How Russia Shapes What the World Thinks

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know — "How Russia Shapes What the World Thinks"

Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Date: July 30, 2026
Publisher: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Josh and Chuck dive into the world of Russian state-sponsored propaganda and disinformation, exploring how Russia wields online influence to shape global perceptions and sow chaos—particularly in Western democracies. The hosts trace the roots and evolution of Russia’s disinformation campaigns, examine the mechanics behind operations like Doppelganger, and discuss the impact these efforts have had on elections, public opinion, and the very fabric of internet trust.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Expansion of Russian Propaganda (01:45–04:32)

• Early Jokes Set the Tone: After a tongue-in-cheek remark about “the Russians having Jerry” (the missing producer), Josh introduces the episode’s focus on Russian propaganda and disinformation operations.
• Key Insight: Russian propaganda is not new, but its scale and sophistication have grown rapidly with the advent of the internet and social media.
  • “The Russians are far from the only ones that do it. They're just really, really good at it.” (Josh, 02:33)
  • The goal is often not a clear political outcome but to sow doubt and confusion, leading to a “post-truth” environment:
  • “Just creating a climate where people question what's real or what's true. That in and of itself is a huge triumph for these Russian operations.” (Josh, 03:26)

2. The Internet Research Agency (IRA) & Modern Troll Farms (04:50–08:15)

• Origins: The Internet Research Agency (IRA), founded in 2013 by a Putin-affiliated oligarch (who also founded the Wagner Group), became the archetype of the Russian “troll farm.”
• Function: IRA hired young, English-speaking Russians to create fake news, posts, and viral content targeting Western audiences.
• Legacy: The methods have only become more advanced with deepfakes and AI, but even early tactics were highly effective.

3. Russian State Media: RT and Sputnik (08:15–09:24)

• Role of State Media: Outlets like RT and Sputnik were always Kremlin-backed, disseminating Russian narratives to global audiences.
• Global Strategy: With the 2016 U.S. election, Russia’s ability to amplify divisive stories and “monkey with stuff” became globally infamous.

4. The "Firehose of Falsehood" (10:34–11:28)

• Definition: Russians flood information channels with volume (“quantity over quality”), using every available internet loophole to spread fakes.
  • “It’s not the quality, it’s the quantity that they focus on.” (Josh, 11:28)
• Challenge: Western responses are piecemeal and reactionary ("whack-a-mole"), unable to keep up with the scale and adaptability.

Notable Quote

“The Russian internet disinformation operations have the West on our heels.” (Josh, 10:34)

5. Operation Doppelganger & Fake News Websites (12:03–16:33)

• Doppelganger Explained:
  • Media-coined label for campaigns creating phishing-style clones of credible media (e.g., fake Washington Post, Le Monde).
  • “It looks like it, it smells like it, it acts like it…” (Chuck, 14:37)
• Mechanics: Use of shell companies, disposable domains, and sophisticated targeting—bots amplify headlines, many of which users share without even clicking.
• Example Fake:
  • “The US must not become the world's gendarme.” (Josh, 15:12) — an unlikely headline for the Post, but a common faux pas in these clones.

Notable Quote

“Going to the trouble of actually creating the article on the fake website is almost superfluous because so many people just share that headline.” (Josh, 15:22)

6. Ramp-up During the Ukraine War (19:45–24:42)

• Targeted Misinformation: New sites like "War on Fakes" and “Reliable Recent News” serve dual roles—debunking real news and pushing Russian perspectives.
• Celebrity Fakeouts: Using AI to generate fake endorsements or statements from big names (e.g., Oprah, Taylor Swift) criticizing Ukraine or Western aid.
  • “Oprah says supporting Ukrainians is unacceptable. Their actions destroy lives and societies.” (Josh, 22:48)
• Targeted Campaigns: The “Good Old USA Project” aimed at swing state voters in the U.S., pushing an “America First” anti-Ukraine message.

Notable Quote

“If you're some young person who supports Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian, all you're thinking is like, ‘Well, Taylor Swift said Ukraine deserves what's coming, so that's probably true.’” (Chuck, 22:54)

7. Manipulation of Influencers & Amplification Tactics (24:42–27:23)

• Manipulative Hiring: Right-wing U.S. influencers were unknowingly paid by Kremlin fronts to promote anti-Ukraine or divisive content.
• Origin of Myths: Idea of “paid protesters” can be traced back to fake Russian-generated news stories.

Notable Quote

“To be fair, those right wing influencers … were not aware that that's what they were doing. They were hired by a front company called Tenet Media.” (Josh, 25:33)

8. Technical Infrastructure of Disinformation (29:00–30:11)

• Obfuscation: Use of shell companies, virtual offices, and decentralized domains makes attribution and takedown exceptionally hard.

9. Real-World Impact & Dead Internet Theory (34:13–38:08)

• Dead Internet Theory: A growing proportion of internet activity is bots interacting with bots, creating a feedback loop that drowns real information.
  • “Perhaps a third of accounts … are bots. A third.” (Josh, 37:27)
• AI Slop: Rapidly generated, repetitive AI articles flood search engines and social feeds, pushing genuine content out.

