AI-Produced Fake News is Exploding + Other Headlines

Tuesday Digest (07.09.24)

Russia-Based Websites are Pretending to be American Newspapers

A stunning investigation by the BBC has found that a former American police officer who now lives in Moscow is running a network of AI-powered fake news sites. These are increasingly targeting Americans on both sides of the political aisle during the run-up to the November presidential election.

Some of these stories are already going viral and are designed to spread widely online, and some have even been shared by members of Congress, the BBC reports:

Our latest investigation, carried out over more than six months and involving the examination of hundreds of articles across dozens of websites, found that the operation has a new target—American voters.

Dozens of bogus stories tracked by the BBC appear aimed at influencing US voters and sowing distrust ahead of November’s election.

The articles are showing up on dozens websites that seem to be American: The Houston Post, the Chicago Chronicle, Boston Times, DC Weekly and others. Some are even using the names of real newspapers that went out of business years ago. All are Russian-owned, and use artificial intelligence to generate thousands of news articles, most of which are rewritten from real news sites.

One story about Vladimir Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials buying yachts with U.S. military aid was shared by American politicians Marjorie Taylor Greene and J.D. Vance, for instance. It was published by DC Weekly, a Russia-linked website which pretends to be based in Washington.

The BBC explains the process.