WEBVTT - How Russia Shapes What the World Thinks 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.800 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.880 Chuck and Jerry's missing. We don't know where she is. 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.640 The Russians have her, at the very least, it's quite 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:24.720 possible the Russians have misled her in some way or another, 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.080 and maybe they tricked her into leaving when it was 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:28.840 time to record. 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:33.120 You cheeky boy, don't worry everybody, Jerry's just really on vacation. 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.320 But that was a very clever setup to this episode 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:44.600 on essentially on Russian propaganda and how you know, I 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:46.879 think we all knew that, like their propaganda machine was 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.319 big back in the cold worn stuff obviously, but it's 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.280 it's a really big problem now and has been for 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.040 a while, ever since the advent of the Internet and 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:57.440 especially social media. 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.680 Yeah, because those two things are wide open set up 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:09.280 for people to distribute misinformation, deliberate misinformation. The Russians are 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.400 far from the only ones that do it. They're just really, 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.520 really good at it, and they've been doing it for 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:17.880 a long time. They I would guess they were probably 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.480 the first country to really start doing this on like 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.600 a wide scale. But I mean as far back I 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.160 think as twenty ten or at least the two thousand, Yeah, 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:33.200 but like the twenty tens, at least twenty thirteen at 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:37.040 the absolute latest. The Internet Research Agency was the first 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:41.080 kind of famous one that surfaced. And the whole premise 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.880 back then and now is to basically game social media 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.320 and use whatever you can whatever like weaknesses it has 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.600 in like the entire structure of it, to confuse people, 0:01:54.720 --> 0:02:00.480 to sow discord and disinformation and chaos and questioning what 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.400 reality is, getting the media to start using words like 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.280 post truth and stuff like that, that kind of stuff. 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.640 It might not have a specific aim where it's like 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.480 we want to say, get Trump elected that was part 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:16.480 of this too, like that was a Russian name as well, 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:21.320 or we want to stir America up over the border crisis. 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.960 Just creating a climate where people question what's real or 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.800 what's true. That in and of itself is a huge 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.520 triumph for these Russian operations that have been going on 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:34.760 for more than a decade. 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:37.000 Yeah. I think that was one of the things that 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.639 chilled me most was it wasn't like we really need 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.840 to get people to believe this one thing right about Ukraine, 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.560 let's say it's more like, no, let's just so chaos 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:52.359 in confusion to where you doubt what you're reading and 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:54.600 you don't know what the truth is anymore. And that's 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:56.840 just like that feels even scarier, you know. 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:01.680 It does, because ultimately, eventually most people would be like, 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.160 it's not worth trying to get to the bottom of this. 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:06.840 You know, I'm just gonna stop. I'm just not going 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:08.000 to pay attention anymore. 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.519 I'm just not going to care, or I'll just share 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:12.160 something because like I read. 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.840 It, yes, exactly sometimes on Reddit. 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.880 Yeah, good point. All right, So maybe we should jump 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.840 back a little bit and talk about the IRA, not 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.919 the Irish Republican Army, but the Internet Research Agency or 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.240 the Russian troll Farm as it might you might know 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.600 it better, as that was founded in twenty thirteen by 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:38.920 guy that was a former criminal eventually a successful entrepreneur 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:44.280 and kind of higher up oligarch in Russia and you know, 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.800 confidant of Vladimir Putin, and he also founded you know, 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:50.920 Confident up for a while because he also founded the 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.800 Wagner Group, which you may have read about the news, 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.480 the Russian Mercenary organization that would eventually try and Overthrow putin. 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.320 Yes, do you watch the age and see on Prime? No? 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:02.800 I don't. 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:07.920 It is magnificent. Yeah, it's one of the best spy 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:09.760 shows of recent times. 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:11.000 I love a spie show. 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.320 You guys liked Black Doves, right, yep. This is at 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:18.520 least on that caliber, if not higher. Michael Fossbender's in it, 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:23.480 Richard Gear, Jeffrey Wright, a bunch of other very talented people. 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.600 But it's all like spycraft stuff, and it's it's really 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:32.440 worth it. They just released their second season and I've 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.880 got three episodes left. I started two days ago, and 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.400 both seasons are well worth watching. 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.479 Okay, I did not watch Black Doves. Actually, I thought 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.120 you were talking about the what's the Gary Eelman show, 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:45.599 Wild Horses something horses. 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:49.719 I don't know, I know the one you're talking about. 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:50.200 You watch that? 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:51.760 Yeah, I watched that one. 