Notable Quote

“The Internet … is just a bunch of bots interacting with bots, trying to game social media algorithms to make money for some dude.” (Josh, 36:55)

10. Platform & Government Response (39:14–41:18)

• Late Reactions:
  • Meta/Facebook started deactivating some accounts, but 95% of undeclared political ads go uncaught.
  • U.S. DOJ took down only 32 Doppelganger-related websites before the 2024 election—a minor dent.

11. Deepfakes and Future Challenges (41:49–43:09)

• Acceleration of the Problem: Deepfakes and generative AI further blur what’s real, with detection software already being circumvented.
• AI as an Echo Chamber: Russian ops now target AI’s training data, ensuring future AI will “learn” from misinformation.

Notable Quote

“AI companies train their models on … the Internet … Russians have figured out that they can flood those parts … with misinformation, and that’s what the AI is going to learn and think is real.” (Josh, 42:39)

12. Does It Really Work? (43:19–44:38)

• Mixed Research:
  • Some studies show Russian influence campaigns have minimal direct effect on opinions.
  • However, by flooding the zone, they reinforce existing beliefs and foster disengagement.
  • “Maybe it's not like they're changing minds … but they're reinforcing beliefs for sure.” (Chuck, 44:31)

13. The “High Reach, Low Impact” Philosophy (46:08–46:48)

• Russia Owns the Narrative:
  • Out in the open about their tactics, Russian actors are “out and proud,” focused on the mass effect—not on individual conversions but on fueling overall chaos and skepticism.

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Notable Quotes

• “Just creating a climate where people question what's real or what's true. That in and of itself is a huge triumph for these Russian operations.”
  — Josh Clark (03:24)

• “It’s not the quality, it’s the quantity that they focus on.”
  — Josh Clark (11:28)

• “Oprah says supporting Ukrainians is unacceptable. Their actions destroy lives and societies.”
  — Josh Clark (22:48; example of fabricated celebrity message)

• “AI companies train their models on … the Internet … Russians have figured out that they can flood those parts … with misinformation, and that’s what the AI is going to learn and think is real.”
  — Josh Clark (42:39)

• “They're out and proud with their … high reach, low impact campaign, which is, like you said again, the fire hose.”
  — Chuck Bryant (46:08)

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Memorable Moments & Cultural asides

• Light-hearted pop culture: The hosts digress to discuss spy shows (“The Agency,” “Slow Horses,” “Black Doves”) but circle this back to commentary on trust and media manipulation (06:13–07:10).
• Admitting Cynicism: As the episode progresses, Josh and Chuck become increasingly cynical and jaded about the future of internet discourse.

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------------------|------------------| | Opening: Thematic setup, Russian tactics | 01:45–04:32 | | IRA and Troll Farms | 04:50–08:15 | | Russian state media channels | 08:15–09:24 | | "Firehose" and US response | 10:34–11:28 | | Doppelganger, fake news site mechanics | 12:03–16:33 | | War on Ukraine & celebrity fakes | 19:45–24:42 | | US influence campaigns, paid influencers | 24:42–27:23 | | Technical infrastructure of operations | 29:00–30:11 | | Real world impacts, bots, "Dead Internet" theory | 34:13–38:08 | | Platform/government responses | 39:14–41:18 | | Deepfakes & AI manipulation | 41:49–43:09 | | Research on effectiveness | 43:19–44:38 | | Russia's "out and proud" stance | 46:08–46:48 |

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Takeaways

• Russian disinformation strategies rely on volume and credibility mimicry to blur truth and erode public trust.
• The goal is often not a specific political result but widespread confusion, cynicism, and disengagement.
• Traditional responses (platform bans, government takedowns) are inadequate against the scale and adaptability of these operations.
• The problem is compounded by generative AI, which amplifies and entrenches misinformation in the very fabric of online life.
• Even knowing about the tactics sows additional doubt and disengagement—the ultimate goal of Russian information warfare.

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Tone & Language

Josh and Chuck maintain a conversational, lightly irreverent, and self-aware tone—balancing serious analysis with dry humor and personal anecdotes. Their style is candid and accessible, making the complex (and at times disturbing) topic engaging and digestible for a general audience.

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For anyone seeking to understand how modern propaganda really works and why our digital public sphere seems so confusing, this episode serves as both a primer and a warning.

Transcript

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[Josh Clark]

Thirty years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City. Who will you trust?

[Chuck Bryant]

Your friends and neighbors? Who will you trust? The people five miles overseas.

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This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough.

[Chuck Bryant]

But we're not stopping, are we?

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Listen to revisionist. The Staten island problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us.

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And now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them.

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be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Announcer / Nora Jones]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. And there's Chuck. And Jerry's missing. We don't know where she is. It's possible the Russians have her. At the very least, it's quite possible the Russians have misled her in some way or another. And maybe they tricked her into leaving when it was time to record.

