![]() While some of the messaging posted on social media from Russian state-media accounts aims at a potentially wide audience, some of the most audacious disinformation postings have been aimed at much smaller, far-right audiences. The Biden administration is actively monitoring Russian misinformation and is trying to counter it by encouraging the public to get vaccinated and promoting the safety and efficacy of Western vaccines, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss potentially sensitive information. Though the ransomware attacks are separate from the disinformation campaigns, the warning was the latest effort by United States officials to prod Russia to rein in destructive digital incursions. Putin of Russia last month to rein in ransomware attacks emanating out of Russia and aimed at critical American infrastructure. The campaign also comes as President Biden warned President Vladimir V. Recent postings spreading false information have suggested that the Biden administration is intent on mandating that Americans get vaccines that are failing against the coronavirus. In recent weeks, the nature of Russian disinformation has also begun to shift, some officials and outside experts said. The Russian and Chinese disinformation has tried to magnify the potential side effects of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, suggesting that the mRNA technology they are based on is untested or risky, State Department officials said this week. The aim of various Russian groups continues to be to exacerbate tensions in Western societies, a key foreign policy goal of Moscow, according to American officials briefed on the disinformation efforts. And knowing how the Russians typically play those situations, it wouldn’t surprise me they are trying to take advantage of it.” “That is when disinformation can really take hold. “Disinformation thrives in an information vacuum,” said Lisa Kaplan, the chief executive of the Alethea Group, which helps corporations guard against misinformation. But the rise of the Delta variant of the coronavirus - and shifting scientific advice on how to defend against a more infectious strain and the need for booster shots or masks - has created an atmosphere for misinformation to more easily spread, experts said. It is difficult to quantify the amount of disinformation being produced at any time by the Russians or other adversarial powers, government officials and outside experts said. ![]() ![]() ![]() Last year, the department began warning about how Russia was using fringe websites to promote doubts around vaccinations. But in addition to overt messaging promoting their own vaccines, Moscow has also spread conspiracy theories. The image was one of several spotted by Graphika, a company tracking disinformation campaigns.īoth Russia and China have worked to promote their own vaccines through messaging that undermines American and European vaccination programs, according to the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. The cartoon appears to be an example of the latest effort in Russian-aligned disinformation: a campaign that taps into skepticism and fears of coronavirus vaccination to not just undermine the effort to immunize people but also try to falsely link the Biden-Harris administration to the idea of forced inoculations. A caption read in part, “In Biden’s America.” The cartoon posted on the far-right discussion forum showed police officers wearing Biden-Harris campaign logos on bulletproof vests and battering down a door with a large syringe.
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