New research shows Russia has worked to amplify false and misleading claims about the U.S. government's response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton as part of the Kremlin's efforts to manipulate Americans before the Nov. 5 election.

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.

  • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.world
    53·
    2 months ago

    The people who, when we were growing up, told us to not believe anything on the internet all of the sudden decided to start believing everything they read on the internet.

    • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
      18·
      2 months ago

      you know what? my parents didn’t tell me not to believe anything on the Internet. they taught me to be wary of information sources and how to be skeptical in a productive way.

      the people that don’t have these skills are the ones that told you not to believe anything on the Internet. they don’t know how to tell what’s real and what’s not without their priest there to do it for them. now these people are all on the Internet without protection or guidance. the children that learned this behavior from them are here too. we had entire populations for generations that based all of their beliefs on what the local priest told them before the Internet. even after the printing press, many people relied on their religious leaders to interpret what was written for them.

      for the most part, any non urban population would have burned you alive for trying to think for yourself for generations. now we’re all surprised that they aren’t very good calling out bullshit.

      it’s almost like religion is often designed around letting the powerful control people. it WAS the system of hierarchy before capitalism. it’s where we got our social classes and kings from. it’s for the powerful to manipulate others. it’s working as intended.

      • stoned_ape@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 months ago

        This a lot but also they grew up in the time before their hero did away with the Fairness Doctrine, so when they were formative and watching Cronkite and Rather et al on TV, it wasn’t obscured through an echo chamber opinion piece masquerading as The Truth ™️so they never needed to think critically about their news sources bc I’m sure most of what was reported was factual (albeit whitewashed I’m sure)