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Reality Check Commentary: Kremlin’s World-Class Dashboard Maximizes Disinformation, at 26 Cents Per Lie

By Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard Co-CEO

NewsGuard analysts track state-sponsored disinformation, but until now we didn’t know how authoritarian governments track their wins in this arena. A recent Washington Post report based on Kremlin documents the Post says it obtained from a European intelligence service makes clear — assuming the documents are authentic — how Russia earns its disinformation superpower status. The documents include screenshots of a sophisticated digital dashboard measuring how well Vladimir Putin’s operatives spread falsehoods and propaganda to undermine democracies.

Disinformation Dashboard: The Washington Post reported that this dashboard is reviewed nearly weekly by the Kremlin to measure the success of its “information psychological operations” targeting Ukraine. A translation of a sample screenshot from the dashboard indicates that it measures goals including discrediting the Ukraine government, dividing the elite in that country, demoralizing the Ukrainian armed forces, and creating divisions among the Ukrainian population. The platforms listed by the Russian officials that they use to spread disinformation need no translation: Twitter (X), Facebook, Telegram, and Instagram:

Russia’s unreal “additional reality”: Russian disinformation operatives internally use the Orwellian shorthand “additional reality” to describe the false claims they create and spread. One of the dashboards brags about getting two million views of a false claim that the family of a killed Ukrainian soldier had not received any support from the government. Another win was the spread of the falsehood that Kyiv defines its main war aim as “to fight to the last Ukrainian.”

Twenty-six cents per lie, based on the disinformation price list: The leaked information disclosed that workers at Russian troll farms earn $660 a month for writing 100 comments per day on social media. That’s 26 cents per lie, assuming 25 workdays per month. The documents also include a price list to pay social media influencers “willing to work with Russian clients” and to pay up to $39,000 for pro-Russia commentaries published in major media outlets in the U.S. and Europe. (The Washington Post says it’s unclear from the documents whether any such articles were placed in Western media, or if anyone had earned a fee.)

In the West, sophisticated dashboards like these are associated with data scientists helping researchers to cure diseases or marketing professionals buying and gauging responses to advertisements. For the Kremlin, resources are instead devoted to building a world-class, interactive disinformation productivity chart.

We launched Reality Check after seeing how much interest there is in our work beyond the business and tech communities that we serve. Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Have feedback? Send us an email: realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.

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Today:

• A bleak milestone: NewsGuard surpasses 300 debunked vaccine narratives

• Tech titans and tall tales: The false Microsoft device disabling drama

• China’s tall tale: No, Texas didn’t declare war on the U.S.

And more…

Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster and Eric Effron.

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1. By the Numbers: 300 Vaccine False Claims and Counting

We reached a grim milestone at NewsGuard this week … 

What happened: NewsGuard analysts have now debunked more than 300 vaccine-related false narratives.

• Together, these false narratives have been advanced by 4,387 websites and other news sources and social media accounts. 

Here are some of NewsGuard Health Editor John Gregory’s “favorites”: Click on the description to read NewsGuard’s detailed debunks.

• Early polio vaccines are the cause of RSV

• Fibrous blood clots reported by embalmers are proof of widespread deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines

• Thirty New Zealanders died after receiving COVID-19 vaccines at same clinic

• COVID-19 vaccine destroys natural immunity

• No vaccines have been tested in placebo-controlled clinical trials

Most Surprising fact: Two-thirds of all the news and information websites that NewsGuard has rated as untrustworthy since our launch in 2018 publish health care misinformation — including many sources that were spreading health care misinformation even before COVID-19.

For more information about the 300-plus false narratives, click here.

From “The Death of Truth” by NewsGuard Co-CEO Steven Brill, to be published this spring.

2. Microsoft’s Diabolical Plan to Shut Down Misinformation-Spreading Devices Is … Misinformation

By Coalter Palmer, contributing: Hilary Hersh

It sounds like a scene out of a sci-fi movie: a Big Tech company remotely disabling the computers of people who supposedly spread misinformation. A low-quality website managed to get a lot of people to believe this was happening after it misrepresented an NBC News interview with Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella. 

What happened: Social media users and unreliable news sites are boosting a false claim that Microsoft plans to disable the devices of customers who share “misinformation” online.

Who’s behind it: The false claim originated in an article by ThePeoplesVoice.tv (NewsGuard Trust Score: 0/100), a website that has published false claims about COVID-19 and U.S. politics, among other topics. 

• Citing an authentic, Jan. 30, 2024, NBC News (Trust Score: 100/100) interview with Nadella, ThePeoplesVoice.tv said that “Microsoft has announced plans to disable the computers of people who share ‘non-mainstream’ content online, in an attempt to combat so-called ‘misinformation’ in the run-up to the 2024 election.”

Actually: While Nadella did speak broadly in the interview about combating misinformation ahead of the 2024 election, he said nothing about disabling computers and never uttered the phrase “non-mainstream content.”

In other words, The People’s Voice totally falsified the interview. 

• In a Feb. 12, 2024, email, a Microsoft spokesperson told NewsGuard that “there are no plans to disable any computers for users.” ThePeoplesVoice.tv did not respond to a request for comment sent through the site’s contact form.

A closer look: In addition to The People’s Voice, the false claim was amplified on X by accounts including @DrLoupis, @RobinDelEspacio, and @Sprinter99800, as well as on Facebook, Truth Social, Reddit, and Telegram. 

• The bogus claim was also advanced by conservative site SurviveTheNews.com (Trust Score: 0/100), far-right conspiracy sites Planet-Today.com (Trust Score: 12.5/100), OperationDisclosureOfficial.com (Trust Score: 32.5/100), and the Russian-state-owned site en.InterAffairs.ru (Trust Score: 32.5/100).

(Disclosure: Microsoft is a licensee of NewsGuard.)

3. The ‘Texit’ That Wasn’t: Pro-China Commentators Claim Texas Declared War on the U.S.

By Elisa Xu

What Happened: Pro-China commentators are falsely claiming that Texas has declared a “state of war” against the U.S. government. 

Big picture: Why is China pushing this Texas-sized myth? The backdrop is that the Biden administration and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are engaged in a dispute over illegal border crossings. 

• China apparently sees this political dispute as a way to make the U.S. look dysfunctional and exacerbate the nation’s political polarization. 

A closer look: Pro-China commentator Gansu Chen Weidong (甘肃陈卫东) said in a post on the Chinese blogging platform Sohu, in Chinese: “The U.S. state of Texas has declared a state of war, and is preparing for a bloody battle with the Biden administration … It can be said that the consequences will be unimaginable.” The post was viewed 17,000 times as of Feb. 9, 2024.

Um, no: Abbott has not declared a state of war against the U.S. government. 

• While Abbott’s office put out a press release highlighting the disagreement between Texas and the U.S. federal government, the statement was not in any way a declaration of war. 

But the story gets more outlandish with Russian help …

Russian commentators and far right-wing American websites are also advancing the claim that Russia’s United Nations representative, Vasily Nebenzya, announced that Russia is providing Texas with weapons to support the state in its fight with the U.S. government.

In fact, Nebenzya did not make this statement, according to a spokesperson for the Russian Mission to the United Nations, Evgeny Uspenskiy, who told PolitiFact that the “information is fake.” Searches by NewsGuard did not surface any such quotes by Nebenzya.

Produced by co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.

We launched Reality Check after seeing how much interest there is in our work beyond the business and tech communities that we serve. Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Have feedback? Send us an email: realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.

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Today:

• ​​Field of conspiracies: Super Bowl rigging claims tackle reality

• Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview is a propaganda bonanza

• Swipe left on vaccines: Unjected, the dating site for the unvaccinated, gets a boost

And more…

Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster and Eric Effron.

