Operation Infektion can be stopped. Need to spread the word and take action. Thanks for featuring this incredible research.
6
The war on truth helps religious beliefs to seem true.
1
Excellent piece! For at least 3 years I've felt that through disinformation, our U.S. social fabric was being torn apart due to our open society and open platforms for communication.
I am 65 years old, male, white. When I find myself growing weary of arguing with my 86 year old mother about news facts that seem so blatantly apparent, it has exposed the vulnerabilities within our society. Her generation is the very generation who abhorred "the commies". Now they have given Russia an open freeway into our culture and democracy through right wing news and conspiracies. It is confounding to me that they will hear nothing else. And they don't see that they've been duped by the current Moron-In-Chief. He is a traitor, whether it is knowingly or unknowingly.
We cannot give up on citizen involvement in governance and protecting an independent judiciary and protecting a free press. Never. Never. Never.
It is because of a free press that we have this enlightening video piece. Thank you!
2
Thanks for connecting the dots. It’s quite clear that President Putin enjoys Donald Trump and that Donald Trump likes an admires Vladimir. Now, my question is why is there such a bond? And are there similar bonds between American political leaders and media operators who work to divide our country by spreading lies? Or have they become simply addicted to the usefulness of lies in pursuit of political gain?
1
@Rea Howarth: honestly would you rather they were bitter enemies? If Trump hated and baited Putin....wouldn't you claim he was a warmonger, trying to start WWIII?
Is it better when foreign leaders are nasty and spiteful towards the US President -- like Macron, Trudeau and Merkel are?
It's a mistake - juvenile and unnecessary - to use that common profanity in the video. I'm not offended, but it affects my judgment of the reporters.
3
Awesome! Funny how the Right is supported by these tactics
It is all stated in a 70's book, I once read, and gave away, The Soviet Socialist Policy of Peace. Talk peace, peace, peace, while making war. An old KGB policy of disinformation.
2
Thank you for creating this. My wife plans to share it with her university students this week. Its innovative format makes it a useful teaching tool and enhances its dramatic impact beyond that of a multi-column newspaper story. Young people embrace video, and its gratifying that the NYT is not only creating important investigative pieces but experimenting with ways to make them as accessible as possible to wider audiences. Please consider keeping this on your home page indefinitely.
Please can we do something to be able to cast the videos on your TV? Via Chromecast or Apple TV for instance. I want my family to watch it. Thanks!
2
This is outstanding journalism. Thank you NY Times for putting it together in a way that is understandable and cohesive. What a powerful call to action as well. I can't wait to see the new TV shows debunking disinformation similar to what they have in Ukraine and Estonia. We're waaaay too gullible over here. And Mark Zuckerberg should be shamed into doing something to STOP this garbage from taking down democracies all over the world, including our own.
1
To paraphrase the comic-strip opossum "Pogo," we have met the enemy and it is not just them, it is us.
3
@Arnie Tracey Spot on! I guess when US news is corporate controlled partisan entertainment, the ratings are in the fake news and results of it are the dividend - control.
2
Extraordinary. Thank you for this. I don't know whether to be hopeful that millions will see it and smarten up, or go cry in my pillow b/c they'll probably think it's fake news.
Terrific educational report. This is an example of why I love this publication. Now I feel like a part of your team effort.
They used misinformation on AIDS then, they are using Trump, a different kind of virus, now.
Excellent report.
3
Thanks for an excellent outlay of the situation. Pity that the politicians are more worried about themselves than they are for the good of democracy. No wonder Trump likes the uneducated.
2
This should be mandatory watching for ever Administration official and every Congress-person.
2
Journalists rarely reveal the source of their stories, for retaliatory reasons. Knowing and trusting the source would almost guarantee the truth. Think back to Walter Cronkite’s ability to convey the truth.
The truth can be devastating to one half of the readers and liberating to the other.
If Trump is such a bad liar, “If”? Then why do we still listen.
The truth and it’s opposite, lies, are powerful weapons now.
Lies are quick to attack, but the truth is a sleeping giant, which keeps Trump up most nights. True or false?
1
This is so insightful and, frankly, depressing. Too many people these days get their information online, from "sound bites", etc.
Too many times when I mention some facts that I have read and their implications, I hear: "really, I didn't know that." I am talking about adult kids and their significant others...late twenties - early thirties. The internet, social media, blogs et. al. have replaced real news stories as the core source of their information and consequent view of the world. This makes this foreign "Infektion" so easy to spread. Yikes!