[Chuck Bryant]

You cheeky boy. Don't worry, everybody. Jerry's just really on vacation. But that was a very clever setup to this episode on essentially on Russian propaganda and how I think we all knew that their propaganda machine was big back in the Cold War and stuff, obviously. But it's a really big problem now and has been for a while, ever since the advent of the Internet and especially social media.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, because those two things are wide open, set up for people to distribute misinformation, deliberate misinformation. The Russians are far from the only ones that do it. They're just really, really good at it. And they've been doing it for a long time. They. I would guess they were probably the first country to really start doing this on, like, a wide scale. But I mean, as far back, I think as 2010 or at least the 2000? Yeah, like the. The 2000s. At least 2013 at the absolute latest. The Internet Research Agency was the first kind of famous one that surfaced. And the whole premise back then and now is to basically game social media and use whatever you can, whatever, like weaknesses it has in, like the entire structure of it, to confuse people, to sow discord and disinformation and chaos and questioning what reality is. Getting the media to start using words like post truth and stuff like that. That kind of stuff. It might not have a specific aim where it's like, we want to say, get Trump elected. That was part of this too. Like, that was a Russian name as well. Or we want to stir America up over the border crisis. Just creating a climate where people question what's real or what's true. That in and of itself is a huge triumph for these Russian operations that have been going on for more than a decade.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think that was one of the things that chilled me most, was it wasn't like we really need to get people to believe this one thing about Ukraine. Let's say it's more like, no, let's just sow chaos and confusion to where you doubt what you're reading and you don't know what the truth is anymore. And that's just like. That feels even scarier, you know it does.

[Josh Clark]

Because ultimately, eventually most people would be like, it's not worth trying to get to the bottom of this. You know, I'm just gonna stop. I'm just not gonna pay attention anymore. I'm just not gonna care, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Or I'll just share something. Cause, like, I read it.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, exactly. Sometimes on Reddit.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, good point. All right, so maybe we should jump back a little bit and talk about the ira, not the Irish Republican army, but the Internet Research Agency or the Russian troll farm as you might know it better, as that was founded in 2013 by a guy that was a former criminal, eventually a successful entrepreneur and kind of higher up oligarch in Russia and confidant of Vladimir Putin. And he also founded Confidante for a while because he also founded the Wagner Group, which you may have read about in the news. The Russian mercenary organization that would eventually try and overthrow Putin.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Do you watch the agency on Prime?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I don't.

[Josh Clark]

It is magnificent. Yeah, it's one of the best spy shows of recent times.

[Chuck Bryant]

Ooh, I love a spy show.

[Josh Clark]

You guys liked Black Doves, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

This is at least on that caliber, if not higher. Michael Fassbender's in it. Richard Gere, Geoffrey Wright, a bunch of other very talented people. But it's all, like, spycraft stuff, and it's really worth it. They just released their second season, and I've got three episodes left. I started two days ago, and both seasons are well worth watching.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, I did not watch Black Doves, actually. I thought you were talking about the. What's the Gary Oldman show? Wild Horses. Something Horses.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. I know the one you're talking about. You watched that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I watched that one.

[Josh Clark]

Is that good?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's really good. I mean, Gary Oldman's fantastic. Slow Horses.

[Josh Clark]

Slow Horses. I swear. You watch Black does because Emily said she liked it. The one with.

[Chuck Bryant]

She may have watched it.

[Josh Clark]

Bend it Like Beckham.

[Michael Rapoport]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Keira Knightley. I didn't see it. Emily may have watched that without me, though, because she loves that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, just watch it. Watch them both. But definitely watch the Agency. It's much more likely to be in your wheelhouse if either one of them are going to be.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Okay, so back to the show.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I know. I brought that up. They battle, essentially the Wagner group, but it's Valhalla in the Agency.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, I got you.

[Josh Clark]

Sorry about that.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's okay. Everyone loves a good recommendation from either one of us, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Also, I want to be clear here. This was not brought to you by Prime. We're not trying to manipulate you or propagandize you or market to you. This is just. I watch it on prime and it's on prime. And it's so good that I just took that time to share that with everybody. That's all. Exactly what it seemed like on face value. And do you know why I have to say that, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I don't know, Josh.

[Josh Clark]

Because of stuff like this operation that we're going to talk about.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So the IRA that I spoke of, the Internet Research Agency, what they did, and this is like mid 2010s, they hired a ton of young people, basically, who could speak English and who knew a lot about politics to like, hey, why don't you start a troll farm? Or, you know, get on board this troll farm and just create fake stuff. Create fake news stories, although I'm loath to even say those words together. Fake social media posts, YouTube videos. Eventually, you know, as you'll see what would become, like, deep fakes and AI and stuff like that. But this is before that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And while this was going on Sputnik in Russia Today or rt, these are, you know, I Think legitimate or at one point were legitimate Russian news outlets. Right.

[Josh Clark]