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AI Content Farm Tracker: 702 Sites and Counting

AI content farms are taking over the internet, and NewsGuard analysts track their spread. Read more about AI content farms, and how they are proliferating:

1. ‘This Game is Fake’: Super Bowl Conspiracy Theorists Work Overtime

By Sam Howard

Sorry, 49ers fans and Taylor Swift haters, there’s no evidence that the Super Bowl was rigged. 

What happened: A simple on-air graphic error by CBS during Sunday night’s broadcast led hoaxers and conspiracy theorists on TikTok to claim that the Super Bowl was rigged in favor of the Kansas City Chiefs. 

Big picture: The conspiracy theory is part of a broader narrative that claims Democrats and Taylor Swift (who is dating Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce) are conspiring to sway the American public to vote for Joe Biden in 2024. 

A closer look: Citing the CBS broadcast of the Chiefs' final drive in regulation time, those saying the fix was in claimed to catch the NFL red-handed trying to rig the game for the Chiefs. 

“Last night the @NFL just handed @Chiefs a fresh set of downs, right in front of everyone at a crucial moment in a drive and NO ONE said a word!!” the caption stated for one TikTok video posted by an account for a podcast called “Rained Out Rantcast.” The video had been viewed 2.9 million times as of Feb. 14. 

• Rained Out Rantcast’s video showed the CBS on-air graphic changing from first down to second down, then back to first down, following a short run by Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes during the game-tying fourth-quarter drive. 

• Not following us? Try watching Rained Out Rantcast’s video, embedded below, to try to wrap your head around this Super Bowl conspiracy theory.

It’s not just Rantcast. NewsGuard found three other viral TikTok videos citing the same clip as “proof” that the Super Bowl was rigged for the Chiefs. Collectively, the videos were viewed 5.7 million times. 

Actually: Neither the NFL nor CBS gave the Chiefs a new set of downs. It was just a mix-up by the CBS announcing and production team. 

• CBS play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz at first thought that the drive’s opening play, a pass to none other than Taylor Swift’s Kelce, was a first down — but referees ruled Kelce short. What some social media users thought was a sign of game-rigging was just CBS fixing its on-air graphic to reflect the actual state of play.

Nantz explained this on the broadcast right away. Acknowledging his mistake, Nantz said: The “first play was not a first down, so now Mahomes has it with that little run right there. They marked Kelce short on it. I didn’t see it that way.” The conspiracy theory TikTokers chose to ignore this clarification.

2. Putin Propaganda: Tucker Carlson’s Interview Amplified by Russian State-Operated TikTok Accounts

By Sam Howard

What happened: The TikTok accounts of Russia’s top state-owned news sites are hard at work turning conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s Feb. 6 interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin into a propaganda campaign aimed at young people.

A closer look: Through Feb. 12, Russian state-controlled accounts including, RT (Trust Score: 20/100)  and Sputnik (Trust Score: 27.5/100), posted more than 30 clips from the interview, which the former Fox News host posted on his X account.  

• Cumulatively, these clips have been viewed 7.2 million times. The accounts are all region- or language-specific Russian state media affiliates, including Sputnik Belarus, RT en Español, Sputnik Serbia, and RT English. State-run accounts posted interview clips — and in at least one case, the entire two-hour interview — on X and Instagram, as well. 

During the interview, Carlson failed to correct Putin’s false assertions, such as Putin calling Ukraine “an artificial state” (it is a real, internationally recognized nation) and asserting that Poland, not Hitler, was responsible for starting World War II.

Big picture: The most-watched TikTok video posted by a Russian state-sponsored outlet was a Feb. 9 clip from RT en Español showing Putin telling Carlson that “the United States controls all the world’s media and many European media.” (Not true.)

3. And one last thing: Unvaccinated Version of Tinder Gets Valentine’s Day Boost

By John Gregory

What happened: Misinformation websites and TV shows are hyping a dating site aimed at people who refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines.

• The dating site, called Unjected, describes itself as “The world’s first platform for the unvaccinated.” It launched in May 2021, but in the runup to Valentine’s Day, low-quality sites and TV networks, including far-right news site The Gateway Pundit (Trust Score: 30/100) and the conservative TV channel One America News (Trust Score: 25/100)  heavily promoted the site. 

A closer look: “The World’s First Dating Website for the UNVACCINATED is Here!” stated the headline of a Feb. 4 Gateway Pundit article (which was not labeled as a paid placement). 

• Unjected co-founder Shelby Hosana is quoted in the The Gateway Pundit article stating:  “Vaccination by insemination is something that concerns some women.” 

Hosana made similar claims in a Feb. 8 interview on One America News. Both the OAN interview and The Gateway Pundit article included discount codes for Unjected memberships.

Actually: Women don’t need to be worried about getting “vaccination by insemination.”

• That’s just not how vaccines work. The whole idea is based on a longstanding myth that COVID vaccines “shed” onto other people, which can't happen because the vaccines don't contain any live virus.

Big picture: Unjected is owned by The Wellness Company, a firm headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The Wellness Company markets medical kits supposedly for treating COVID, but that prominently feature ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug found in numerous clinical trials to be ineffective against COVID.

Produced by co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.

We launched Reality Check after seeing how much interest there is in our work beyond the business and tech communities that we serve. Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Have feedback? Send us an email: realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.

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NewsGuard Commentary: Tucker Carlson-Vladimir Putin Interview Makes the Case for More Information

By Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard Co-CEO

We founded NewsGuard as a free-speech alternative to either governments or digital platforms censoring news. Instead, our mission is to give readers more information about the news sources and claims they see online. Last week’s interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin by Tucker Carlson is a strong argument for why people could benefit from access to more information about who’s feeding them the news.

WARNING: TuckerCarlson.com gets a 17.5/100 rating from NewsGuard, along with this warning: “Proceed with Maximum Caution: This website is unreliable because it severely violates basic journalistic standards.” (Read NewsGuard's Nutrition Label here.) Among Carlson’s earlier false claims: That the U.S. operates bioweapons labs in Ukraine, which is Kremlin disinformation to justify its invasion. The untrustworthy rating and warning for Carlson’s website thus “pre-bunks” whatever new falsehoods he promotes next.

Carlson’s former Fox News colleague Chris Wallace called him an “eager puppy” for failing to ask Putin why he invaded Ukraine, why his military targets civilians or about the war crimes they have committed. Carlson failed to push back on Putin’s claim that the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine was run by the CIA. Even when asking about jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Carlson said “maybe he was breaking your law in some way,” an assertion of guilt for which there is no evidence.

But even this fawning interview is an argument for providing more information about news sources and claims, not for censoring or otherwise blocking what was said.

Most amazing claim: Putin offered an eye-opening lecture on the history of Eastern European geopolitics to justify his invasion of Ukraine. “Poland cooperated with Germany, but then it refused to comply with Hitler’s demands,” Putin told Carlson. “By not ceding the Danzig Corridor to Hitler, Poles forced him, they overplayed their hand, and they forced Hitler to start the Second World War by attacking Poland.” In other words, while Carlson sat there silently, Putin actually blamed Poland for World War II, giving Westerners startling clarity into his might-makes-right thinking.

Ukraine Now = Poland 1939; Putin = Hitler: As Russia expert Masha Gessen wrote in the New Yorker: “The idea that the victim of the attack serves as its instigator by forcing the hand of the aggressor is central to all of Putin’s explanations for Russia’s war in Ukraine. To my knowledge, though, this was the first time he described Hitler’s aggression in the same terms.”

Carlson failed by letting Putin spread propaganda and leaving false claims unchecked. But censorship is not the answer. It’s good that people got to see this interview and to learn Putin’s self-justifications. It would be that much better if everyone watching it had more information about the “journalist” who promoted Putin’s claims, including his standards and his agenda.

We launched Reality Check after seeing how much interest there is in our work beyond the business and tech communities that we serve. Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Have feedback? Send us an email: realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.