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You should not be depressed. Things might be bad now, but they will get better at some point in the future. Eventually, we will all learn how to get along. So do not despair, and look at the bright side. Look at the people who dedicate some of their time to making the world a better place. There are destructive forces in the world, and then there are those who try to tame them. The voices of moderation and truth often get lost in the shuffle, but these voices, more often than not, have the luxury of time. They keep spreading their message of moderation over decades while a fake news story usually dies after a week or so, with only a few extremists buying it hook, line and sinker. So you might not know what to believe now, but the truth will out eventually, strengthening the case of those who cautioned against believing lies. You cannot disabuse a person of a false notion overnight, but if you keep at it, they will eventually come around. These murky times might be unfortunate, but you cannot lose your faith in humanity no matter how dark things may get, because there are people out there who try to clear the confusion and spread a positive message. Once you know the truth, you might be more willing to listen to possible solutions. You might even make common cause with those whose solutions you would previously dismiss out of hand.
1
@Donna
Just shows the laziness of people.
1
Should be mandatory viewing in every high school, along with civics classes on the basics, e.g. text and evolution of the Constitution.
One element not discussed in this analysis: the importance of social conditions creating the pre-disposition to believe the big lie. The context of belief in AIDS as an artificially engineered disease in the US was our history of discrimination and violence against black Americans. By the early 90s posters for events discussing this alleged AIDS conspiracy could be seen all over Harlem, while in Uganda, which had the highest HIV infection rate in Africa, the same fake news had no traction.
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Pleasantly surprised - actually flabbergasted - to learn Reagan acknowledged Russian disinformation as a weapon more worthy of our attention. And dismayed by subsequent US failure to come to grips with the mechanics and implications. Something about which most all of us in US can feel embarrassed and angry. But will we prove willing to do the long hard work required to reinstate solid fact and thoughtful judgment in the conduct of our governance? (Note: I love the phrase characterizing social media "information" platforms as "riddled with perverse incentives!")
2
What a win for Putin to have helped get the poster boy for Useful Idiots elected As leader of the free world.
Excellent piece, and as many have said, this should be required viewing.
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great piece, but I have to ask why is it in the opinion section? does that matter or is it merely not a big deal?
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@Chris Episodes 2 and 3 are much more opinionated in pointing to solutions and assigning responsibility to the disinformation crisis. The Series was produced by our Opinion video department and the tone differs from that in our newsroom. Thanks for watching.
3
@Adam. B. Ellick Perhaps you should produce a "clean" documentary version that can be more widely touted.
4
Wow.
Worse than imagined.
Big game of risk.
Trump is an incredibly dangerous man, being puppeted by an even more dangerous man.
All lies!!!!
7
Fake news was invented in the west by Rupert Murdoch.
5
This series should be required viewing for all U.S. high school students.
19
Congratulations on a well-considered, nuanced and objective piece of reporting. Just what the world needs these days. I hope it will be accessible for viewing broadly, even for non-subscribers.
8
Excellent piece. Should be shared widely so that as many as possible see it. Ignorance is not bliss... it is just ignorance, which leads to being duped and manipulated. I have shared this on my FB page (yes the irony is not lost on me). We all need to pass this on so that all may see it.
6
Let's put this in perspective to the disinformation campaign promulgated on the American electorate by the billions of dollars spent by our political organizations, PACS, SuperPACS, something ominously called "dark money" and of course don't forget our oligarchs and corporations. And let's not forget the free air time, billions of dollars worth, that the media companies gave to Trump. It is well documented that the media companies ignored the Sanders campaign and instead showed empty podiums of Trump. Did the Russians do all this? Did the Russians cancel Hillary Clinton's flight to Wisconsin? Do the Russians try to mess with elections around the world? Oh course, just like WE do. Polls show that this whole Russian thing is a joke with less than 1% of the American public who care less about it. Why? Because they know full well that compared to what Citizen's United has done to our election system, the Russians are rank amateurs compared to our oligarchs and corporations.
8
This looks interesting and I would have read it if it were in reading format. I won't watch it because video format isn't supportive of the kind of thoughtful comprehension that is required prior to moving forward to the next thought. Wrong medium for this topic, in my opinion.
6
It’s broken into easy to digest sections that you can listen to using ear pods. It’s literally being read. I listened as I worked in my kitchen. It’s also good if you are riding a bus.
1
I fully expect this piece of journalism to win awards. I agree with another comment that it shouldn't be in the Opinion section. It needs to be seen by as many people as possible so they can become informed and enlightened. Perhaps 60 Minutes will pick this up and air a story based on it.
My only criticism is that there should be name bars with titles for each person every time they appear. It would add more credibility to their message and help the viewer to keep track of their relevance to the story. Excellent journalism.
