The US government accused Russia of funding and promoting a disinformation campaign in the region
This was stated by the spokesman and press attaché of the US Embassy in Brazil, Luke Ortega, in an interview with Power360 that the North American country will continue to monitor the alleged Russian disinformation campaign in Latin America and other parts of the world.
On November 7, the US State Department released a report detailing Russia’s efforts to spread disinformation in the region. According to the text, the process takes place in an “organic way for the Latin American public” through the use of local vehicles. The aim of the campaign would be to weaken support for Ukraine and also spread “sentiment” against the USA and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
Ortega explains that the creation of the document is part of the work of the Global Engagement Center. The U.S. State Department division’s goal is to research, identify and publish “information about foreign disinformation that we find disturbing,” the embassy spokesman said.
The press secretary also explained that the center’s mission is to investigate “any disinformation campaign that has a foreign source,” which includes China and Russia.
Ortega said the Global Engagement Center’s importance has “greatly increased” during the U.S. fight against the Islamic State to “combat the efforts” of the extremist group to “recruit young people and people from around the world,” he said.
In light of the war in Ukraine, the center directed part of its activities to monitoring Russian disinformation campaigns. Ortega states that the initiative is “still in its early stages.”
Nevertheless, North American analysis found that the Russians provided funds to “feed the narrative that Russia represents an anticolonial and antiimperial force.”
When asked about resources, Ortega states that it is “very difficult” to know the exact amount and where the money allocated to the Russian campaign comes from. “What we can do is identify the characteristics of Russian influence and make the public and the media aware of what is happening,” he said.
He also explains that the aim of the center’s work is “to show every step: how the guidelines are created in Russia, how they are already translated, generally into Spanish, and reach Latin America, where this group works with an editorial team .” […] to guide internal ideas of interest to Russia,” he said.
WHAT THE REPORT SAYS
The text, titled “Kremlin Efforts to Secretly Spread Disinformation in Latin America,” reports that three Russian organizations are coordinating the campaign. These are: the SDA (Social Design Agency), the Institute for Internet Development and Structura.
According to the report, these organizations contact local newspapers and news outlets, as well as digital influencers and public opinion leaders, to spread fake news.
“They generally are [veículos] known. Some are small. Some of them seem like blogs with more extremist ideas, but others seem much more political,” Ortega said Power360.
Brazil is mentioned in the document as a country under American surveillance. Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay are also mentioned. The text also reports that the main base of Russian activities would be in Chile.
Asked about the operation in Brazil, the US Embassy spokesman said no Brazilian vehicles had been registered so far, although the US government had identified a media outlet called Pressenza that publishes reports in Portuguese. The website has been registered as an international agency in Quito, Ecuador since 2014.
According to the report, the process for publishing reports would be as follows:
- an editorial team would be organized in a Latin American country;
- A Russian team would create the content and send the material to the editorial team in Latin America for review, editing and publication in the local office.
- Generally, the content would be translated into Spanish by translators based in Moscow.
Luke Ortega also notes that the Russia campaign goes beyond publishing reports. “We have seen that the Social Design Agency is working on developing artificial intelligence to publish comments on their own articles [nas redes sociais] with the aim of giving the impression that it is an opinion shared by the public,” he said Power360.
In a note sent to Power360, The Russian Embassy in Brazil said it preferred to “leave this matter without comment.”