Share NewsGuard’s Substack

This week:

• Kremlin Corrects Tucker Carlson

• Starbucks Stir-Up: The Tale of the Watermelon Mug

• Commentary: Why Trump Trials Make Cameras in the Court More Important than Ever

• AI Fakery in Focus: Biden's Military Camo Controversy

And more…

Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster and Eric Effron.

Subscribe now

1. ‘Mr. Carlson is Wrong’: The Kremlin Fact-Checks Tucker Carlson

By Jack Brewster and Sam Howard

What happened: The Kremlin did our job for us this week when it debunked a misleading claim that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson made in a viral promotional video.

In a Feb. 6, 2024, video touting his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Carlson said that “not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview” Putin during the Ukraine war.

Actually: That’s missing basic context. Asked if it’s true that no Western journalist has requested to interview Putin in the last two years, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Russian: “Mr. Carlson is wrong. In fact, he can't know that.”

• Peskov added: "We receive numerous requests for interviews with the president, but mostly, as far as countries in the collective West are concerned, these are from major network media: traditional TV channels and large newspapers that don’t even attempt to appear impartial in their coverage. Of course, there’s no desire to communicate with this kind of media.”

A closer look: Peskov’s comments ring true to journalists from the BBC and CNN, who said their numerous requests to interview Putin have consistently been rebuffed. 

• “Does Tucker really think we journalists haven't been trying to interview President Putin every day since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine? It's absurd,” CNN’s Christiane Amanpour said in a Feb. 6 post on X. “We’ll continue to ask for an interview, just as we have for years now.”

Although the former Fox News host has regularly criticized U.S. support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, Peskov asserted that Carlson is “in no way pro-Russian.” In his promo video, Carlson said his team also has requested an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, stating, “We hope he accepts.”

Watch Carlson’s promotional video here:

2. Grande Misunderstanding: Starbucks Stirred by Watermelon Mug Misinformation

By Jack Brewster and Coalter Palmer

What happened: Misinformers are targeting Starbucks … again. Social media users supporting a boycott of Starbucks by people claiming the company supports Israel in the Israel-Hamas war are falsely claiming that Starbucks released a mug featuring a watermelon design in order to regain the business of the activists boycotting the company. 

A closer look: The false narrative suggests that Starbucks aimed to trick activists into ending their boycott of the company by aligning with their cause through imagery associated with Palestinian solidarity. 

• The watermelon symbol, which shares colors with the Palestinian flag, emerged as a symbol of Palestinian solidarity after Israel banned the flying of the Palestinian flag during the Six-Day War in 1967.

Example: On Jan. 16, 2024, TikTok user @realgodivagoddess posted an image of Starbucks’ watermelon mug next to the caption, “a simple ceasefire post was all that was requested… instead, they giving [sic] us watermelon mugs.” The post had 877,800 views as of Feb. 8, 2024.

Watch the video by clicking below:

Actually: Starbucks did release a watermelon mug, but this happened in May 2023, five months before the Israel-Hamas war. 

• In January 2024, Jaci Anderson, a spokesperson for Starbucks, told Agence France-Presse: “The mug in question was launched in May of 2023 as part of our summer collection in the UK and has no tie to the current conflict in the Middle East.”

Tricks of our trade: The TikTok video cited above remains on the platform, but there’s a good chance it will be removed following publication of this report. NewsGuard uses a website called Tik.fail to archive TikTok videos containing misinformation, so our readers can still see the videos even after they’ve been taken down.

Big picture: Starbucks probably isn’t shocked by the latest false claim circulating about its popular brand. 

• Other false narratives targeting Starbucks since the start of the Israel-Hamas war include claims that Starbucks rebranded as “Vista Coffee” to avoid a boycott by pro-Palestinian activists and that Starbucks supports Israel and the genocide of Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war. The latter claim is the basis of the calls for a boycott.

3. Latest Phony False-Flag Claim: Conspiracy Theorists Say Explosive Devices Found on Jan. 6, 2021, Were Planted by the Government

By Becca Schimmel

What happened: More than three years after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, conspiracy theorists are spinning a new false narrative about that fateful day: that pipe bombs discovered in Washington on Jan. 6 never posed a real threat and were merely a ruse by the government to damage then-President Donald Trump. 

A closer look: As evidence, misinformers are sharing a video supposedly showing a pipe bomb being discovered near the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee by Secret Service agents on Jan. 6. 

• In the video, which has no audio, the agents seem to mill about and talk to each other nonchalantly. 

Enter Tucker Carlson: Citing the video, Carlson stated in a January 2024 post on X: “It seems likely that government officials were involved in planting pipe bombs in Washington, DC three years ago, as part of an effort to keep Donald Trump from running for president again.” The post drew approximately 84,800 likes and 30,100 reposts as of Feb. 1, 2024.

The video was cited by other sites and social media accounts known for spreading misinformation, including Revolver News (NewsGuard Trust Score: 7.5/100). “The January 6 pipe bombs are 100% a hoax and 100% a cover-up,” Revolver reported.

Actually: The FBI has stated multiple times that the pipe bombs’ potential for harm was real. In a March 9, 2022, video, the FBI stated that “These pipe bombs were viable devices that could have been detonated, resulting in serious injury or death.” The FBI has not determined who planted the devices, according to a Jan. 4, 2024, FBI statement.

Who’s behind it: The footage circulated by Carlson and others was first shared on YouTube in July 2023 by Republican U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Massie’s office told NewsGuard in an email that the video is Capitol Police security footage that was obtained by the House Administration Committee. 

• The Carlson Effect: Following Carlson’s Jan. 18, 2024, post on X, views of Massie’s YouTube video jumped from 1,100 views on Jan. 17, 2024, to approximately 75,000 as of Feb. 2.

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4. Rocket Mortgage's ‘Jewish Loan’ Lore Laid Bare

By Coalter Palmer

America's largest mortgage lender is a target of some of the most prominent antisemitic conspiracy theorists in the country.

What happened: Misinformers known for spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories, including far-right commentator Stew Peters, are falsely claiming that Rocket Mortgage offers interest-free loans to its Jewish customers.

“Rocket Mortgage gives interest-free loans to Jews but not gentiles,” Peters wrote. “HOLY S**T.” The post on X, which now features a Community Note fact-check, had 1.2 million views as of Feb. 5, 2024.

Actually: Strict Jewish law does prohibit Jews from charging interest to other Jews. So, Rocket Mortgage, which has Jewish owners, instead offers Jews the option of a “heter iska,” a Hebrew term that translates to “business permit.” 

However, “heter iska” arrangements are not interest-free loans. Rather, both parties share in the profits of the investment, which allows for payments for mortgages that function similarly to interest. 

A closer look: In the Who’s Who of misinformation, Stew Peters is a name you should know. 

• Peters has more than 500,000 followers on X and has spread dozens of conspiracy theories about everything from COVID-19 to claims that the earth is flat. (Yes, really.)

• He runs his own website, StewPeters.com, that receives a Trust Score of 7.5/100 from NewsGuard.

5. Anti-vaxxers’ Latest Bogus Warning: COVID-19 Vaccines Cause ‘Turbo Dementia’

By John Gregory

What happened: Anti-vaccine misinformers now claim that COVID-19 vaccines lead to a condition they refer to as “turbo dementia.” But there’s no credible evidence that such a condition even exists, let alone that it is caused by COVID vaccines.

A closer look: The false narrative appeared to gain traction following a Jan. 29, 2024, X post by anti-vaccine activist and tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch.

• “BREAKING: If your parents got dementia after getting the COVID vaccine, it's likely the vaccine that did it,” Kirsch said. 

• As evidence, Kirsch cited the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). As we’ve repeatedly reported, VAERS compiles unverified reports of adverse events post-vaccination, without confirming their occurrence or any causal or other connection to a vaccine. The key notion here is “unconfirmed.”

Turbo-charged misinformation:  Soon enough, “vaccine-induced dementia” became vaccine-induced “turbo-dementia.” 

