Inside a pro-Trump YouTube disinformation network that spans Vietnam to Bosnia
"YouTube removed at least 20 channels posting false or divisive content to generate ad dollars. The channels used voice-over actors to read scripts. At least one of them was hired on Fiverr, the freelance marketplace."
t first glance, Misrad Sulejmanovic could be your typical YouTuber. The 25-year-old from Bosnia and Herzegovina has a following of about 3,300 subscribers on his channel. He goes by the handle Dinaric Wolf.
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Sulejmanovic, it turns out, had been an unwitting cog in a sprawling disinformation operation that appears to have stretched across at least four countries to generate false and divisive content aimed at American viewers, a CNET investigation, conducted in partnership with the Atlantic Council, has found. His videos also appeared on another channel, called News 24H. The two channels were just small parts of a larger group of more than a dozen channels with similar names, including American News Today, Breaking News 24-7 and Breaking Story, among others.
To find out more about the origin of the channels, CNET approached the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington, DC. The lab also works with Facebook, as well as Google sister company Jigsaw, to combat and analyze disinformation. Most recently, it helped uncover a false campaign on Facebook by telecommunications companies in Vietnam and Myanmar aimed at discrediting telecom rivals.
The channels, which YouTube removed after CNET inquired about them, were likely designed to exploit the video platform's advertising program and take advantage of an American appetite for partisan content. Google, which owns YouTube, said its Threat Analysis Group, as well as YouTube's own teams, saw no evidence the channels were part of a foreign political influence operation. Instead, the company said, it was a spamming effort with channels operating out of different parts of the world, aimed at making money.
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The channels, which YouTube removed after CNET inquired about them, were likely designed to exploit the video platform's advertising program and take advantage of an American appetite for partisan content. Google, which owns YouTube, said its Threat Analysis Group, as well as YouTube's own teams, saw no evidence the channels were part of a foreign political influence operation. Instead, the company said, it was a spamming effort with channels operating out of different parts of the world, aimed at making money.
The strategy shows that the vastness of the internet does more than help disseminate false content widely. It also makes the creation of disinformation more efficient. The Breaking News channel and others that were taken down said they were based in the US, but contact information on a few of the pages, such as an email address and Twitter links, suggested at least some of the channels had ties to people in Vietnam. At least two of the channels used Fiverr, a Tel Aviv-based marketplace for freelancers, to find Sulejmanovic, the Bosnian voice-over actor. And the inauthentic content -- the term social media platforms use for posts containing false information or created by people who lie about their identity -- was uploaded to San Bruno, California-based YouTube, which distributed it across the planet. Think of it as the globalization of disinformation, touching platforms and people in far-flung corners of the world.
https://www.cnet.com/features/inside-a-pro-trump-youtube-disinformation-network-that-spans-vietnam-to-bosnia/