They were always backed by the Kremlin.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, well, okay.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I think that they were still. They still had journalists and stuff like that, but they were trying to get the Russian viewpoint across to Western audiences.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. So they started distributing stories around the world, basically, like we were saying, trying to get people to like, to believe whatever they wanted to them believe at the time, like politically.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And the 2016 United States election was a real big kind of debut. They've been kind of added already. But the 2016 election, they really showed just how much they could monkey with stuff, or at least the potential of them monkeying with stuff. And this is where the allegations of Trump colluding with the Russians, this is what they were talking about. Unproven, by the way, to Rachel Maddow's great dismay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Pizzagate, these. They didn't necessarily come up with these things, but they were able to amplify them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And get people talking about them and make people questioning what was what, you know, or the Democrats, like, really keeping child sex slaves in the basement of Comet Pizza in D.C. who knows? Maybe you should take an assault rifle from North Carolina and go find out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. So once this sort of starts coming out and the United States and all over North America and Europe started realizing what was going on in February 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there started to be a little bit of action taken. The EU banned Russian state media, including Sputnik and rt. Other companies, Google News dropped them from aggregation service. I think Google, Microsoft and Apple all started like, pulling their apps. So that sort of started happening. And then in 23 was when that failed uprising against Putin by the Wagner group happened. And the long and short is, after all this, the IRA finally disbanded, but this work continued among other groups.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, this is a good example of the whack a mole that the west is playing. The Russian Internet disinformation operations have the west on our heels. Clearly. There's basically no one who knows what they're talking about with this stuff. Who would disagree with that? The west still has not figured out how to do it, aside from piecemeal responses like taking Russia Times app off of the Apple market, off of the Apple App Store. You know, like, that's the kind of response we have to this still. And this has been going on for more than a decade. And one of the reasons why it's so hard to do anything about it is because they use what the Rand Corporation researchers, Christopher Paula and Miriam Matthews call a fire hose of falsehood. Just put everything out there. It's not the quality, it's the quantity that they focus on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. After Crimea was annexed in 2014, and then obviously after the invasion of Ukraine In February of 2022, they really ramped up a lot of messaging to try and get sentiment, sometimes on their side, but a lot more times just against Ukraine and what was going on. And this eventually would become known as Doppelganger. But to be clear, Doppelganger isn't like. It wasn't Operation Doppelganger or there's not an organization called Doppelganger. Doppelganger.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's more of just sort of. I think the media sort of misread that and labeled it that. But it's really just sort of this method of. Of doing what they're doing and how they're doing it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. To be specific, it's a. It's a way of cloning dummy websites that look like actual legitimate websites. The ones, some of the ones that they targeted were Le Monde and France, their website, Washington Post in the US The Guardian in the UK and they would essentially just take. They would have their bots start sending links or putting links all over the Internet to basically share. Right. Hey, look at this crazy article. Right. The Washington Post actually reported this. So it seems like it would be legitimate, and you would click that and it would take you to a different series of domains that got smaller and smaller to where if you were in the area they were targeting, say you were in the United States and you had clicked, you know, this thing to find out about whatever this fake Washington Post thing was saying it would. It would take you to this fake website like Washington Post pm just different enough that. That, like, you probably wouldn't notice, but it's a different domain name. And the. The way that they were able to get away with this was through shell companies and using shady kind of hosting services around the world. And that. That was Doppelganger, that technique that they used for getting this stuff out. There is no operation like. Like this, these. These using bots or creating, like, fake accounts on Facebook or whatever. That wasn't Doppelganger. That is constant. It's so constant and so embedded that there's no name for that. Doppelganger was just the technique of the way that they use the infrastructure of the Internet to deliver misinformation for this short period of time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Sort of one of the main companies. And we're not going to go through all of these because it's a little mind numbing. But there's one called the Social Design Agency, which is a PR firm that started up in 2022, founded by a political consultant who had, you know, that was their business, so they know exactly how to do it. And the Russian government all of a sudden was like, wait a minute, we would love to hire you to do, like, all this stuff. It's literally, as of, I think, a couple years ago, run by the Kremlin and directed by the Putin administration. So they're kind of in the middle of most of this doppelganger activity.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

And you know, like you said, when you go to one of these websites, when you click on the link, if you're not paying attention to the dot, whatever, and you realize it's not washingtonpost.com, it looks like it, it smells like it, it acts like it for the most part. So it's really easy to fool people.

[Josh Clark]

It is. I mean, if you really look closely and you look with a skeptical eye, you'll turn up some stuff I saw. One example is that the US Must not become the world's gendarme, which is police in French. Like, the Washington Post would not use a phrase like that, Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but you have to know that, like, I think they count on just fire hosing it such where they're like, well, who cares if most people don'. If we just get this percentage of people, that's great.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. And even more than that, I feel like going to the trouble of actually creating the article on the fake website is almost superfluous because so many people on the Internet just share that. Share, like that headline. Gotcha. Now I think that this is going on. I'm not even bothering to click into this to read the actual article or all I need is the headline because it got me juiced up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And of course, they're amplifying this through the bot farms. Russian social media bots will post links, and then there are more bots that retweet these links. I think I mentioned on the show I saw a picture of a bot farm not too long ago. There was a big expose.

[Josh Clark]

Were they all chewing grass?

[Michael Rapoport]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was terrifying. It was like a dude sitting at a desk on a computer. And there were a thousand cell phones connected hardwired to the computer. And then there were dozens and dozens of these guys with hundreds and hundreds of smartphones connected on a big wall. So when you see how it actually works, like literally connecting to phones to send this stuff out and amplify it. It's just. It feels really dystopian and, like, scary.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I feel like it's becoming clear that we're going to have to abandon the Internet and come up with a new one, because this one got cooked.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed. Should we take a break? All right, well, we're going to ruminate that, and I hope we can even come back after we ruminate. But we'll be right back. I hope.

[Podcast Announcer / Nora Jones]

Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing along is Back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy. Really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Joshua Hamee, Sarah McLachlan, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Finneas.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so I mentioned after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, that's when things really ramped up again. They, you know, a lot of these ideas were really pretty clever. There was one group that launched sort of like a Snopes like site, but a fake one called War on Fakes, and it was designed to discredit Ukraine and support Russia, obviously. And then another one called rrn, Reliable Recent News, which replaced Reliable Russian News. So on one side, you've got something that says, like, hey, this is reliable news, so this is real. On the other side, it's like, hey, we root out the fake stuff, but it's fake. So it's almost like, you know, it's not. Almost like they've got all their bases covered.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, if you pay too close attention to this, you'll start bleeding out of your ear, guaranteed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Doppelganger got its name from the EU's disinformation lab. One of the disheartening things to me, Chuck, was figuring out that the people who are tracking this stuff, there's not a government agency involved anywhere. These are all, like, independent NGOs that are dedicated to tracking disinformation.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's interesting.