• In a Jan. 30 X post, John Beaudoin Sr., who unsuccessfully sued Massachusetts in 2022 seeking to block all COVID-19 vaccinations in the state, said, “Evidence shows it. Turbo dementia is just as much a thing as turbo cancer from these [vaccines].”

Actually: Neither COVID-19 vaccine-induced “turbo dementia” nor COVID-19 vaccine-induced cancer are “a thing,” as Beaudoin put it. 

• Heather Snyder, vice president of medical and scientific relations for the U.S. Alzheimer’s Association, told NewsGuard in a Jan. 31, 2024, email, “There is no peer-reviewed, scientific evidence that COVID vaccines increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's and dementia, or that they cause those diseases to become more aggressive."

6. NewsGuard Commentary: Americans Will Believe the Trump Verdict Only if They Can See It

By Steven Brill, NewsGuard co-CEO (and founder of CourtTV)

Federal court rules do not allow cameras in any criminal trials. However, no matter which side of the federal case that accuses former President Donald Trump of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election loss you may be rooting for, you should want those rules to be suspended so that this trial can be televised live. 

The last thing our country and the world needs is for this trial to become the ultimate divisive spin game, in which each side roots for its team online and on the cable news networks as if cheering from the bleachers. Much of that would still happen, but imagine how a quiet and methodical, but sure to be riveting, presentation of both sides’ arguments — subject to the rules of evidence and decorum of a federal court, not the algorithms of Facebook and Twitter — might temper the national mood when a verdict is announced. At the least, it will make people more informed about what could be the single most important activity their government will conduct in their lifetimes.

Keep reading (Note: New York Times article, subscription may be required)

7. And one last thing: GI Joe? Biden in Military Camo Is an AI Fake

By Natalie Adams

What happened: Hoaxsters are sharing AI-generated images of U.S. President Joe Biden in military attire, in an effort to stoke fears of a broader conflict in the Middle East.

The deceptive image even apparently fooled Donald Trump Jr., the former president's eldest son, who compared it on X to former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis' infamous tank photo, calling it “So Cringe.”

Big picture: The AI-generated images of President Biden emerged on social media following the Iran-linked drone strike that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan on Jan. 28, 2024. Commentators claimed that the photo depicted President Biden and U.S. military leaders responding to the strike.

Who’s behind it: The fake image appeared to originate with a Jan. 29, 2024, X post by user @Sprinter99800, an anonymous account that has repeatedly spread misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war. 

• @Sprinter99800 said: “Biden is right now in a meeting with the country's top military leadership,” and included the AI-generated image. (As of February 2024, the post included a Community Note stating that the image is AI-generated.)

A closer look: Hive, one of the AI-detection tools used by NewsGuard, rates the images as 100 percent AI generated.

Produced by co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.

We launched Reality Check after seeing how much interest there is in our work beyond the business and tech communities that we serve. Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Have feedback? Send us an email: realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.

Share NewsGuard’s Substack

This week:

• Taylor Swift injustice: When a superstar becomes a misinformation meme

• YouTube: The Russian Disinformation Incubator 

• Why anti-vaxxers love “The Brady Bunch”

• The case of the photoshopped rabbi

And more…

Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster and Eric Effron.

Subscribe now

1. The Taylor Swift “Government Asset” Myth, Dissected

By Macrina Wang

Taylor Swift is hitting the high notes in the chart of misinformation topics, joining the likes of George Soros and Bill Gates as go-to targets for misinformers. That’s why for the second week in a row, Reality Check is leading with a story about false narratives surrounding the pop star.

What happened: In the past two months, more than a dozen right-wing sites, including InfoWars.com (NewsGuard Trust Score: 7.5/100) and Before It’s News (Trust Score: 0/100), have advanced bogus claims about the pop star. Among them: that she has been deployed by the CIA, the Pentagon and/or top Democrats to boost support for President Joe Biden’s re-election bid in a psyop — a secret psychological-operation campaign to influence public opinion. 

For example: Alternative news site StateOfTheNation.co (Trust Score: 12.5/100) said in a Jan. 30, 2024, article that Swift is part of a CIA-directed “global psyop” to “provide the exceedingly desperate [President Joe] Biden with the single most valuable endorsement of his entire time as a political career criminal.”

Actually: It’s true that Swift has publicly supported some Democratic politicians since 2018, including then-presidential candidate Biden in 2020. But that’s a far cry from Swift being a CIA asset.

A Swiftian timeline: The false claim went mainstream on Jan. 9, when Fox News’ most popular prime-time host, Jesse Watters, suggested on his show that Swift is an “asset” for the Pentagon. The false narrative has a longer origin story than you might expect. Here’s the timeline:

1. George Soros comes to town: Like many conspiracy theories, this one began with a tenuous George Soros connection. On Aug. 21, 2023, Mike Benz, an official in the Trump administration’s State Department, claimed that the buyout of Swift’s music catalog in 2019 by a company the Soros family has invested in was evidence that Swift was “being wielded as a weapon of US statecraft.”

2. Fox runs with it: On Jan. 9, 2024, Fox News’ Watters said on his prime-time show that a video showed how the “Pentagon’s psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset.” Watters played a video of a May 2019 NATO conference during which a speaker, a data engineer named Alicia Marie Bargar, said that influencers can “help encourage or promote behavior change.” Bargar then gave Swift as an example of an influential person who can help “share information or a particular message.” 

   • Actually: The talk does not support anything about a Pentagon strategy to use Swift to spread propaganda. Bargar does not work for NATO or the U.S. government, and in any case she never even made a claim or even hinted anything about Swift being involved in any government-related activity.

3. The Vivek factor: On Jan. 29, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy added a new twist to the conspiracy theory, suggesting that the upcoming Super Bowl could be rigged for the Kansas City Chiefs to provide a massive platform for Swift to endorse President Biden. Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, plays for the Chiefs.

   • Ramaswamy said in an X post, “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”anything about Swift being involved in any government-related activity.

4. If AI says it, it must be true: Then AI joined the fray. On Jan. 31, InfoWars cited X’s AI chatbot Grok to support the psyop claim. The site posted a screenshot of an X user asking Grok, “Are Democrats and Joe Biden using Taylor Swift as a prop to influence voters and interfere in the Presidential election?” 

   Grok answered, “Based on the available information, it appears that Democrats and Joe Biden are indeed leveraging Taylor Swift’s influence to sway young voters in the 2024 election.”

Further reading: Taylor Swift also fell victim to explicit AI-made pictures appropriating her image on X. The spread of these images led a bipartisan group of U.S. senators to propose a bill that would criminalize nonconsensual AI deepfake porn.

2. The Disinformation Incubator: Kremlin Uses YouTube to Seed Anti-Ukraine Claims

By Eva Maitland

YouTube has become the Kremlin’s favorite incubator for Russian disinformation, deploying a sophisticated disinformation tactic to influence perception about the Russia-Ukraine war.

Tricks of their trade: Pro-Kremlin propagandists use false claims originating on YouTube as authoritative sources to discredit Ukraine and undermine Western support. They then spread those claims, citing YouTube.

• Over six months, we’ve identified seven viral false narratives about Ukraine that originated on anonymous YouTube channels.

• These include false narratives about Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky purchasing luxury properties — including a villa once owned by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels — and Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska's supposed extravagant spending.

A closer look: The videos follow a similar pattern …

1. A YouTube nobody: Posing as "journalists" or "whistleblowers," the individuals in the YouTube videos falsely claim to possess evidence of corruption in the Ukrainian government. 

2. Fake personas, fake documents: The supposed “journalist” or “whistleblower” appears to be operating under false personas. They also cite fabricated documents.

3. Viral spread on fringe sites: These YouTube videos gain traction as they are shared by numerous obscure pro-Kremlin websites and other platforms, further spreading the misinformation.

