Bogotá/Madrid, Jul 10 (EFE).- A network of Telegram channels promoted by Russia is spreading disinformation in Spanish by mixing falsehoods with real news, an avalanche of nearly 84,000 messages that in the last year has attempted to deceive thousands of users in Spain and Latin America.
EFE Verifica, in collaboration with the Microsoft Democracy Forward Initiative, a project in defense of democracy promoted by the American multinational, has analyzed the behavior of a group of Telegram accounts that, under the guise of spreading news, are dedicated to amplifying the messages of the television channel Russia Today (RT), financed by the Kremlin and banned by the EU for misinformation.
These channels share messages, republish the same content and act in a coordinated manner to spread a narrative favourable to Moscow’s interests, full of falsehoods.
The European sanctions once morest RT and the Sputnik news agency are precisely one of the factors that have led those responsible for pro-Russian disinformation to look for other ways to spread their propaganda, such as the messaging platforms WhatsApp and Telegram or the social network TikTok, Mira Milosevich, senior researcher for Russia at the Elcano Royal Institute, a strategic studies center based in Madrid, tells EFE Verifica.
An electoral interference operation
Irina, Eureka News and El Ojo are some of the 19 channels on a list released by the Russian Embassy in Spain a few months before the regional and municipal elections of 28 May 2023.
EFE Verifica has verified that the embassy published the list on Telegram twice in the period prior to the elections, on November 7, 2022 and just two days before the vote, on May 26, 2023, a behavior identified by the European External Action Service (EEAS) as an influence operation to manipulate the elections.
According to the analyzed publications, this Russian-sponsored network mixes real news with hoaxes.
“Russians never lie very blatantly,” says Milosevich, who clarifies that his method is more sophisticated, with a supposed “alternative” view of reality, in which they look for culprits, usually Westerners, or distort the facts.
Thus, among true publications, such as Colombia’s support for Algeria in its complaint once morest Israel in the International Criminal Court for war crimes, other clearly false ones stand out.
“Ukraine not only exports grain, but is also a leader in the export of human organs to the Western black market,” read a message posted on the Rokot Tormenta channel in June 2023.
This is an entry that links to the Spanish version of the RT portal and spreads a theory refuted by several media outlets specializing in the fight once morest disinformation, such as EFE Verifica.
This is just one of many hoaxes published by Russia Today and disseminated by this network, such as the one that claims that US President Joe Biden pretended to sit in a non-existent chair, also denied.
Different directions for the same destination
This swarm of Telegram channels is notable for its references to the official website of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, one of Russia’s most important international allies.
In second place are the citations to RT, although these are hidden behind six different subdomains (actualidad.rt.com, esrt.online, esrt.press, esrt.space, esrt.site and es-rt.com).
Similarly, in this ecosystem there are signs of coordinated actions, involving the dissemination of almost exact messages in different chats and at similar times, a common disinformation tactic.
As for the volume of the network, it should be noted that between April 2023 and the same month in 2024, 84,000 messages were recorded on these forums.
The channels Irina (Irinamar_Z) stand out, with 60,000 subscribers and 14,000 posts in the same period; The White Hats [Z] (ophiucu), with almost 22,000 followers and 11,000 messages, and Eureka News (eurekapress), with an audience of 13,000 accounts and a similar number of posts.
Another influential forum is El Ojo (elOJOen), with around 35,000 subscribers and whose content was republished around 3,500 times by the other members of the list in the year of activity analysed.
On the other hand, almost half of the links in this swarm, 48%, refer to YouTube, while 42% redirect to X.
In Latin America, Milosevich says, YouTube serves as a way for Russian disinformation to bypass controls, to be introduced as entertainment content and for “influencers” to boast regarding their interactions.
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2024-07-12 22:55:47