Russia Is Flooding Us With Election Disinformation

If you're anything like me, you're seeing a lot of midterm election information in your mailbox, online, and across social media. Some of it’s useful, and some of it’s just political noise. And some of it is deliberately made up to fool us.

Graphika, a firm that investigates online influence operations and disinformation, has traced a campaign of fabricated videos, fake news reports, and false accusations against American candidates to a Russian-aligned operation known as Matryoshka, or Operation Overload. The New York Times reported on the campaign in September, and Bloomberg News reported on October 16 that Russian operators were using networks of bots to spread fake election videos and doctored news pages.

Some videos even make celebrities such as Robert De Niro, Julia Roberts and Cher appear to criticize Democrats. Researchers say the clips use fabricated speech, manipulated footage, or misleading text. Other posts imitate familiar news organizations, complete with their logos, to make false stories look legitimate.

The operation has targeted candidates including Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, James Talarico of Texas and Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan. So far, Matryoshka has been concentrating only on Democratic candidates.

By spreading false accusations and deepening political divisions, Russia can undermine Americans’ confidence in our elections and democratic institutions. Russia benefits when we distrust one another and can't agree on what's true, even if we don't believe every false story we see.

But we don’t have to be victims of their lies. We can start by checking information before sharing it. If a video or article claims to come from CNN, the BBC, or another news organization, look for it on the outlet's actual website. If a celebrity appears to make a shocking political statement, search for the original interview or video. Check whether other established news outlets are reporting the same story. And remember, a post with thousands of views isn't necessarily popular with real people. Bots can inflate those numbers, so look for comments.

We can also report suspicious posts directly to the social media platforms where we find them, whether that's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, or another service. If enough of us flag fake videos and accounts, it sends a message that we expect these companies to investigate and do more to stop organized disinformation from spreading.

We won't agree on every candidate or political issue. We don't have to. But we should all want to make our decisions based on truthful information, not stories manufactured by a foreign operation.

The next time a political post makes you angry or leaves you wondering whether something could possibly be true, think of Russia and Matryoshka, and do your part. Take a minute to check it before passing it along, tell your friends it’s fake, and report it to the social media company.