[Josh Clark]

Journalists, like, these are the people doing the actual work. And then seven years later, the government's like, oh, we're gonna have our Department of Justice do something about this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So that's where Doppelganger got its name from, I think. It's. It's basically. It suggests that these are. Or it points out the, like, the cloned sites. They're like doppelgangers of the real thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

But the. That war on Ukraine. After the invasion of Ukraine, they really ramped up the misinformation flood that was coming. Like, they targeted in 2024, and I think 2023, the. Their main targets were France, Germany, the U.S. the U.K. and Ukraine. And essentially what they were trying to do was to make the people, the public in each of those countries lose support or turn on the idea of supporting Ukraine so that Russia could get them out of The Ukraine business and Russia could just get back to trying to take over Ukraine as best it could.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And they did it in a lot of ways. Obviously some ways were just fake articles about stuff that Ukraine does, or maybe a fake article about that whitewashes a Russian atrocity like the Bucha massacre that never happened. But cleverly, they're also going through celebrities and faking that a real influential celebrity like Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian, like fake messages where they're supporting or they're criticizing America and Europe for supporting Ukraine. Or didn't you find something about Oprah?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Do you want to read that quote?

[Chuck Bryant]

Go ahead.

[Josh Clark]

Oprah says supporting Ukrainians is unacceptable. Their actions destroy lives and societies.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So, you know, especially if you're some like, young person who supports Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian, you're probably not even aware that this kind of stuff even goes on. All you're thinking is like, well, Taylor Swift said Ukraine deserves what's coming, so that's probably true.

[Josh Clark]

That's exactly right. That's exactly what they're trying to do.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or maybe not deserves what's coming, but, like, this is a big sort of angle for them. Is America first. Like, we shouldn't get involved in this. Let Ukraine handle it themselves.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And so that is, you just hit the nail on the head as far as why Republicans typically get targeted with this stuff. It's not because the Trump administration is colluding with the Russians. It's because the message that the Trump administration and MAGA in general, and Republicans by extension are basically basing their platform on is, like you said, America first focus on domestic issues, get ourselves out of foreign affairs. And that goes lockstep with what Putin wants. It's like, yes, America, go mess with your own stuff. And by pointing out and creating turmoil about all the things that are going on in America at any given time, it makes it seem even that more urgent to just stop giving money to Ukraine when we've got all of these middle class white people who need that money too, in tax breaks and stuff like that. That kind of messaging that's not necessarily wrong, but is making it seem like the American public sentiment is behind that. That's the part that's wrong. They're manipulating that to kind of try to get the public to swing that way, all because they just want to be able to invade Ukraine more easily. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

They had one project called the good old USA Project, which one of the SDA founders had come up with with some other people, and it targeted voters in six swing states during the last election in 2024. About just that, like, let's not help Ukraine. Like, why are we doing that when we have problems here? And they also spent about 10 million bucks encouraging right wing influencers to get on board with pro Russia opinions. So that's why if you've ever been on like the comment section of any social media site about anything political like this, first of all, we would both encourage you to stop doing that because it's just not good for your mental health and wellbeing. But if you do and you see people saying like, oh yeah, thanks, comrade, or whatever Russian bot, like that's what they're talking about here.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And to be fair, those right wing influencers, the YouTubers that were hired to disseminate Russian propaganda were not aware that that's what they were doing. They were hired by a front company called Tenet Media. Yeah, they hired like six hardcore right wing YouTubers and just basically said, hey, let's talk about this kind of thing. But they were not aware that they were being paid by the Kremlin. They didn't know that. And then once that was exposed, that company dissolved and those people, well, I guess had to eat some crow, I would guess.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. Another thing, if you ever heard, you know, you know, George Soros is paying those protesters like that by the hour, like paid protesters. Paid protesters.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

That comes from a fake Washington Post article. Like, you know, from one of these, like completely fake cloned websites. That's where that comes from. It was right after Israel invaded Gaza in spring of 2024 and all the protests were going on and there was a fake Washington Post article that came out about the Soros foundation and Rockefeller, like paying people 30 bucks an hour to go protest.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The one I remember was that the Ukrainian government was actually like Nazis.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And really what Russia's doing is liberating the Ukrainian people. I remember that one for sure. That definitely came from this doppelganger era.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. One of the weirder ones was Princess Kate when she sort of disappeared from the public eye.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And you know, this is before she revealed it was because of a cancer diagnosis. But they jumped on that and sort of hijacked that with all sorts of weird conspiracy theories. And again, I think that was one just to create tension and chaos in the uk.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. I don't remember where I found this, but I saw that their involvement in conspiracy theories is topic agnostic. They don't care about the subject, whatever it is that will push People's buttons that will get emotional responses and get people worked up. They will get in there and amplify it. If they. If they didn't make it up themselves in the first place, man. They also apparently, according to, I think, the good old USA project, that they. There was a whole group at the Social Design Agency who, again, like you said, seem to be the ones behind this. If all of a sudden you start to hear negative chatter about stuff, you should know I'm going to go ahead and say it was probably them after this episode comes out.

