Influence campaigns
He mocked the rich on TikTok for fun. Now he can get $47,000 per post
Aris Yeager’s “European Kid” videos have been an unexpected hit. Wealthy people and luxury brands have noticed.
- by Dionne Searcey
Latest
Calls for TikTok suspension after shock election result in Romania
Far-right candidate Calin Georgescu’s shock first-round win comes despite a campaign budget of zero and polling in single digits.
- by Luiza Ilie and Mara Vilcu
Russians faked video accusing Kamala Harris of hit-and-run: experts
In an emotional account from a wheelchair, a victim says she “cannot remain silent any more”. But everything about the video is made up by a troll army called Storm-1516.
- by Ali Swenson
‘Think I get orders from the CIA?’ Top Russian propagandist taunts US
Alexey Navalny lampooned Margarita Simonyan for years with the nickname “beaver-eater” after a 2012 social media post where she outlined her plans to boil up a beaver head for broth.
- by Robyn Dixon
US charges Russians, seizes websites in pushback on 2024 election interference
With two months until election day, the US Justice Department has also warned of “increasingly aggressive Iranian activity” - including a recent attempt to hack into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
- by Farrah Tomazin
FBI probing Iranian hack attempts against Biden and Trump campaign
Trump’s campaign said over the weekend that Iran had hacked one of its websites and the FBI said it was investigating that.
- by Jasper Ward
Trump-era Pentagon ran secret anti-vax social media campaign aimed at the Philippines
Hundreds of US-backed social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and China’s Sinovac inoculation, the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines.
- by Christopher Bing and Joel Schectman
The grey zone of misinformation: Iran, Russia’s payments to US media outlet revealed
Legal experts say US journalists who were paid by sanctioned Iranian media entities could be in legal jeopardy.
- by Joseph Menn
Iran’s top leader praises pro-Palestine student protesters in the US
Writing from a country where protest is violently suppressed, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said they were standing on the right side of history.
- by Chris Zappone
This ‘Russian’ woman loves China. Too bad she’s a deepfake of an unrelated Australian
The videos are often labelled with hashtags such as “Russian beauty” and the women describe how accomplished Chinese men are.
- by Vivian Wang and Siyi Zhao
Poland to clamp down on Russian diplomats’ movement
Relations between Poland and Russia have deteriorated sharply since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.
- by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk
Original URL: https://www.watoday.com.au/topic/influence-campaigns-1lyr