7
A massive and unfortunately successful disinformation campaign sustained now for a century is called “Creationism.” It has convinced roughly half of all otherwise adult Americans to believe myth as a valid description of physical reality. This has created fertile ground for those seeking political power to sow large crops of fantasy supporting their nefarious goals.
14
@Edward C Weber, excellent point, and may I add that now that American evangelicals have decided not to take Jesus literally about the poor being blessed and the rich not going to heaven, they can stop taking Genesis literally.
4
Just to add some balance, how about a companion piece on a few US disinformation operations? An in-depth story, for example, about how the Bush administration used "cooked intel" and post-9/11 trauma to sell the story that Saddam Hussein's "WMDs" required immediate pre-emptive US invasion. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," said Condoleeza Rice.
Or, to cite another instance, the millions of dollars ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers have spent to confuse Americans about climate science, and thereby thwart any meaningful action on reducing the existential threat of catastrophic global warming. And while you're at it, why not financial profiles of the 50% of US Congress who also deny the scientific evidence on climate change.
Seems to me that these two instances of US disinformation ops are more threatening, by an order of magnitude, than anything the Russkies have yet launched -- and, wow! -- notice that they originate within the US: i.e. Americans spreading the infektion of disinformation to their fellows! Maybe we should first put our own house in order before looking to what the segregationists called "outside agitators" for the causes of our political malaise.
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@ando arike Fair points. Thanks for sharing. I suggest you watch Episodes 2 and 3, which echo, or at least allude to, some of your comments. We also argue that the scale and success of the Soviets is far superior.
21
@ando arike excellent point. The United States always is quick to blame other countries for whatever problem it has because it considers itself "exceptional" or a "true democracy" but never looks in the mirror and admit to what it truly is: a plutocratic oligarchy with all the internal conflicts & contradictions it generates.
4
What if the president and all the lying politicians who mimic his behavior are actually just useful idiots? To me attacking nato is a sure sign that Russia has succeeded in their pathetic and unctuous behavior. We must cut the head off the snake.
6
Russians/Soviets did and do what they do. There is nothing new in that. The Left urged us for decades to be forgiving and understanding of Moscow's work. What changed to suddenly be so shocked about something that has been going on for almost a hundred years/
3
This documentary would have been more nicely rounded out had the authors given a bit more attention to the "Active Measures Working Group" that Kathleen Bailey chaired for a couple of years. Apparently the group went out of business when the principal author of the group's studies (some 25 in all) moved on and left the Soviet portfolio. Here are some references that give some interesting insight into how the AMWG functioned -- a USG interagency group that the National Defense University described a few years ago as one of the only successful such groups in the postwar history of the United States.
The NDU study (a .pdf file) of the AMWG: https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratperspective/inss/Strategic-Perspectives-11.pdf
An excellent Wikipedia article on the AMWG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Measures_Working_Group
Finally, dowloadable copies of the 24 reports that the group published: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100908296
Together these provide excellent insight what went on behind the scenes and the research and writing that led Mr. Gorbachev to order the Soviet Academy of Sciences to issue an apology, following the intercession of Mr. Schultz.
5
This was a very informative video and hope a large segment of the society can get to watch to make a difference.
4
This “Operation InfeKtion” is part of Russia’s long mastered art of “dezinformatsiya“, a term coined by Joseph Stalin, whose loan translation in English is “disinformation”. It derived from the title of a KGB propaganda department.
When the Soviet Union realised that it couldn’t beat the West economically and militarily, it sought to weaken it by sowing divisions within a country or pitting countries against each other. The KGB created the fake news story in 1984 that AIDS was a US biological weapon to target Blacks and gays. Ironically Russia stands on the brink of an unprecedented HIV crisis in recent years.
Today, Putin resorts to the same KGB playbook and goes to great lengths to undermine the West. When the EU is weak and the US is embroiled in chaos caused by Trump, a resurgent Russia is seeking to regain its global clout. He has succeeded where his predecessors had failed – ”We Will Take America Without Firing a Shot. We Do Not Have to Invade the US. We Will Destroy You From Within.” Nikita Khrushchev.
Thanks to the Internet Putin helped Trump win, installing a stooge that obeys the seven commendments of fake news – look for cracks and deepen them; create a big, bold lie; wrap it around a kernel of truth; conceal your hand; mobilise useful idiots; deny everything; and play the long game, i.e. to destroy the country.
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@J. von Hettlingen Indeed, the HIV crisis in Russia today is quite ironic and sad. One related fact that we didn't include in the final film is that some very distinguished Soviet scientists debunked the AIDS myth at a WHO conference in Geneva in the 1980s. Some in the West hoped that would be a turning point, but other factions of the USSR continued to spread the lie nonetheless. This kind of mixed-messaging happens today as well.
