Everything Online Malign Influence Newsletter

Everything Online Malign Influence Newsletter

Hoaxlines Lab • April 24, 2023

Autocracy

• Cuban journalists are being silenced, one mobile line at a time
• Twitter drops 'government-funded' label for media organizations – here's what it should use instead

Cyber

• How to verify your Twitter account in a post-official era
• Belarus-linked hacking group targets Poland with a new disinformation campaign
• Twitter Banned Wired Reporter for Article About a Right-Wing Provocateur's Hack
• Russia's digital warriors adapt to support the war effort in Ukraine, Google threat researchers say
• St. Louis suburb investigating network security incident

Data

• OpenAI’s hunger for data is coming back to bite it
• The company's AI services may be violating data protection laws, and there is no solution in sight.
• OpenAI has just one week left to comply with European data protection laws after a temporary ban in Italy and investigations in other EU countries. If it fails, it could face heavy fines, data deletion, or even a ban. However, MIT Technology Review experts say it will be nearly impossible to comply because of how the AI models are trained by collecting content from the internet.
• Experts say Congress should do more to keep data brokers from exposing Americans' private information.
• Privacy advocates pressed Congress during a hearing Wednesday to do more to regulate the multibillion-dollar industry of buying and selling Americans’ private data.
• During the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigation Committee hearing, witnesses discussed a wide range of harms posed by the data broker industry, including the potential to reveal the private health or sexual histories of individuals, provide foreign powers with sensitive information threatening national security and enable predatory marketers and scammers.
• Copyright Showdown: AI’s Next Frontier

Before they gobbled up headlines everywhere, large language models ingested truly staggering amounts of data to train their models. That training data didn’t emerge from the ether: Some of it came from other people’s creativity and work. So it’s unsurprising that copyright concerns are front and center in the early days of this technological boom—we’ve been here before.

• New Twitter, Now With More Hate

Democracy

• Religious Accommodations in the Workplace: Is Change Coming?
• On April 18, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that has the potential to expand a decades-old position of the Court concerning religious accommodations that employers need to offer their employees. This case, Groff v. DeJoy, has become a lightning rod, attracting attention from religious groups and proponents of the strict separation of church and state.
• Many religious organizations have filed amicus briefs in support of increasing the protection of employees who want to follow their religious practices in the workplace. For example, the  Muslim Public Affairs Council noted in its amicus brief, “Hardison’s de minimis standard finds support in neither the text of Title VII nor the principles which animate it. Nor does it track the historical importance of religious pluralism in the American tradition. The Founders believed that a “just government” must be “supported by protecting every Citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand that protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another….By allowing employers to shirk their obligations under Title VII, Hardison diminishes a crucial aspect of American pluralism. Practically speaking, this judicial error harms some of the most vulnerable in society.”
• The decision of the Supreme Court has the potential to significantly change the way corporate America deals with religious accommodations for employees. It remains to be seen to what extent is the Supreme Court willing to venture into that space.
• Banning Books, Suppressing Thought, and The Rejection of Empathy
• Texas and Florida continue to lead the country in book bans—7 districts in Texas were responsible for 438 instances of individual book bans, and 13 districts in Florida were responsible for 357 bans.
• Of the 1,477 books banned this school year, 30 percent are about race and racism or include characters of color, while 26 percent have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.
• An emerging feature during this school year have been “wholesale bans”—the removal of untold numbers of books in classrooms and school libraries all at one time. This resulted from teachers and librarians feeling pressured by new state laws to empty entire classroom collections.

Extremism

• Death toll in Kenyan starvation cult rises to 58 - police
• Kenyan police have recovered 58 bodies, mostly from mass graves in a forest in eastern Kenya, thought to be followers of a Christian cult who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves, the country's police chief said on Monday

Fact Checks

• Fact Check: New York City Is NOT 'Trying To Ban Meat'
• The rumor followed a Mayor's Office announcement about the reduction of food-related carbon emissions, not a complete prohibition of meat. Moreover, the emissions-reduction program focuses predominantly on the city's spending on food; as of this writing, the private sector does not have to participate in the reduction of food-related emissions.
• The claim appeared in a post on Facebook on April 20, 2023
• Draft U.S. government report doesn’t conclude that fluoride is harmful at low levels
• A draft report by the US government on fluoride was misleadingly presented in an Instagram post. This was used to support the post’s claim that the report concluded that fluoride exposure is harmful to children's IQ. The recently released version of the report did not claim there was a relationship between fluoride exposure and childhood IQ.

