Russian network "Dvoynyk", false narratives, russian fake, russian propaganda

"Artificial intelligence and deepfakes are quickly becoming the tools of choice for those who want to spread false narratives," Morgan Wright, chief security adviser at SentinelOne, an American cybersecurity company, told CNN. SentinelOne, together with the independent research group EU DisinfoLab, worked to expose a russian influence network that has been operating in Europe since 2022 under the name "Dvoynyk" (in translation - Double).

The network hosts clone sites of well-known European media (for example, the Guardian and Bild) as a means of spreading misleading and false content. The focus is on fake stories to influence attitudes on topics such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza (in which russia has a vested interest). But over the past year, the climate crisis has been the second most targeted topic, according to the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO).
One such fake story, published on a Bild impersonation website, described how a teenage cyclist bled to death after a crash, at a time when street lights were turned off to save electricity. The fake article claimed that the German government had turned off the lights due to an energy crisis caused by sanctions against russia over its war in Ukraine. Before the war, Germany relied heavily on russian gas for energy. The story was debunked by numerous German media, but continued to spread on Facebook.
Campaigns that start online trickle down to European parliaments, where populist politicians spread some of the same false narratives in their own interests. And it can change the results of voting, the adoption of key decisions, laws and even the distribution of forces in power in each country.
Continuation of the article on the CNN website: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/04/climate/russia-disinformation-eu-elections-intl/index.html