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:52.320 Is it good? 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.600 Yeah? It's really good. I mean Gary Oldman's fantastic Slow Horses. 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.360 Slow Horses. I swear you watch Black Doves because Emily 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.880 said she liked it, the one with she may have 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:03.040 watched it, bend it like. 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.640 Beckham, Yeah, Kiera Knightley, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't see it. 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:08.720 May have watched that without me though, because she watched. 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.520 Okay, just watch them, watch them both, but definitely watch 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.800 the agency. It's much more likely to be in your 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:18.679 wheelhouse if either one of them are going. 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.880 To be all right, Okay, So back to the show. 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.919 Oh, I know I brought that up. They battle essentially 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.960 the Wagner Group, but it's Valhalla in the agency. 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.880 Okay, gotcha, sorry about that. That's okay. Everyone loves a 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:35.760 good recommendation from either one of us, I think. 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.760 Yeah. I also, I want to be clear here, this 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.120 was not brought to you by Prime. We're not trying 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:45.479 to manipulate you or propagandize you or market to you. 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.600 This is just I watch it on Prime and it's 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.479 on time, and it's so good that I just took 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:56.000 that time to share that with everybody. That's all exactly 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:57.919 what it seemed like on face value. And do you 0:05:57.960 --> 0:05:59.040 know why I have to say that. 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.560 Chuck, I don't know, Josh, because of. 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.839 Stuff like this operation that we're going to talk about. 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.120 That's right. So the IRA that I spoke of, the 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.599 Internet Research Agency that what they did this is like 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:15.160 mid twenty tens. They hired a ton of you know, 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.640 young people basically who could speak English and who knew 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.000 a lot about politics to like, hey, why don't you 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:23.760 start a troll farm, you know, get on board this 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.400 troll farm and just create fake stuff, create fake news stories. 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.840 Although I'm love to even say those words together, fake 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.920 social media posts, YouTube videos. Eventually, you know, as you'll 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.000 see what would become like deep fakes and AI and 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.960 stuff like that. But this is before that. Yeah, and 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:46.000 while this was going on, Sputnik and Russia Today or 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:51.000 RT these are you know, I think legitimate or one point, 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:52.920 we're legitimate Russian news outlets. Right. 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:58.600 They were always backed by the Kremlin. Oh well okay, yeah, 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.360 but yeah, I think that they were still they still 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.240 had journalists and stuff like that, but they were trying 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.400 to get the Russian viewpoint across to Western audiences. 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:12.480 Right, So they started distributing stories around the world, basically, 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.000 like we were saying, trying to get people to like 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.520 to believe whatever they wanted to believe at the time, 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:20.760 like politically. 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:25.840 Right, And the twenty sixteen United States election was a 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:30.080 real big kind of debut. They've been kind of ated already, 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.040 but the twenty sixteen election they really showed just how 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.640 much they could monkey with stuff, or at least the 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.440 potential of them monkeying with stuff. And this is where 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.640 that the allegations of Trump colluding with the Russians, this 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.560 is what they were talking about unproven, by the way, 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:51.720 to Rachel Maddow's great dismay right Pizzagate. These they didn't 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.520 necessarily come up with these things, but they were able 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.160 to amplify them, yeah, and get people talking about them 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.960 and make people questioning what was what, you know, or 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.120 the Democrats like really keeping child sex slaves in the 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.880 basement of Comet Pizza in DC. Who knows? Maybe you 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.240 should take an assault rifle from North Carolina and go 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:11.800 find out. 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.880 Yeah, exactly. So once this start sort of starts coming out, 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.840 and the United States and you know, all over North 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.440 American and Europe started realizing what was going on. In 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.920 February twenty twenty two, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:29.080 there started to be a little bit of action taken. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.719 The EU banned Russian state media, including Sputnik and RT. 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.680 Other companies Google News dropped them from aggregation service. I 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.800 think Google, Microsoft and Apple all started like pulling their apps. 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.160 So that sort of started happening and then in twenty 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.880 three was when that failed uprising against Putin by the 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:53.240 Wagner group happened. And the long and short is after 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:57.800 all this, the IRA finally disbanded, but this work continued 0:08:57.920 --> 0:08:59.079 among other groups. 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.280 Yeah, this is a good example of the whack a 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:07.439 mole that the West is playing. The Russian Internet disinformation 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.640 operations have the West on our heels. Clearly, there's basically 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:13.720 no one who knows what they're talking about with this 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.559 stuff who would disagree with that. The West still has 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.240 not figured out how to do it, aside from piecemeal 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:26.280 responses like taking Russia Times app off of the Apple market, 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.360 off of the Apple app store, you know, like that's 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.240 the kind of response we have to this. Still, and 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.400 this has been going on for more than a decade. 