Health Security

• Measuring the Monetization of Online Discourse with Application to Pro- and Anti-Vaccine Communities
• The authors examine over 400,000 links shared in more than 400 vaccine-related Facebook groups/pages, comparing anti-vaccine venues to pro-vaccine venues.
• The pro-vaccine venues are roughly 1.7 times more likely to share links to news. The specific news sites shared by anti-vaccine venues are rated less credible by fact-checking organizations, but we find no significant differences in monetization. However, non-news sites, such as blogs, shared by anti-vaccine actors were significantly more monetized. These results emphasize the need to interpret monetization measures within the context of the broader “attention economy."
• The US is relying more on China for pharmaceuticals — and vice versa.
• Chinese companies now supply a lot of medicines to the US. In just two years, the amount of medicines that the US buys from China has grown by 485%, from $2.1B in 2020 to $10.3B in 2022. This means that China now supplies more than double the amount of medicines it used to. In 2021, the US bought more than 6% of all its medicines from China, up from just under 2.5% in 2020. China is now the fourth biggest supplier of medicines to the US, after Ireland (19.8%), Germany (10.8%), and Switzerland (10.7%).

• US companies have been sending more medicines to China, especially ones that help with Asthma. These medicines are packaged for Chinese hospitals and consumers. Since 2017, the amount of medicines China has imported from the US has gone up by almost 2700%. This means US companies now control over 65% of China's $7.9B market for these medicines.

• CDC simplifies COVID vaccine recommendations
• Universal Influenza Candidate Vaccine Performs Well in Phase 1 Trial
• A conspiracy theory that mRNA vaccines alter DNA persists
• Polio--not gone and not forgotten

Malign Influence

• Russian trolls and mercenaries win allies and goodwill in Africa
• Russia has been using anti-French sentiment to form alliances with former French colonies in Africa, causing tension between the United States, Europe, and Africa.
• Despite this, Russia's trade with Africa is still low compared to the EU, China, and the U.S. However, Russia is a significant supplier of weapons, wheat, grains, and fertilizer for Africa. The EU's restrictive trade policies are also becoming a problem, causing African countries to rely on raw material exports and wealthier countries to benefit.
• Russia’s Claim Czech Republic Seized Moroccan Tanks is Baseless
• On April 17, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed that the Czech Republic seized 74 Soviet-era tanks from Morocco and transferred them to Ukraine: “Morocco signed a contract with the Czech company ‘Excalibur Army’ ... for the modernization of a batch of 130 T-72B tanks acquired in 1999-2001 in the Republic of Belarus. After carrying out the relevant work, 56 tanks were returned to the Kingdom. The remaining armored vehicles, numbering 74 units, were actually expropriated by the Czech side for subsequent transfer to the combat zone in Ukraine.”
• That is unsubstantiated.
• Morocco did not protest any seizure of its tanks, nor did it confirm such expropriation. Multiple media reports indicated the kingdom voluntarily handed over T-72B tanks to Ukraine after they were upgraded in the Czech Republic. Prague and the firm that upgraded the tanks dismissed Russia’s accusations as disinformation.

• Introducing Sham Journalism: A Case-Study Analysis of Newsmax’s Discourse on Special Counsel John Durham
• State-sponsored campaigns target global network infrastructure
• Russian 'spy ship' in North Sea raises concerns about the vulnerability of critical maritime infrastructure
• See a thread discussing this case in more detail.

Political Violence

• Crowdsourcing Samples for Research on Violent Extremism
• As research on violent extremism progresses beyond some of the field's earlier challenges, new ways of gathering primary source data are becoming increasingly popular. One widely implemented data collection methodology across parallel fields is crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing involves gathering information or input from many people for payment or online.
• The Long Shadow of Violence: Legacies of Civil Wars and Support for Terrorism in the Basque Country
• This article analyzes how events of political violence in the distant past can affect the outbreak of terrorism in the present. The authors argue that part of the explanation for the counterintuitive phenomenon of terrorism in a prosperous and relatively egalitarian region like the Basque Country, as well as potentially other cases of terrorism, lies in the legacies of political violence from the distant past. Civil wars leave a legacy of distrust that can persist for generations, ultimately leading to violent responses to perceived threats.
• Communities with a history of supporting Carlism, one of the warring factions in the nineteenth-century civil wars, were more likely to support terrorism a century later. The article also demonstrates that the transmission of these legacies was strong in communities that have remained largely isolated in the century, separating the civil war from the terrorism of the 1970s.
• Texas man indicted for alleged threat to kill U.S. Rep. Waters

News by Country

China

• China is boosting biological weapons disinformation and malinformation; example hyperlinked.
• Chinese Diplomat's Comments On Post-Soviet Nations Sparks Outcry, Demands For Explanation

Iran

• Iranian Government-Backed Hackers Targeting U.S. Energy and Transit Systems
• An Iranian government-backed actor known as Mint Sandstorm has been linked to attacks aimed at critical infrastructure in the U.S. between late 2021 to mid-2022.
• Daughter of a U.S. citizen jailed by Iran says she has lost confidence in U.S. efforts.

Russia

• Wagner boss Prigozhin bids for more power in Moscow
• Russia’s charm offensive in Africa taps into the continent’s genuine disillusionment with the West, but it is based on false narratives and half-truths. Surprisingly, one person willing to call out the Kremlin on its duplicity is Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group. This notorious private militia is closely tied to the Russian state. Here's what that could mean.
• A Russian foreign policy expert has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with conspiracy to defraud and failure to register under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act.
• Burlinova allegedly sent information about her meetings with participants at U.S. universities to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).
• The FBI claims Burlinova's efforts aimed to influence future U.S. leaders on behalf of the Russian government.
• Burlinova's organization, Creative Diplomacy or PICREADI, hosted young professionals at annual events in Russia for four years, with partial funding from the FSB.