4. Mainstream Russian media amplification: Shortly after, the claim reaches more prominent, state-sponsored Russian media, which cite the original false claim as the authority, and it is amplified thousands of times across social media platforms.

The key trick: Disinformation researchers at Clemson University describe this technique as “narrative laundering,” whereby a detailed firsthand account is made to go viral in a manner that appears organic, thus giving the claim more credibility. 

• Think of it as digital astroturfing, creating a facade of grassroots support where none exists.

Big picture: The YouTube disinformers have had an impact on actual policymaking. 

• In December 2023, three members of the U.S. Congress cited the false claim that Zelensky purchased two yachts worth $75 million as a justification to halt continued aid to Ukraine, the BBC (Trust Score: 95/100) reported. 

YouTube, which does not require people to use their real identities when creating accounts or posting videos, did not respond to a NewsGuard request for comment.

3. Deploying “The Brady Bunch” to Push an Anti-Vax Agenda

By John Gregory

Anti-vaxxers are giving new meaning to the term “rerun.”

What happened: As measles outbreaks have hit the U.S., U.K, and continental Europe, misinformers are citing an unlikely authority to portray the disease as low risk: A 1969 episode of “The Brady Bunch,” a popular sitcom that ran for five years in the U.S. on the ABC network.

• On Jan. 14, 2024, singer/songwriter Brad Skistimas, who performs under the name Five Times August, posted a clip of the episode to his 195,000 X followers. In the video, character Marcia Brady says, “If you have to get sick, sure can’t beat the measles,” suggesting the disease is nothing to worry about. 

• The clip also shows several of the Brady children who are infected with measles happily staying home from school before making a quick recovery. Skistimas captioned the video, “Measles Reminder.”

Watch the clip below:

Who’s behind it: Skistimas took the clip from an Oct. 7, 2023, post from the X account of health supplement store NaturallyFTW.com, which had a more pointed message about the measles for its 155,000 followers: “Big Pharma got this 1969 episode of The Brady Bunch pulled from TV in 2019. Because if we knew Measles has a ~100% survival rate, they couldn't scare us into accepting school Mandates for their toxic injections.” 

Actually: CDC.gov (Trust Score: 100/100) says that measles can result in serious complications, including pneumonia, swelling of the brain, and in rare cases, death. Rather than being “toxic injections,” measles vaccines have prevented 56 million deaths worldwide between 2000 and 2021, according to the World Health Organization, and have effectively ended measles transmission in 81 countries as of 2020.

It is also baseless to claim that the episode was “pulled from TV” under pressure from pharmaceutical companies. The Associated Press (Trust Score: 95/100) reported in a 2019 fact-checking article that several “Brady Bunch'' episodes, including the one about measles, are not available due to licensing issues.

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4. Misinformers Claim Real Video of Pentagon Chief, Alive, Is AI-Generated

By Virginia Padovese and Giulia Pozzi

Forget creating fake AI photos and videos. Misinformers’ new tactic is claiming real photos and videos are AI fakes. 

What happened: For weeks, pro-Kremlin news sites and social media accounts in multiple languages have falsely claimed that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was killed in a Russian missile attack in Ukraine. 

• Now that Austin is back to work following time in the hospital to treat his prostate cancer, misinformers are claiming that a recent appearance at a virtual meeting was AI-generated and not real. 

A closer look: “This is likely AI generated,” stated X user @Scott4670 in a Jan. 24, 2024, post, referring to a clip showing Austin speaking at a Jan. 23 virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. “If they really want to establish that Lloyd Austin is alive, and was not killed in a missile strike in Ukraine, they need to hold a press conference. With live question and answer.”

• Another X user, US Civil Defense News,” stated: “Update: US War Chief rumored to be dead appeared today in a ‘live video chat’ during a NATO Ukrainian War Council meeting! Is he alive? Or was he replaced? AI generated bot??” US Civil Defense News’ account has more than 32,000 followers on X.

Actually: Austin is alive. The defense secretary returned to work at the Pentagon on Jan. 29, after working from home during his recovery from surgery and subsequent complications.

Who’s behind it: The false claim that Austin was killed in a Russian missile strike in Ukraine first circulated in early January, following a Jan. 7, 2024, report by Real Raw News (Trust Score: 7.5/100). 

• Citing a “Russian FSB [Federal Security Service] source,” the Real Raw News report claimed that Austin was killed in Ukraine “when Russian cruise missiles peltered a command bunker.”

5. Iran State Media Claim Trump Said 9/11 Was the “Work of the U.S.”

By McKenzie Sadeghi

Donald Trump has advanced lots of conspiracy theories, but this isn’t one of them.

What happened: Iranian state media misrepresented Trump’s remarks during a campaign victory speech in New Hampshire, falsely claiming that he said 9/11 was the “work of the U.S.”

• Iranian state-run media outlets circulated a video clip with the title, “Trump: There was no attack on the World Trade Center towers.”

• In the text of the article and the subtitles of the video, the Iranian outlets reported that Trump said: “There was no attack on the towers of the World Trade Center,” and “The 9/11 attack was the work of the United States."

Actually: At no point in his Jan. 22, 2024, New Hampshire primary victory speech did Trump deny the attacks on the World Trade Center or claim that 9/11 was an inside job. 

The clip, taken from Trump’s speech in New Hampshire, shows that Trump said the U.S. did not suffer any deadly terrorist attacks during his time in office, crediting his travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries.

Watch the full video of Trump speaking by clicking here. Watch the edited version below:

6. NewsGuard Commentary: YouTube Lets the Kremlin Get Away with Seeding Disinformation

By Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard Co-CEO

This week’s item above about how many villas Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky owns — or more accurately, doesn’t own — shows how Russian disinformation operations brilliantly use YouTube to incubate false claims. The Kremlin has a long history of citing false claims previously “seeded” on YouTube channels, such as that Zelensky bought the villa in Germany once owned by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. These false claims pre-positioned on unreliable YouTube are then cited as authoritative sources by Russian disinformation outlets.

Perhaps the most newsworthy example of pre-positioning a false claim came in November 2021, months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when a YouTube channel operated by an American granted asylum in Moscow and known for spreading Russian disinformation claimed that the U.S. operated bioweapons labs in Ukraine. In a report on Russia’s cyber war on Ukraine, Microsoft researchers noted that “the story went largely unnoticed for months,” but on Feb. 24, 2022, “just as Russian tanks crossed the border, this narrative was sent into battle.” 

Here’s how, according to the Microsoft report: “A data analytics team at Microsoft has identified 10 Russian-controlled or influenced news sites that simultaneously published reports on February 24 pointing back to ‘last year’s report’ and seeking to give it credence. Russian-sponsored teams then worked to amplify the narrative on social media and internet sites more broadly.”

There is a way to prevent the harm of pre-positioned false claims, whether about Zelensky’s non-existent villas or the U.S.’s non-existent bioweapons labs in Ukraine: YouTube could empower its users by “pre-bunking” its channels known to spread false claims by providing warnings to its users of the kind NewsGuard provides about unreliable news sources. Despite YouTube’s long history of acting as a valued incubator for Russian disinformation, it refuses to give its users access to information about who’s feeding them the “news” on its platform. The Kremlin wins, but news consumers — and the truth — lose.

7. And one last thing: Iran photoshopped a photo of a rabbi

By McKenzie Sadeghi

What happened: On Jan. 15, 2023, Iran launched missiles into the Kurdish city of Erbil, striking the home of Kurdish businessman Peshraw Dizayee, killing him, his daughter, and his housekeeper. Iran then claimed it had proof that Dizayee’s home was a base for Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, apparently to justify the deaths caused by its missile strike. 

• The proof? Iranian media published a photo supposedly showing Dizayee with the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, who Iranian state media said was “a strategic partner of Mossad.”