17
@J. von Hettlingen: as the saying goes:
"if you can't beat them, [dis]join them."
7
@J. von Hettlingen
I believe that Fox News, the NRA, Trump and the GOP are using the same playbook as Russia. I'm sure that Putin could not be happier.
10
This was excellent and I hope is viewable by large segments of our country. So well presented and very insightful. Perhaps the first time I came to realize the importance of having government elected officials who are technically savvy enough to at least understand the issue facing them.
12
Brilliant! A fascinating, incredibly well-presented and convincing look at the unthought dangers of disinformation. It got me thinking about the paralysis of reforms and progress that is the direct result of the chaos that comes after such disinformation campaigns and what is the best way to fight it. An endless game of whac-a-mole indeed.
9
Excellent, fascinating production. It brings together so many puzzle pieces in a single coherent and credible perspective. I feel this is a production that ought to be seen by every American.
20
The mystery of communication, of language, is that lies are so common, why do we keep talking? After all, evolution would have favored those who neither listen nor talk, if they ended up better off.
Of course communication helps us learn, keeps us informed, enables our love and lives. But communication is not a substitute for thinking. One realm, the political, doesn't benefit as much from communication as others. Give people as much information as they want, at least the bare minimum, then they should just think about it. Don't talk to neighbors, or listen to preachers, or read Facebook. Think.
People know more than they realize. Democracy works when everyone's independent ideas get aggregated. We're social beings, easily swayed by those we admire, or are concerned about. That leads to lousy decisions. Keep mum, keep it to yourself, and decide without influence.
8
I agree that this wonderful piece should be moved to a different section where it might get a wider audience. There should have been many more comments by now -- 16 comments in 8 hours is something I haven't seen before.
24
As this lays out in devastating detail, we are at War with Russia. Russian disinformation has been subverting American and European democracy for over 50 years, however it is now far more dangerous than at any time in the past thanks not only to social media and to the internet, but because America is being attacked not just from without, but by within. This is arguably why the current president of the US is far more dangerous to America, Americans, and all American allies than any of our external enemies.
A primary goal of Russian disinformation is to bring about so much internal discord in democracies like America that Walt Kelly's humorous quote, "We have met the enemy and he is us," is not longer parody, it is true. However, in the current disinformation war, the real enemy is not other Americans, and while Putin and Russia are certainly the primary enemies who started and sustained the warfare, the scariest part is that have now met the true enemy and he is Trump.
46
I do not know much about disinformation campaigns or anything like that, but if this were true, then I would have to assume that the end goal would not necessarily be to divide the west, but to expose the ideas of unfettered democracies such as freedom of speech as dangerous falsehoods, which predispose societies to conflict, and that the past 200 years of American exceptionalism were just an aberration, a fluke. Americans and the West are already starting to see this with hate speech. And I guess, the end game here is to just prove a point, because I do not think that anyone in Russia really believes that destroying the EU makes a whole lot of sense. Certain people just want to prove that the very foundational ideas of democracies are flawed and this is why they eventually disintegrate into autocracies, which are the natural of order of things. It is the theory of hierarchies. You cannot build a sustainable hierarchy without forcing people to cleave to a certain set of principals. This can be done either through the force of violence or the force of ideas, but in the end, a democracy is no better than an autocracy, the only difference between the two is that democracies are sustained through the power of ideas and the autocracies through the power of violence. There are two different tools that can sustain hierarchical structures such as human societies, and neither tool is good or evil, as both can be used to do good or evil.
4
-- Certain people just want to prove that the very foundational ideas of democracies are flawed and this is why they eventually disintegrate into autocracies, which are the natural order of things*. -- You are missing the point, Robert. Trump is not the enemy, the human nature is. Trump is just the guy, who is representing the people who have lost their faith in democracy. And it needs not end in flames. And Trump did not break faith in democracy, other forces did. The forces that devalued the idea of the American Dream destroyed the people's faith in democracy. Like I said before, democracies are sustained through the power of ideas, and once those ideas lose their appeal or credibility, the democracies die.
1
@Stas
I'll take democracy, no matter how fractious and messy, over autocracy. I prefer to have a say in my government, not be dictated to by an autocratic leader.
When your argument starts with the necessity of a hierarchy, and presupposes a "benevolent leader" you're ignoring a lot of history.
5
It's not an opinion piece. This should not be in the opinion section.
It's excellent research. Thank you for a thorough investigation.
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@Sweet Tooth You should probably watch Episodes 2, and especially Episode 3 if you want the more Opinionated elements. Episode 1 is kind of like a first course of vegetables!