Burlinova allegedly provided extensive information to the FSB about U.S. participants in the Meeting Russia programs, aiming to influence some to become public figures.

• Founded in 2010, PICREADI focused on Russian public diplomacy.
• Burlinova and a colleague visited several U.S. universities, with the FSB providing funds for the trip.
• Burlinova supported Russian government positions but didn't appear as an unwavering Kremlin supporter.

Between 2017 and 2021, Burlinova organized annual Meeting Russia events in Moscow for young professionals. Participants' expenses were mostly covered, and Burlinova denied being a Russian foreign agent. The program ended after 2021 for unclear reasons, and Burlinova was hit with financial sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2022.

• Burlinova posted a photo of herself with convicted Russian foreign agent Maria Butina on her Telegram channel in April 2023.

• Kremlin Can Mobilize the Population Far Less than It Had Imagined, Pastukhov Says.
• Parents in St. Petersburg were outraged about 10th graders receiving military instruction.
• Ukraine War Allowing Russian Firms to Trash Environment and Moscow Shuttering Ecological Organizations Kremlin doesn’t Control
• The Underground Network Helping Russians Escape The Draft
• Russian Officials Undercounted Tatars in Moscow in Last Census by 140,000 or Almost Two Thirds, Analysis of Names on Election Lists Suggests

Sudan

• The conflict in Sudan is getting worse and involves fights between political groups, interference from other countries, warlords, and violent groups.
• The rapidly deteriorating conflict in Sudan features domestic in-fighting among political players and meddling from external states, warlords, armed militias, and other violent non-state actors.
• The conflict has now spread to the western region of Darfur, where, if the fighting continues to escalate, it could easily spill over into Chad.
• More than 300 people have reportedly been killed, and over 3,000 wounded since Saturday, and the numbers are expected to rise as the situation continues to deteriorate.
• A humanitarian crisis could soon overwhelm Sudan, where civilians in Khartoum, which has not previously seen such violence, are trapped inside their homes, many lacking access to supplies of water, food, electricity, and medicine.
• Wagner Group’s Sudan Footprints Undercut Prigozhin’s Denial of Involvement in Conflict

Turkey

• Kurdish journalist Mir Ali Kocer was accused of spreading disinformation after reporting on the aftermath of a Turkish earthquake.
• Kurdish journalist Mir Ali Kocer was accused of spreading disinformation after reporting on the aftermath of a Turkish earthquake. Under investigation and potentially facing trial, Kocer could receive up to three years in prison if found guilty.
• Experts believe that the disinformation law, implemented in October 2022, contributes to the erosion of democratic freedoms in Turkey under President Erdogan. The law could threaten freedom of speech during the upcoming presidential election. Barish Altintash, co-director of the Media and Law Research Association, says the law could prevent election coverage, justify detentions, and block internet access.
• The law's vague wording enables it to be used against journalists and citizens alike. Turkey ranks fourth for imprisoning journalists behind Iran, China, and Myanmar.
• Erdoğan’s militant partners work with sanctioned Russian Prigozhin to run a disinformation campaign amid elections in Turkey.
• The Tübamer Sosyal Araştirma ve Danişmanlik A.Ş. corporation, claiming to be a research and consulting firm registered in the media and communications category, was established in Istanbul toward the end of 2021 by the group for the specific purpose of waging a disinformation campaign. The official records, obtained by Nordic Monitor, show its owner is Elif İlhamoğlu, who was part of a hit team that attacked a U.S. sailor in Istanbul in 2014 and was indicted for criminal offenses.
• She is also connected to United World International (UWI), a Russian-backed propaganda organization run by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, sanctioned multiple times by the US, Canada, and their European allies for influence operations in North America and Europe. Tübamer was established a year after UWI appeared on the internet. Both sites' profiles and content are strikingly similar and operate from Turkey.
• İlhamoğlu works at UWI as an editor generating anti-Western content and holding events for officials from Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Afghanistan, China, Russia, and Hamas. A review of recent articles at both UWI and Tübamer also suggests that they are poised to shape the narrative during the election campaign in Turkey. The election coverage is markedly in favor of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and critical of the opposition, which it describes as loyal to the NATO alliance.
• • The UWI is effectively run by Prigozhin, who was previously designated in the U.S. by multiple sanctions authorities for facilitating attempts to interfere in U.S. elections. He is the Russian financier of the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which he utilizes to conduct global influence operations. According to the U.S. Treasury, Prigozhin directs the generation of content to denigrate the U.S. electoral process and spreads false narratives online through shell companies he set up in Russia and other countries.

Ukraine

• Young children have been distributing leaflets recruiting for PMC Aksyonov in Crimea.