[Chuck Bryant]

I was a little worried about that. I am.

[Josh Clark]

Hopefully we're still under the radar enough.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I like to think so.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And if all of a sudden Chuck and I die in a fiery car crash together, it was probably the Kremlin.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm not flying anytime soon.

[Josh Clark]

You have to. Although I don't want to say when or how. We should probably edit this part out. But there was a whole group at the Social Design Agency that was. Their job, was to monitor social media posts from GOP lawmakers to figure out what was on America's mind or what people were worried about or angry about. And then they would start making memes and stuff based on that and try to create, like, I guess, mess from that. Just from like one tweet or something could do it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. I don't know how much you want to get into this nuts and bolts section.

[Josh Clark]

We kind of already covered it. Really?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it gets sort of in the weeds. But like you sort of mentioned earlier, we just want to be clear. It's like they'll use disposable domains that are owned by other companies. They will use virtual offices and set up shell companies. They'll work with, you know, in places like sometimes at the far reaches of the earth. Well, they'll set up like some company in Malaysia where, you know, it's. Then it goes to another shell company in Lithuania, and it's just, you know, it's also obfuscated. And that's the whole point, you know, that you don't know. It's hard to even trace back to any origin.

[Michael Rapoport]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And it's just very decentralized. And then the companies, these shell companies, are just legitimate enough to provide cover for the shady hosting companies to say, like, well, they're legal. It's a UK company, so, you know, we don't have any obligation to check what they're doing. Right. And as it gets closer and closer to the actual fake website, the companies just get shadier and shadier and apparently, they're not the ones. They didn't come up with this technique. It's fairly common among bad actors.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like Brad Pitt. I guess I was trying to think

[Chuck Bryant]

of a bad actor. I didn't want to be mean.

[Josh Clark]

I think you can be mean to Brad Pitt at this point.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. Cause he's a fine actor.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And a fine piece, you know, a piece of what?

[Josh Clark]

You know, s or a.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did you see he and Ed Norton at the soccer match?

[Josh Clark]

No. I heard about it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It was kind of fun. The old fight club thing.

[Josh Clark]

What was I gonna say?

[Chuck Bryant]

You were gonna say we're gonna take a break, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think whatever I was saying just petered out. Didn't matter.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, well, Josh is going to peter back up, and we'll be back right after this.

[Podcast Announcer / Nora Jones]

Hey. I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing along is Back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy. Really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Joshua Hame, Sarah McLachlan, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Finneas.

[Chuck Bryant]

So I went home and I asked Billie if she wanted to sing it. She immediately made it her own thing.

[Josh Clark]

No fair. You really know how to make me

[Chuck Bryant]

cry when you give me those oceans.

[Podcast Announcer / Nora Jones]

So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Chuck Bryant]

Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home?

[Josh Clark]

Hey.

[Michael Rapoport]

Hey.

[Josh Clark]

We're so excited for tonight. Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored securely locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome.

[Chuck Bryant]

Learn how to have the conversation at agree to agree.org brought to you by the Ad Council.

[Michael Rapoport]

This is Michael Rapoport and my podcast, the I Am Rappaport Stereo podcast is unlike anyone you've ever heard. We're a variety show, and if you're looking for strong opinions, funny opinions, about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention. Then subscribe now. This kid Jafar Jackson is as good as Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury. And it's as good as Timothee Shamalay as Bob Dylan. And I say that with love and respect for both of those actors. And I don't know how many Oscar nominations they give out. I don't know if it's 5, 6 for best actor. 150%. This kid Jafar Jackson should absolutely, positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson. Listen to I Am rapoport on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Josh Clark]

I Am Rapperport podcast. Okay, so we're back and we know about Doppelganger. Like I said, thanks to journalists and non governmental organizations that are dedicated to tracking and fighting disinformation. The first one where it came up, even before it was called Doppelganger, because remember, that was the EU's disinfo lab that came with that title. But a full year or so before that, the German website T Online.

[Chuck Bryant]

That sounds fake.

[Josh Clark]

It does. It sounds super fake. They published an article where they were like, hey, there's a bunch of new Facebook accounts. All of them are German women. And the weird thing is they all say that they work for Netflix. And even weirder, every single one of them seems to be really, really adamant about Germany not funding Ukraine and just leaving Russia alone.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm sure Netflix is like, seriously, Thanks.

[Josh Clark]

I know. Although Netflix is probably like, hey, any publicity is good publicity.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, yeah, that's a good point. I get this is not this, but I know you're not on social media a lot, but on Instagram, I will have to block a lot of people that come on to follow me because it's clear that it's some sort of a porn thing.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or I will get a comment from someone on some random. Like I'll leave a comment on some random Instagram post that I think is cool or whatever. And then someone will comment on that, like, oh, yeah, totally, Chuck Brian or whatever. Chuck the podcaster. And then I'll look, I'll be like, who is this? And it's clearly some fake person and I don't know what the angle is. And I always block it. So obviously I don't know. But I wonder what the goal is. It's gotta be separating me from money somehow.