Actually, a reverse-image search by NewsGuard determined that an actual photo of the rabbi was doctored to include Dizayee. There is no evidence the two men ever met, and there is no evidence that Dizayee had any ties to Mossad.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the real photo (below, left) and fake one:

Tricks of our trade: To find the source of an image, you can use Google's Reverse Image Search. This tool allows you to upload or link to an image to search for it across the web. See below for steps detailing how to use the tool:

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This week:

• Taylor Swift gets the deep fake treatment; Facebook fails to shake it off

• Spoof country song targets Disney and other top brands  

• BBC brand hijacked to spread Ukraine misinformation

• No, the Eiffel Tower did not catch fire; it just looks like it did.

And more…

Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster and Eric Effron.

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1. Taylor Swift Latest Target of AI-Created Fake Endorsements; Facebook Fails to Clean it Up

Call it the AI Ad War: Scammers have been swarming Facebook with fake endorsements purportedly from mega-celebrities, including Taylor Swift, peddling fancy pots and pans.  

What happened: On Jan. 9, 2024, Meta told The New York Times that it had taken down scam ads featuring deepfake audio of celebrities, including Swift, endorsing Le Creuset, a French-Belgian kitchenware company. 

• Yes, there were all these deep fakes. 

• But, no, Meta has not succeeded in taking them down. Our review of Meta’s public ad library found that as of Jan. 21, 2024, approximately 160 celebrity deepfake ads for Le Creuset appeared on Meta platforms such as Facebook since the social media company said that it took action.

Big picture: The fake endorsement trend signals a new threat to the $21 billion influencer industry, as bad actors are increasingly using AI to create realistic deepfake ads of celebrities endorsing various products. If consumers can’t tell a celebrity from a faked celebrity, the value of a celebrity endorsement could plummet.

A closer look: The fake Le Creuset ads mimic the voices of top celebrities—in addition to Taylor Swift, including Selena Gomez, Jennifer Lopez, and country singer Lainey Wilson. 

• “Hey y’all, it’s Taylor Swift here,” a voice resembling Swift’s said in one Facebook ad that was active as of Jan. 24, 2024. “Due to a packaging error, we can’t sell 3000 Le Creuset cookware sets. So I’m giving them away to my loyal fans for free. If you’re seeing this ad, you can get a free Le Creuset cookware set today.” 

Actually: Neither Swift nor Le Creuset had any involvement in the marketing scheme, and Swift’s voice was AI-generated. 

Watch the video of faked Taylor Swift by clicking below.

And here’s faked Selena Gomez.

Tricks of our trade: You, too, can search for AI scammers exploiting Meta users by searching the social media company’s public ad database. 

Help wanted: We need your help: Send us screenshots of AI-generated deepfakes that you find by emailing realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.

In response to an email inquiring about the findings detailed above, a spokesperson for Meta told NewsGuard that Meta’s policies prohibit “us[ing] public figures in a deceptive nature in order to try to scam people out of money.” 

• AI whack-a-mole: After NewsGuard contacted Meta about the 160 Le Creuset ads, the ads were removed. However, as of Jan. 24, 2024, another 60 ads had been added and were active. 

Taylor Swift is known for her memorable lyrics. These could apply to her fame if her Swifties can no longer tell if it’s her or the AI version of her: "Lord, what will become of me / Once I've lost my novelty?" (from "Nothing New”)

2. No, a Country Music Star Did Not Perform ‘Jokes on Wokes’ Targeting Bud Light, Disney and Other Major Brands

By Coalter Palmer

What Happened: TikTok users are being fooled into thinking that country music star Jason Aldean performs a song shouting obscenities at major brands, including  Adidas, Netflix, Starbucks, Bud Light, Disney, and Target. Aldean never sang such a song, or anything like it.

Who’s Behind It: The tune was produced by a satire account on TikTok called @JokesOnWokes, whose bio on TikTok states “MAKING FUN OF IT ALL.” However, other TikTok users copied and reshared @JokesOnWokes’ videos without indicating that these are spoofs. 

Actually: While originally presented as satire, as the song made its way around social media, the satire label got lost in the hoopla. There were even calls for boycotts to support the song that Aldean never sang. 

• “JASON ALDEAN GOES ALL IN ON WOKE CORPORATIONS, DISNEY TARGET BUD LIGHT YOU NAME IT! DO YOU AGREE?!... #budlightboycott,” the caption of one post on TikTok stated. “ty [Thank you] Jason Aldean for your music and for what you stand for! Jason Aldean is the man,” wrote another user. 

Big Picture: In NewsGuard’s Risk Briefings for clients, we’ve previously identified numerous examples of well-labeled satires that quickly became perceived to be real news, by consumers and news publishers alike. 

• This isn’t even the first time a country star has been at the center of a false narrative borne out of a misinterpretation of satire. In June 2023, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott innocently cited satire/hoax website Dunning-Kruger-Times.com in an X post claiming that Garth Brooks was booed off-stage at a Texas music festival, presumably over the perception that he is too liberal. However, the incident touted by Abbott never happened, and no such music festival was held. The governor was apparently duped into sharing a “news” story” by this hoax website. 

3. Website on the Way Down: NewsBreak.com

By McKenzie Sadeghi

The website of one of the world’s most popular news aggregation apps has had its NewsGuard Trust Score plummet following a January 2024 review. 

Closer look: NewsBreak.com, which is owned by Chinese media entrepreneur Jeff Zheng, gained significant popularity by republishing content from credible sources, including Reuters, NBC News, CNN, and various local newspapers.

• But the site also hosts a self-publishing platform called NewsBreak Original, which allows outside contributors and blogs to register, post, and monetize original content.

And? We’ve found that NewsBreak Original articles, which constitute a large portion of content on the site, now frequently advance false or egregiously misleading claims. 

• Example: A December 2023 NewsBreak Original article, titled “Questions Arise Over Zelensky-Linked Company's Purchase of Goebbels's Former Villa in Berlin,” falsely claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky bought Nazi minister Joseph Goebbels’ villa. 

• Actually: Zelensky did not buy Goebbels’ villa. The false claim, which NewsGuard previously debunked, is based on a doctored real estate agreement. You can read more about this false narrative by clicking here. 

Other NewsBreak Original articles falsely claimed that an Egyptian journalist was murdered by Ukrainian intelligence services and that Ukrainian militants participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. NewsGuard also found 21 articles published in 2023 that contained AI error messages specific to chatbots and that did not disclose that the articles were produced by AI.

• Readers are now warned by NewsGuard to “proceed with caution.” Read NewsGuard’s NewsBreak.com Nutrition Label by clicking here. 

This surprised us, too: In December 2023, NewsBreak.com was the 44th most-visited news website in the U.S., according to data from web analytics company SimilarWeb. 

Tricks of our Trade: Wondering how we search for false claims on websites? One of the tactics we use is involves searching for false narratives by using specific keywords plus words such as AND, OR, NOT to combine or exclude terms, effectively narrowing down search results to the most relevant results. 

• This method, called Boolean search, helps us efficiently sift through vast amounts of information to identify and verify potential misinformation. See an example below:

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4. Video Masquerading as from the BBC Claims Ukraine Paid PR Firms to Create ‘Fakes’ About the War

By Eva Maitland

Misinformers try to gain trust…by masquerading as trusted news brands.  

What happened: For the fifth time since October 2023, NewsGuard analysts have identified a viral video hijacking the brands of BBC (Trust Score: 95/100) and investigative news organization Bellingcat (Trust Score: 100/100) to advance disinformation about Ukraine.

Closer look: Pro-Kremlin social media sources are sharing a fabricated BBC video news report claiming that Bellingcat revealed that Ukraine paid British public relations companies $1.2 billion to “create fakes” about the war in Ukraine. 

• It’s all part of an ongoing disinformation campaign aimed at sowing doubts about support for Ukraine in its fight for survival against Russia. 

• Actually: There has been no such investigation by Bellingcat, and no such video was produced by the BBC.