5
@Adam. B. Ellick I can see why you have to adhere to standards of your profession that differentiate between journalistic reporting and opinion pieces, but since this documentary, parts one, two and three, are a factual information piece...why not give it a category of its own, that crosses the boundary between reporting and opinion, and place it in both areas? It is a public service information piece, creatively and simply expressed.
16
It is sad to see but...
It would be naive to think we have run the same operation in Russia or other countries! What goes around comes around.
14
Fantastic, in-depth reporting. Thanks for keeping this type of information on the front page where real news belongs.
52
Make information literacy a key component in the school curriculum.
Teach kids how to review sources, analyse content and look for additional material to evaluate information in a balanced way.
Start early!
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@Erik
Excellent suggestion.....get em while they are young. They are growing up in this virtual world.....teach them how to deal with it with eye wide open.
9
excellent! will share with others; we must not become complacent; stay informed and vigilant.
19
excellent piece! makes me realize that we really are at war with Russia....
52
Wow, a very enlightening piece. Thank you. It reminds me of the locals in Central and South America in the 1980's telling me the moon landing didn't really happen and satellites didn't exist and were both part of US propaganda and disinformation...
29
Can you blame them? US propaganda and disinformation makes the Russians look like amateurs.
3
This question is who will listen to the truth? Those that have closed their minds are shut tight.
It appears a great collective cultural loss was the loss of the fairness doctrine.
76
Maybe a companion piece on how our Victoria Nuland destroyed a democracy in Ukraine ? I wonder what is worse; helping to overthrow a democratically elected government or posting fake news on Facebook. Some perspective PLEASE.
14
@Scott Hiddelston
Good point Scott, not to mention that we do much more to interfere routinely, and not just with fake news, in the affairs of Russia, as well as a half dozen or so other places around the world. But of course it's ok when we do it.
4
@Scott Hiddelston
Republican relativism.
2
@Scott Hiddelston
This shows how posting the fake news helps to overthrow a democracticly elected government, that the perspective
Some crack journalist needs to investigate if Trump and Putin secretly met in Paris. Too coincidental that both of them didn’t attend the cemetery ceremony.
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@Letty Roerig
Seems to me the Russians stopped showing up for World War I as well, so I guess it's par for the course...
1
The house is on fire, Trump is running around with matches, and Republicans want to know who called the fire department.
Putin is laughing.
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@William
The public - neither Putin nor Trump - is responsible for opening the floodgates of half-baked ideas. Not-too-partisan journalism would help, but..
True democracy is hard work, which we collectively either no longer want to do or are incapable of doing because "truth is multi-faceted", "everything is relative" and "it's all a matter of perspective". Lose the agora (markets, cafés...) replaced by my own network - electronic or otherwise - of like-minded people and you've got all the necessary ingredients for what follows.
The first consequence is sensationalism, a besieged Masada mindset and being permanently indignant, all the while being too mentally lazy and sloppy to seek out and sort information. Dissent and division follow, with a sense of the World (in the sense of traditions and culture) losing its balance and meaning. with the resulting rise in "illiberal democracies" we are witnessing worldwide.
The KGB agents who foresaw this were brilliant. Or was it all too obvious to begin with and are we even more stupid than we fear?
4
Republicans are pretending to BE the fire department, and even drive "fire engines" filled with gasoline. Sometimes they let "covfefe" pretend to be a driver and honk the horns.
Intent matters. They intend evil.
19
Excellent video seeing the time of the KGB and the changes in the information technologues how Russia can overcome the entire western world getting the western world to tear themselves apart. In the internet age, maybe we need ways to mive away from commenting on news and getting the focus of the news to people to make best decisions
14
Should be mandatory viewing for all Americans.
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@Ray Finch
Should be mandatory viewing for all - period.
For instance: I wonder how much we will some day find out about the sources of disinformation on BREXIT. Divide and rule .... the best weapon, a totalitarian regime such as Russia has.
20
Right on!
7
Very timely, thank you. I believe this is a very well thought out operation. It wasn't hard to figure out why Putin and Trump didn't show up to the 100 year celebration, I bet they were having a secret meeting. Does anyone keep an eye on these secret meetings? Very scary.
229
Putin and Trump stayed in the same hotel? Bet they had their face to face while Trump vetoed the WWI vet tribute.
71
@Missy
Please, do not spread false information here. Secret meetings exists but only on lower levels of governments communication. President of US can't meet someone with no records at all (a lot of examples, but the most recent one - Acting Attorney General)
4
@Ivan. Can you then explain the meeting trump and Putin had in Europe in June? Of this year. There was not one American official present. Treason!!!!!
17