[Josh Clark]

Somehow, yeah. Or getting money to somebody like an influencer or something, or to boost whatever thing you said was cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's very strange, but it's always quite obvious what it is because they have like zero posts, follow a ton of people, no one follows them. And it's usually some, you know, if I can be frank, it's usually some very like well endowed, you know, woman.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Do you remember there was a period of time when AI slop was really starting to gear up where it does not matter what video you were watching on like YouTube or whatever in the search, it was like a very beautiful woman standing there like Vanna White right next to the video screen. Like learn all about C coding from me. You're the sexy secretary. You know, like it was all videos were like that for a minute and I was like, God, is this how it's going to be from now on? And then it seems to have vanished.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, the only reason I bring all that up is because it's just sort of backs up this thing that we're talking about and this idea that I keep edging toward which is like, God, maybe it's just best to get off and away from all of that stuff altogether because it's really going in the wrong direction.

[Josh Clark]

No, it definitely is. There's this thing called the Dead Internet theory. I've been wanting to do at least the short stuff on it, but essentially it says that the Internet has become just a bunch of bots interacting with bots, trying to game social media algorithms to make money for some dude and whatever country, Singapore or something like that. Right. And I some studies have found that perhaps a third of accounts on either Instagram or Facebook, probably Facebook are bots. A third.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh man.

[Josh Clark]

And that it's just gotten so far out of hand that we're never going to get it back. And also like those long tail articles where you make like 5 cents but it costs nothing to have an AI write and publish that article. Those have have pushed actual human written researched articles about any given thing from like page one Google search to like page 20. So. So there's still like no reason to, to go in and search for anything anymore. Unless you want some AI article broken into 50 different small paragraphs or sections that basically repeat themselves over and over again. That's what you have available. So it does seem like the Internet is pretty dead.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I've noticed even on Instagram from some sites I like and follow like music sites or whatever. It's sort of a dead giveaway. Now if the caption instead of being like, you know, Led Zeppelin performs at this performance and it was awesome, it's now some really long like four Paragraph thing with like this detailed history of like Led Zeppelin was abandoned, blah, blah, blah. And it's just so obvious AI is doing it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it's just, it's kind of ruining what I used to like about Instagram along with a lot of other stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, you know, these fake busty women. It's like, it just makes me want to run away and stop it all.

[Josh Clark]

Run away. Something else is going to come along because there is like, it's very clear that the Internet, like ideally is really great and useful and important and we need it. It's just this version of it is no longer useful. So we need to figure out a different one and somebody will.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know. Well, it just, it sucks because I don't like to support that company because they're part of Meta, which I hate, and got off of Facebook. But I do like the connection with listeners and be able to chat stuff up. So it's. Yeah, it feels like it's a no win situation sometimes.

[Josh Clark]

I think what it'll probably become is more of an emphasis on email, maybe again. And then that'll get taken over and then it'll be handwritten letters.

[Chuck Bryant]

That'd be great. Speaking of meta, though, in 2022, and this was after that T online group that you mentioned sort of outed this whole thing. That's when Meta and some other higher profile companies started saying like, oh, well, we know this is going on. We're going to start removing pages and we're gonna start deleting this and we're gonna take this super serious and who knows what's going on on the inside. I sound like I'm being cynical. Cause I probably feel like I am. But they have found that a lot of it is coming through ads and they're not even catching. 95% of undeclared political ads aren't being caught in this supposed sweep to clean things up.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Yeah. Because it's not just posts or bots creating posts or even commenting, it's buying ads. And so Facebook has a huge financial incentive to not root those things out because they make tons of cash off of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So, yeah, I mean, they said that they're doing this, they're not actually doing it. And that's a. That's a good example of the whole whack a mole thing too, is like a big company like that trying to police their own social media site that's gotten out of their own control. That's not a good technique either. Although I think all of us could probably agree that medic could do way, way more than it does. So the. Finally, in September 2024, after this has been identified for two full years, the US Department of Justice is like, we're going to take charge here.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we'll take care of it.

[Josh Clark]

Get this. They took down 32 websites. Wow. That were related to Doppelganger. And they were like, this is too risky before a U.S. election. So we're gonna. We're gonna do. We're gonna go the nuclear option and take down 32 websites.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I think the. The cynicism is coming through. It's. I mean, whack. A mole didn't even begin to describe it, I'm sure, like, Russia hears this stuff and they're just, like, laughing into their vodka, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Well, that's the point that a lot of people make, is that it might not even be changing people's minds, but just the fact that we know it exists makes you question everything then. And so you are questioning the legitimate stuff, too. So you're not learning anything. Everything has an angle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And now we're seeing, of course, and we've talked about. I think we did a whole episode on Deepfakes, right? Yeah. On Deepfake. And obviously the advent of AI technology, which is now completely taken over already, where they have, you know, a fake video going up where you. It looks like Joe Biden doing something or it looks like anybody doing something, and they will take, you know, they try to evade detection, so they'll post a video just a little differently, in different iterations, like, with just a few milliseconds trimmed out so they can't be automatically rooted out when, like, a company builds a system to root out this kind of stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And we're already at the point, like, AI has moved so fast. We're already at the point where people all over the place, for months now, I've been going, like, I don't even know if this is real. Like, I don't know what I can believe anymore. So, like, it's working. What they're doing is working.

