For @BrookingsInst's #TechSTream, @vwirtschafter and I document the spread of the Kremlin's preferred narrative of the NordStream sabotage (the US did it) spread across popular political podcasts in the US

🧵👇

brookings.edu/techstream/u-s… Upshot:

Following the explosions, 12 popular political podcasts have devoted 18 episodes to the theory.

Less than one quarter of these episodes refuted the baseless theory.

Nearly 40% fully blamed the United States.

The information domain is a critical theater of the war in Ukraine. What is Russia's latest disinformation narrative?

🚨 That Ukraine is a breeding ground for biological weapons funded by the United States. These conspiracies are being spread by numerous Russian embassies -- in India, Japan, UK and Kenya, including in local languages.

How are China's wolf warrior diplomats and state media covering the Ukraine crisis on Twitter?

✅Boosting Kremlin talking points casting the UK's recent warning as "disinformation"
✅Highlighting schisms in Europe, NATO
✅Dunking on US

Examples, just from today 👇 China's state media and diplomats are boosting Putin's attempts to discredit the British Government's warning that Russia plans to install a pro-Kremlin leader in Ukraine.

Russian state-controlled media's response to the #PandoraPapers attempts to discredit allegations against individuals linked to the Kremlin and suggests Washington had a hand in the leak.

For @BrookingsFP, I explain👇

brookings.edu/blog/order-fro… Russian state media have been amplifying some of the project’s most troubling findings — including the US' emergence as a leading destination for sheltering dark money — while simultaneously trafficking in conspiracies about the origin of the leaks.

At it again.

Over the past 8 weeks or so, Chinese government officials have peddled this conspiracy with alarming frequency.

According to recent data from @SecureDemocracy:

👉 >35 officials, state media outlets have mentioned Fort Detrick in
👉 >115 tweets in
👉 9 languages As others have documented, there's lots of chatter across Chinese social media sites, posts to comment sections, etc., advancing these ideas.

https://twitter.com/stephszh/status/1352034109472718850?s=20

.@SecureDemocracy looked at more than 35K vaccine-related messages from Russian, Chinese, and Iranian diplomats, government officials, and state media outlets on Twitter, YouTube, and state-sponsored news websites get a handle on their narratives.

What did we find? THREAD FIRST: While there were few instances of any studied country promoting verifiably false info about vaccines, reports of safety concerns related to certain Western vaccines were often sensationalized while key contextual info was omitted or downplayed.

My colleagues at @SecureDemocracy took a look at how Russia's state media is responding to news of President Trump's #COVID diagnosis, using data from the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard. securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashb…

What did they see? Efforts to stoke partisan division in the United States by amplifying “he deserves it” tweets and commentary.

The team at @SecureDemocracy took a look at 2,900 tweets from China's diplomatic and state media accounts over the past three days to get a sense of Beijing's messaging on #coronavirus. Here's what we found. First, China is using the #coronavirus crisis to position itself as a provider of public goods (an implicit contrast to the United States) -- in other words, as the new partner of first resort for our allies in Europe.

Some very important points in @RidT @nytimes essay out today, which sparked a flurry of my own thinking. THREAD.
nytimes.com/2020/03/16/opi… As he so aptly puts it: Putin's ultimate goal is not to strengthen a particular candidate or party, but to weaken the United States.

A few thoughts I hope don't get lost in the crush of news around Russian efforts to interfere in 2020 (a thread). 1) In this broadest sense, this isn't really news. Over months, multiple senior administration officials have warned of Russian activity targeting 2020. That it aims to undermine confidence in the vote and puts the primary in its crosshairs isn't surprising.

These comments are totally irresponsible. Not just because they disregard objective truth, but because they fuel the perception that there is no objective truth to begin with.

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1198618238961274881

Democracy depends on the notion that there are knowable facts, and that the public can understand them and put them to use in making decisions of self-government. That's what information operations put in their cross-hairs.