Big picture: Consumers can be forgiven for falling for the hoax. The video — which stated that PR firms were hired for “the creation and distribution of fake visual materials about the successes of the Ukrainian army” — featured the BBC’s logo and branding and appeared authentic. 

• Rubbing it in: The video went on to say that the contract had not been renewed due to “declining approval of the country’s mobilization policy and the resulting drop in the rate of recruitment into the armed forces.”

5. Misinformation Superspreader Launches TV Streaming Venture

By Sam Howard

One of the most notorious misinformation superspreaders on the internet is coming to a Roku near you. 

What happened: TheGatewayPundit.com (Trust Score: 30/100) is moving into the video streaming market with a new show. 

• Backtrack: The Gateway Pundit, which gives even the most clueless pundit a bad name, earns its low trust rating from NewsGuard. The far-right website frequently advances false and egregiously misleading claims, including about U.S. politics, the Russia-Ukraine war, and COVID-19.

• It’s a news source for former President Donald Trump, who earlier this month in a Truth Social post cited a “birther” claim published by the site that falsely claimed that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is ineligible for the office of the presidency (she’s eligible because she was born in the U.S.).

• The site is so steeped in misinformation that even its online store sells merchandise bearing false claims: It sells mugs stating that 2022 Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake won the election (she did not), and sweatshirts stating that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was a “fed[eral]-op[eration]” (It was not).

Closer look: “Gateway: Beyond the Headlines” debuted Dec. 11 on the upstart Vigilant News Network (VNN) streaming channel, a project of another low credibility website, VigilantNews.com (Trust Score: 7.5/100). 

• “Gateway: Beyond the Headlines” resembles the website’s coverage. So far, the new streaming show has described COVID-19 vaccines as “the death clot shot” (Real-world studies have attested to the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines) and called President Joe Biden’s 2020 election the “election theft of 2020” (election officials affirmed the 2020 vote’s legitimacy). 

6. Commentary: How AI Will Democratize Misinformation in 2024

By Matt Skibinski, NewsGuard General Manager

When people think of disinformation issues like deepfakes, they often imagine sophisticated state-sponsored operations or highly funded political organizations up to dirty tricks. But thanks to advances in AI, that’s no longer the case. Artificial intelligence has empowered anyone with a keyboard to create fake news cheaply and at scale.

Anyone includes me.  

A few months ago, I wanted to see how hard it would be for someone to create a deepfake of a political figure. What I found shocked me: Despite having no expertise in AI or audio/video technology, and while multitasking on a Zoom call, it took me less than five minutes and $5 to create this fake robocall (You can also press the play button below) in which President Biden gives false information about voting logistics to Wisconsin voters.

I wrote about this experience in NiemanLab a few weeks ago, warning that 2024 will be the year AI “democratizes” misinformation to the masses. Sure enough, this past week NBC News reported that a robocall impersonating Joe Biden “told recipients not to vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary.”

In addition to audio and video deepfakes, our research shows that text-generation tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard have poor defenses against producing misinformation. In “Red-Teaming” exercises our team conducted based on false narrative data from our Misinformation Fingerprints tool, AI chatbots repeated misinformation 80-98% of the time. In my own recent test, it took just one prompt to get ChatGPT to write an article from a fake newspaper, the Madison Times-Index, reporting that “an unidentified box containing 27,428 uncounted ballots was discovered in the basement of a municipal building on the outskirts of Madison, Wisconsin.”

Consider the above in the context of the growth of so-called ‘pink slime’ websites—that is, sites funded by dark money on both sides of the political aisle that impersonate local newspapers to spread partisan propaganda. We project that these sites will outnumber real daily local newspapers in America this coming year. And now, AI tools offer such sites powerful tools to create their misleading content fast, cheaply, and with astounding precision. To prevent this, organizations across the media and technology industries will need to work together to put equally powerful protections in place.

7. One last thing… The Eiffel Tower Is Not on Fire, But AI Wants You to Think It Was

By Natalie Huet

What happened: AI-generated pictures of the Eiffel Tower on fire have racked up millions of views on TikTok and X in recent days. 

• “France is on fire,” read a Jan. 17, 2024, TikTok caption in Thai of an AI video of the iconic wrought-iron lattice tower in flames, followed by real footage of the Notre Dame Cathedral fire in April 2019. As of Jan. 22, the post had garnered more than 5.4 million views and 38,000 likes. 

• Similar TikTok posts mentioned in captions that the images were “fake” or “created by AI,” yet many users were still left confused, asking in comments “this real?” and “what happened?”

Watch the video by clicking here, or pressing the play button below.

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This week:

• ‘Entirely AI’-produced podcast plagiarizes mainstream sources

• A pro-Russia site delivers the trifecta of deceptive practices

• Al Jazeera’s descent into fiction

• The birth of birther 2.0

And more…

Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster and Eric Effron.

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1. A Podcast ‘Entirely’ Produced by AI: Hosted by AI, About AI, Using AI to Plagiarize

By Macrina Wang

This was bound to happen, we guess: A podcast boasting that it’s entirely AI produced has launched …. and has perfected the fine art of AI plagiarism.

• "The AI Report," a podcast covering AI and technology news that is hosted by two AI "anchors," recites verbatim news reports from a wide range of outlets, including The New York Times, CBS News, Fox News, and The Hill—all without credit. 

• Example: On the Dec. 29, 2023, episode, one of the AI anchors read part of a Dec. 27, 2023, Business Insider article word-for-word, stating, “Humanoid robots are already beginning to enter the workforce. Many people may not be too concerned about whether the machines threaten their jobs ...” Business Insider was not credited.

• Podcast Playground, the podcast platform that produces the show, did not respond to NewsGuard’s multiple requests for comment.

Big picture: AI models are trained on content available on the internet, including news articles. This podcast goes a step further: Presenting stolen stories as its own reporting.

• In addition to misinformation, AI has turbocharged plagiarism because, well, robots don’t care about journalism ethics. But do they worry about lawsuits?

Other ways bad actors use AI to plagiarize:

• In August 2023, NewsGuard was first to identify the emergence of AI content farms using AI to copy and rewrite content from mainstream sources without credit. In these cases, AI’s ability to scramble text just enough means that it is even harder to detect when a site copies content from another source. 

This could be called plagiarism squared: The original sin is that bots themselves are already trained on data from millions of articles from news sources, without permission. Now the plagiarism-trained machines are plagiarizing more directly. 

• In December 2023, The New York Times sued OpenAI for ChatGPT’s use of copyrighted material.

2. D.C. Weekly’s AI-Driven Propaganda Machine Wins Disinformation Triple Crown

By McKenzie Sadeghi

Disinformation Triple Crown Winner: Here’s a website that NewsGuard recently discovered (with the help of researchers at Clemson University) that is a hall of fame standout in the three classic ingredients of the most nefarious disinformation: 

1. Stunningly creative, elaborate false narratives—these folks really work at spinning great tales. 

2. Run by particularly diabolic bad actors—in this case, spreaders of Russian disinformation.

3. Trailblazing use of generative AI to spread false claims designed to be as divisive as possible.

Keep reading: DCWeekly.org isn’t your typical pro-Kremlin propaganda site. Masquerading as a local site in the U.S. capital, this operation stands out among disinformation campaigns, spreading false claims about Ukrainian officials supposedly purchasing lavish villas and luxury yachts.

Who’s behind it: The site doesn’t disclose its ownership, but Clemson University researchers reviewed IP addresses (unique numbers attached to every computer) and domain-registration records (official records associated with the registration of a domain name) and found that the site is hosted on a server in Moscow and that it is apparently owned by John Mark Dougan.

• Dougan is a former U.S. Marine and Florida police officer who, according to U.S. federal authorities, has previously been involved in Russian disinformation operations. According to U.S. officials, he fled to Moscow in 2016 and was granted asylum after his home was raided by the FBI, which alleged that he leaked confidential information about local officials. 

