Russia has helped amplify and spread false and misleading internet claims about recent hurricanes in the United States and the federal government’s response, part of a wider effort by the Kremlin to manipulate America’s political discourse before the presidential election, new research shows.
The content, spread by Russian state media and networks of social media accounts and websites, criticizes the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, exploiting legitimate concerns about the recovery effort in an attempt to paint American leaders as incompetent and corrupt, according to research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The London-based organization tracks disinformation and online extremism.
In some cases, the claims about the storms include fake images created using artificial intelligence, such as a photo depicting scenes of devastating flooding at Disney World that never happened, researchers say.
This is what makes progressives’ work cut out for us. We can’t even use the same tactics, because what we’re saying makes people uncomfortable. People will happily believe the things that give them good feels and reinforce their existing beliefs. The truth of what we need to do and what change needs to happen and of injustice is not something that can be packaged and sold in feel good lies.
We can exploit the same rage-bait engagement-bait outrage tactics to mobilize people like us, but we can’t change people’s minds