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.320 And one of the reasons why it's so hard to 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.680 do anything about it is because they use what the 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.360 Rand Corporation researchers Christopher Paula and Miriam Matthews call a 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:49.840 fire hose of falsehood, just put everything out there. It's 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.959 not the quality, it's the quantity that they focus on. 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:59.400 Yeah. For sure, after CRIMEA was annexed in twenty fourteen, 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.600 and then obviously after the invasion of Ukraine in February 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.199 of twenty twenty two, they really ramped up a lot 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:11.439 of messaging to try and get you know, sentiment, sometimes 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:13.720 on their side, but a lot more times like just 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:18.079 against Ukraine and what was going on. And this eventually 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.840 it would become known as Dappelganger. But to be clear, 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:26.000 Dappelganger isn't like it wasn't Operation Dappelganger or there's not 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:30.040 an organization called Dappelganger. It's more of just sort of 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:32.640 I think the media sort of misread that and labeled 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:34.679 it that, but it's really just sort of this method 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.560 of doing what they're doing and how they're doing it. 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:43.559 Yeah, to be specific, it's a way of cloning dummy 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.880 websites that look like actual legitimate websites. The ones some 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.640 of the ones that they targeted were Lamonde and France, 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:55.240 their website, Washington Post in the US, the Guardian in 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:59.560 the UK, and they would essentially just take they would 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:02.720 have the bots start sending links or putting links all 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.760 over the Internet to basically share, right, hey, look at 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.840 this crazy article. Right. The Washington Post actually reported this, 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.199 so it seems like it would be legitimate. Then you 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.360 would click that and it would take you to a 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:19.200 different series of domains that got smaller and smaller to 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:23.040 where if you were in the area they were targeting, 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.000 say you were in the United States and you had 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.760 clicked you know, this thing to find out about whatever 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.959 this fake Washington Post thing was saying, it would it 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:35.640 would take you to this fake website like Washingtonpost dot PM, 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:40.840 just different enough that like you probably wouldn't notice, but 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.760 it's a different domain name. And the way that they 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.760 were able to get away with this was shell companies 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:50.480 and using shady kind of hosting services around the world. 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:56.400 And that that was doppelganger, that technique that they used 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:01.640 for getting this stuff out. There is no operation like this. 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:06.080 These these using bots or creating like fake accounts on 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.920 Facebook or whatever. That wasn't dopplgetor that is constant. It's 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:12.680 so constant and so embedded that there's no name for that. 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.200 Doppelganger was just the technique of the way that they 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:20.679 use the infrastructure of the Internet to deliver misinformation for 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:22.000 this short period of time. 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.720 Yeah, sort of one of the main companies. And we're 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:27.400 not going to go through all of these because it's 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.440 a little mind numbing. But there's one called the Social 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:33.640 Design Agency, which is a pr firm that started up 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.960 in twenty twenty two, founded by a political consultant who 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:42.720 had you know, that was their business, so you know, 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.080 they know exactly how to do it, and the Russian 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:46.880 government all of a sudden was like, wait a minute, 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.319 we would love to hire you to do like all 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.840 this stuff. It's literally as of I think a couple 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.600 of years ago, run by the Kremlin and directed by 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.400 the Putin administration, so they're kind of in the middle 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.640 of most of this doppelganger activity. Yes, and you know, 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:05.720 like you said, when you go to one of these websites, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:07.600 when you click on the link, if you're not paying 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.720 attention to the dot whatever, and you realize it's not 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.280 you know, Washingtonpost dot com. It looks like it, it 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.920 smells like it, it acts like it for the most part. 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.960 So it's really easy to fool people. 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.959 It is. I mean, if you really look closely, and 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.880 you look with a skeptical eye, you'll turn up some stuff. 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.160 I saw. One example is that the US must not 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:34.400 become the world's gendarme, which is police in French, like 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.600 the Washington Post would not use a phrase like that, right. 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.439 But you have to know that, like I think they 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.000 count on just fire hosing it such where they're like, well, 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.160 who cares if most people don't, If we just get 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:46.800 this percentage of people, that's great. 