[Josh Clark]

Right. The thing that got me is that they figured out because AI companies train their models on, like, the Internet in specific parts of the Internet, the Russians have figured out that they can flood those parts of the Internet with misinformation, and that's what the. The AI is going to learn and think is real. So the AI is going to just give out bad information or misinformation as well, because that's what it thinks is true.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I'm Going to go live in a cave right after we record this, I'll join that sound.

[Josh Clark]

We'll get into Buddhism.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, let's. Let's do that.

[Josh Clark]

So, like we said, I don't know if we gave our a hat tip to Olivia, who really did a good exhaustive job on explaining this. Um, but one of the things she points out is that it's really unclear whether this actually sways opinion.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there have been some studies, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But I mean, just anecdotally I think it does, but maybe it's one of those things where, like, okay, if it really comes down to somebody saying, do you truly believe that? Are you going to be like, yes, then maybe it doesn't really sway opinion. But there was a study that looked at disinformation efforts by Russia in the 2016 US election, and it basically found that it had almost no effect whatsoever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they found that 1% of social media users got 70% of the exposures. So a few people getting most of this stuff, but that's still 30% on the other 99%. And they also point out that a lot of the people getting exposed to this are Republicans because the Russian post are, you know, again, they're sort of targeting them about like, hey, America first stuff. America first stuff. And they already believe that stuff anyway. So it's not maybe like they're changing minds, maybe that's the point. But they're reinforcing beliefs for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. But again, that fire hose, or the fire hose of misinformation or false information, that's the technique and it seems to be working. The thing that stuck out to me was I couldn't find anything about what they're doing. Now it seems like they're still doing much the same because it works really, really well and it can just pop up anywhere. Like, there is a story I found, I don't know if you saw it, where a 2016 disinformation campaign from Russia actually managed to get real life Texans to battle one another, at least verbally. I don't think anyone was physically injured over the Islamification of Texas, which was just complete bunk made up by the disinformation group. And even more than that, they made up the group that the protesters joined. They also made up the group that the counter protesters joined. So the whole thing was totally fabricated and social engineered. So, like, that works. And at the time, these people were not thinking that they were being manipulated by Russians. Right. They thought it was real. And so it's going to keep continuing to work. So there's no reason for them to stop. I'm curious about what the next thing is that they're doing now that we're gonna find out about three years from now, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Right? Yeah, for sure. The other thing that sort of would send a chill up your spine is like, none of this is even secret anymore. Like, it's out and they know it's out, and they don't care.

[Josh Clark]

They're out and proud.

[Chuck Bryant]

They're out and proud with their, what they call a high reach, low impact campaign, which is, like you said again, the fire hose. And the volume of content. Doesn't really matter how much people believe it or not, as long as you're sowing chaos and getting people to eventually think, like, I don't even know. Like, maybe I'll just disengage altogether. Cause I don't know what's real. When widespread coverage of Doppelganger came out, the Russian government was like, awesome, let's give more funding to the sda. And there's even a suggestion that SDA deliberately leaked Operation Doppelganger, like, information about that just to get more media coverage about it.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Man, yeah. I really do want to go live in a cave after this.

[Josh Clark]

The best suggestion I saw was to fight fire with fire. That the whole whack a mole thing is never, ever going to work. And it actually just helps Russia, like you said, just by giving it publicity and that essentially the best thing the west could do is to create its own SDA and just turn it on Russia. That that's basically the only option to get them to stop.

[Chuck Bryant]

That sounds like a great idea for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Well, since Chuck and I are jaded, I think it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is beyond jaded. All right, guys, this is a nice, light way to end. Guys, for years, my wife and I have had an argument over the pronunciation of B, I, O, P, I, C. Like when you make a movie about a person, like a biographical picture. We've both been stubborn to admit defeat. She's part of the biopic crowd, but I prefer biopic.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

She, of course, claims she's right because she's a former elementary school teacher and a big study of English lit and knows the truth, blah, blah, blah. But it wasn't until Chuck said biopic in your recent Howard Hughes episode that I got the vindication I needed. Yeah, I don't care if Chuck and I are wrong. It doesn't matter. All that matters is I know I'm not alone anymore and will continue with my Pronunciation. And I'll make sure to pass this down to my seven and four year old kids. That is from Kevin Croyle in North Carolina. And I also got a really rude email from a very, I guess, angry person that I said it differently. And they were like, I guess you like being wrong. I guess it is wrong. I don't even know. I never thought about it. But I don't say biography. I say biography. So I say biopic. And I don't know, that's just how it flowed out of my mouth. So I may be wrong. I don't care.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you may be crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

What do you say? You say biopic. Right?

[Josh Clark]

But that's just what I've always heard. And I'm so used to you saying biopic now that it's not even. I think that they're both right. I think you manage to wedge it into reality.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, maybe someday when someone writes the biography on our lives, it will be turned into a biopic.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. All right. Well, who is that from? The nice one.

[Chuck Bryant]

That is from Kevin.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks, Kevin. That was very nice. And I'm glad you feel vindicated. Sorry to your wife, although she and I share the same pronunciation.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, yeah, we can all have an arm wrestling match one day or something.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to be like Kevin and write to us about feeling vindicated by me or Chuck or Jerry or whoever we want to hear about it, send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com

[Podcast Announcer / Nora Jones]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. This is an I Heart podcast, guaranteed human.