A closer look: DCWeekly.org crafts its articles to create and exploit divisions among Americans. It’s a vivid example of how AI can be strategically used to amplify disinformation. It uses generative AI to rewrite articles from mainstream sources, specifically prompting the technology to focus on rewriting partisan and divisive content based on specific scoring criteria the site established.

• For example, AI error messages inadvertently left in the text on the site have included, “Please note: The above article is presented in accordance with the provided context, which favors Republicans and Trump while portraying Democrats and Biden in a negative light.” 

• Context: AI error messages, which sometimes mistakenly appear in text, can provide clues about how bad actors intended to direct (which is to say, weaponize) a chatbot. 

• Tricks of our trade: You can spot AI generated text by looking for error messages yourself. These error messages include phrases commonly found in AI-generated texts, such as “Please note,” “as an AI language model,” and “I cannot complete this prompt,” among others.

3. Website on the Way Down: AlJazeera.com

AlJazeera.com’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war led to a drop in its NewsGuard Trust Score. NewsGuard now warns readers to “proceed with caution.”

(Click here to find out more about NewsGuard Trust Scores and our process for rating websites. You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.)

What happened: The NewsGuard Trust Score of AlJazeera.com, a prominent news source owned and funded by the Qatari government, dropped more than 25 points to 52/100 following a November 2023 NewsGuard assessment of the site. 

• NewsGuard analysts found that the website’s coverage of the Oct. 17, 2023, explosion at a Gaza hospital left the impression that Israel was clearly responsible, despite the fact that no definitive cause has been established. In fact, Western governments and media reports strongly point to a failed rocket fired from Gaza as the cause. See AlJazeera.com’s coverage here and here.

• With a 52/100 score, NewsGuard warns news consumers: “Proceed with Caution: This website generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability.”

Read NewsGuard’s AlJazeera.com Nutrition Label

Why it matters: The question of who caused the Oct. 17 explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza stands as one of the most hotly debated issues emerging from the war. Hamas instantly blamed Israel for the attack, and some Western news outlets initially relied on Hamas’ claims in their original reporting.

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4. Birther 2.0: How the Nikki Haley Birther Claim Made it to Trump’s Truth Social Account

By Sam Howard

What happened: A false claim that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is ineligible for the office of the presidency has taken off on social media and far-right news sites. And now former President Donald Trump, who championed the Barack Obama birther hoax, has jumped on the bandwagon. 

How birther 2.0 spread: 

1. The false claim about Haley apparently first emerged in a Dec. 24, 2023, article by far-right activist and commentator Laura Loomer on her website Loomered.com.

2. Other fringe sites took it from there. AmGreatness.com (NewsGuard Trust Score: 42/100), TheGatewayPundit.com (Trust Score: 30/100), CreativeDestructionMedia.com (Trust Score: 20/100), USSANews.com (Trust Score: 0/100), BeforeItsNews.com (Trust Score: 0/100), and SurviveTheNews.com (Trust Score: 0/100) all published articles advancing the false claim about Haley’s supposed ineligibility between Dec. 26, 2023, and Jan. 2, 2024. (You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.)

3. On Truth Social, Trump shared The Gateway Pundit’s coverage, which said that Haley’s parents’ immigration status “disqualifies Haley from presidential or vice-presidential candidacy.” 

And? They’re all wrong. The courts have consistently ruled that under the U.S. Constitution, anyone born in the U.S. is considered a natural-born citizen and therefore eligible to be president if they meet the other requirements. 

• Haley was born in South Carolina in 1972 and is a natural-born citizen, thus eligible to be president.

• It makes no difference that Haley’s Indian immigrant parents gained citizenship only in 1978 and 2003, as an article in South Carolina newspaper The State (Trust Score: 100/100) reported they did.

5. Phony ‘News Reports’ Posing as Real News in Israel-Hamas War

By McKenzie Sadeghi

Tricks of their trade: Online “news reports” on the Israel-Hamas war may be fakes—even (and maybe especially) if they cite authoritative sources. Bad actors on Instagram and TikTok are using photoshopping tools to generate bogus reports about the war, then presenting these false claims as reporting from trusted news organizations. 

What happened: Since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its attacks against Israel, NewsGuard analysts have identified eight viral false claims based on fabricated news reports emulating credible media outlets.

• Examples include the false claim that The Washington Post published an article in November 2023 headlined, “Weapons supplies from Ukraine to Hamas have tripled over the past month.”

Big picture: The Israel-Hamas war is not the first time this tactic has been used.

Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, NewsGuard analysts have identified

16 false Russia-Ukraine war claims based on fabricated news reports purporting to come from outlets including Fox News, USA Today, Al Jazeera, and Politico.

6. NewsGuard Commentary: Targeted by Beijing, Taiwan Shows How to Counter Disinformation Without Censorship

By Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard co-CEO

On a recent trip to Taiwan, I was struck by what was missing from the political campaigns leading to its presidential election: There was little focus on false claims in the news, despite efforts by Beijing to spread disinformation. This was surprising considering that, according to CBS News, Taiwan has been the No. 1 target of foreign disinformation, chiefly from China, for the past decade. The election went off without a hitch, giving a third term to the political party most hostile to Beijing’s Chinese Communist Party.

How it works: Perhaps thanks to Beijing’s energetic efforts to undermine Taiwan’s democracy, the country has had to pioneer unique solutions to the disinformation challenge, with the private sector taking a leading role. When Taiwanese see a false claim in the news, they have an experience unlike any elsewhere: On the leading messaging app in the country, called Line, users often see debunking of claims at the same time they see the original claim. 

A chatbot, called Auntie Meiyu, delivers fact checks as part of the Line experience when it spots a reference to a false claim. When a member of a messaging group asks the chatbot about a claim, Line’s machine-learning tool looks for keywords and phrases describing the claim and delivers a fact check that all members of the group see and that can be forwarded to others, according to an explanation in the Rest of World news site. 

What it means: Instead of falsehoods spreading across the internet unchallenged unless a news consumer makes the effort to go to a fact-checking site, these claims are countered in the same chat as the user first sees the claim, as part of the messaging experience.

Contrast Line taking responsibility for trustworthy news with the long-standing refusal of Facebook and its WhatsApp, Google and its YouTube, and China-owned TikTok, and others to allow their users access to debunking of false claims integrated into their platforms. Users must instead search for fact checks, typically after the hoax has spread. American political scientist Francis Fukuyama has proposed that Silicon Valley platforms should offer such “middleware” solutions to their users. This middleware would provide immediate context and debunking for the misinformation.

Applying the Taiwan lesson: The Taiwanese government developed a “Humor over Rumor” campaign debunking false claims about COVID-19 using a cartoon Shiba Inu, a popular dog in Taiwan, to urge social distancing defined as three dog lengths. But much of the work countering false claims is done outside of government, by the private sector and independent fact-checking groups. Taiwan “has historically been Beijing’s testing ground for information warfare,” according to RAND researchers, making Taiwan’s defenses against Beijing well worth studying and copying by other democracies and the platforms that claim to serve their citizens.

7. And one last thing … Bill Gates and the Dancing Broccoli

By Sara Badilini

What happened: Bill Gates, a favorite target of conspiracy theorists, is now accused of trying to get us to eat lab-grown broccoli. Social media users and unreliable news sites claim the billionaire Microsoft co-founder is secretly plotting to force consumers to eat artificial and genetically modified foods. 

• A video shared on TikTok, X, Instagram, and Facebook showed a piece of broccoli being injected with a liquid and immediately starting to twitch on its own. Social media users claimed that the video depicted an “artificial vegetable” created in a laboratory by Gates. The clip was shared in languages including Italian, English, French, and Thai.

Actually: The video showcases a piece by artist Russel Cameron originally posted on his TikTok and Instagram accounts as a sample of his work. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said that the claim is false, and that Gates has no connection to the video, Reuters reported.

Watch the video by clicking here, or pressing the play button below.

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