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.120 Yes, And even more than that, I feel like going 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.600 to the trouble of actually creating the article on the 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:58.360 fake website is almost superfluous because so many people on 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:03.440 the internet just share, Yeah, share, like that headline gotcha? Now, 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.520 I think that this is going on, not even bothering 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.360 to click into this to read the actual article. All 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.760 I need is the headline because it got me juiced up. 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.079 Yeah, for sure. And of course they're amplifying this through 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:20.760 the bot farms. Russian social media bots will post links 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.280 and then there are more bots that retweet these links. 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:25.920 I think I mentioned on the show. I saw a 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.320 picture of a bot farm one not too long ago 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:29.440 that was in big expose. 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:31.520 Were they all just doing grass? 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:36.000 No? That was terrifying. It was like a dude sitting 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:38.160 at a desk on a computer and there were a 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.920 thousand cell phones connected hardwired to the computer, and then 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.400 there were dozens and dozens of these guys with hundreds 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.600 and hundreds of smartphones wow, connected on a big wall. 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.760 So when you see how it actually works, like literally 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.360 connecting to phones to send this stuff out and amplify it, 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.880 it's just it feels really dystopian and scary. 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.640 Yeah. I feel like it's becoming clear that we're going 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.640 to have to abandon the Internet and come up with 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.160 a new one because this one got cooked. 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.440 A creed. Should we take a break? All right, Well, 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:12.760 we're going to ruminate that, and I hope we can 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.240 even come back after we ruminate, but we'll be right back. 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:31.200 I hope. 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.920 All right. So I mentioned after the invasion of Ukraine 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.400 in February twenty twenty two, that's when things really ramped 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:50.080 up again. They you know, a lot of these ideas 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.840 were really pretty clever. There was a one group that 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.480 launched sort of like a Snopes like site, but a 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.880 fake one, I know, War on Fakes, and it was 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:04.800 design to discredit Ukraine and support Russia obviously. And then 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:10.400 another one called are in Reliable Recent News which replace 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.440 reliable Russian news. So on one side you've got something 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:16.520 that says like, hey, this is reliable news, so this 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:18.840 is real. On the other side, it's like, hey, we 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.280 root out the fake stuff, but it's fake, so it's 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.720 almost like, you know, it's not almost like they've got 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:25.680 all their bases covered. 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.080 Yeah. I mean, if you pay too close attention to this, 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.600 you'll start bleeding out of your ear guaranteed. 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:32.240 Yeah. 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:37.920 Doppelganger got its name from the EU's Disinformation Lab. One 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.200 of the disheartening things to me, Chuck was figuring out 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.960 that the people who are tracking this stuff, there's not 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:49.320 a government agency involved anywhere. These are all like independent 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.920 NGOs that are dedicated to tracking disinformation. 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.720 Yeah, it's interesting journalists. 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.120 Like these are the people doing the actual work, and 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.680 then seven years later the governments like, oh, we're going 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.320 to have our Department of Justice do something about this. 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:05.080 Right. 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.639 So where that's where Doppelganger got its name from. I 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:12.320 think it's basically it suggests that these are or it 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.639 points out like the cloned sites, they're like Dappelgangers of 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:17.359 the real thing. 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:18.720 Yeah, exactly. 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.040 But that war on Ukraine, after the invasion of Ukraine, 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:29.560 they really ramped up the misinformation flood that was coming. 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:34.320 Like they targeted in twenty twenty four and I think 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.520 twenty twenty three, their main targets were France, Germany, the US, 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.680 the UK and Ukraine. And essentially what they were trying 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.320 to do was to make the people, the public in 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.879 each of those countries lose support or turn on the 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.680 idea of supporting Ukraine so that Russia could get them 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.400 out of the Ukraine business in Russia could just get 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.919 back to trying to take over Ukraine as best it could. 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:02.879 Yeah, and they, you know, they did it in a 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.080 lot of ways. Obviously, some ways were just fake articles 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:10.399 about like, you know, stuff that Ukraine does, or maybe 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:15.600 a fake article about that whitewashes a Russian atrocity like 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:19.960 the Buka massacre, like that never happened, right, But cleverly 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:24.400 they're also going like through celebrities and like faking that, 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.760 you know, Taylor, like a real influential celebrity like Taylor 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.760 Swift or Kim Kardashian, Like fake messages where they're supporting 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.960 or they're criticizing America and Europe for supporting Ukraine. Or 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:39.440 did you find something about Oprah? 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:42.359 Yeah, do you want to read that quote? Go ahead, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:47.720 Oprah says supporting Ukrainians is unacceptable. Their actions destroy lives 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:48.640 in societies. 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.760 Yeah, so you know, especially if you're some like young 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:57.600 person who supports Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian, you're probably 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:00.800 you know, not even aware that this kind of stuff 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.000 even goes on. All you're thinking is like, well, Taylor 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.040 Swift said, Ukraine deserves what's coming, So that's probably true. 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.600 That's exactly right, that's exactly what they're trying to do. 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.480 Or maybe not deserves what's coming, but like America, this 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.119 is what a big sort of angle for them is. 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.560 America first, like, we shouldn't get involved in this. Let 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:20.520 Ukraine handle it themselves. 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:24.119 Right, And so that you just hit the nail on 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.240 the head. As far as why Republicans typically get targeted 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:33.439 with this stuff, it's not because the Trump administration is 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:37.439 colluding with the Russians. It's because the message that the 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:42.840 Trump administration and MAGA in general and Republicans by extension, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.200 are basically basing their platform on. It's like you said, 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.439 America first, focus on domestic issues, get ourselves out of 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:55.920 foreign affairs, and that goes lockstep with what Putin wants. 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.880 It's like, yes, America, go mess with your own stuff, 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:03.280 and by pointing out and creating turmoil about all the 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.800 things that are going on in America at any given time. 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:08.720 It makes it seem even that more urgent to just 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.800 stop giving money to Ukraine when we've got all of 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:15.240 these middle class white people who need that money too, 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.280 and like tax breaks and stuff like that. That kind 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:23.480 of messaging that's not necessarily wrong, but is making it 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:28.119 seem like the American public sentiment is behind that. That's 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.840 the part that's wrong. They're manipulating that to kind of 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.520 try to get the public to swing that way, all 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:35.840 because they just want to be able to invade Ukraine 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:36.400 more easily. 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.240 Yeah. They had one project called the Good Old USA Project, 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.560 which one of the SDA founders had come up with 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:46.760 with some other people, and it targeted voters in six 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.960 swing states during the last election in twenty twenty four 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.120 about just that, like let's not help Ukraine, like why 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:56.720 are we doing that when we have problems here? And 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.920 they also spent about ten million bucks encouraging right wing 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:06.359 influencers to get on board with pro Russia opinions. So 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.760 that's why if you've if you've ever been on like 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.919 the comment section of any social media site about anything 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.480 political like this, first of all, we would both encourage 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.040 you to stop doing that because it's just not good 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:21.280 for your mental health and well being. But if you 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:23.480 do and you see people saying like, oh yeah, thanks, 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.840 comrade or whatever Russian bought, like, that's that's what they're 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:27.680 talking about here. 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.520 Yeah, And to be fair, those right wing influencers, the 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:35.960 YouTubers that were hired to disseminate Russian propaganda were not 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.080 aware that that's what they were doing. They were hired 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:42.480 by a front company called Tenant Media. Yeah, they hired 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:47.120 like six hardcore right wing YouTubers and just basically said, hey, 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:49.960 let's talk about this kind of thing. But they were 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.640 not aware that they were being paid by the Kremlin. 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.280 They didn't know that. And then once that was exposed, 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.600 that company dissolved in. Those people, well, I guess had 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:01.640 to eat some crow, I would guess. 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.800 Yeah, for sure. Another thing, if you ever heard, you know, 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.600 you know, George Soros is paying those protesters like that 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.800 by the hour, like paid protesters, paid protesters. Yeah, that 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:16.000 comes from a fake Washington Post article, like you know, 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:21.240 from one of these like completely fake cloned websites. That's 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.959 where that comes from. It was right after Israel invaded 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.880 Gaza in spring of twenty twenty four and that there, 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.480 you know, all the protesters were going on, and there 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:33.720 was a fake Washington Post article that came out about 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:38.720 the Sorols Foundation and Rockefeller like paying people thirty bucks 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:39.760 an hour to go protest. 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:43.840 Yeah. Uh, well, the one I remember was that the 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:48.440 Ukrainian government was actually like Nazis. Oh yeah, yeah, and 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:53.000 really what Russia's doing is liberating the Ukrainian people. I 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:55.520 remember that one for sure. That definitely came from this 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:56.640 Doppelganger era. 0:22:57.440 --> 0:22:59.959 Yeah. One of the weirder ones was Princess Kate when 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.679 she sort of disappeared from the public eye. Yeah, and 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:05.760