For six years, a mysterious group has used forged documents and a network of burner accounts to spread misinformation promoting Russian national interests, according to a new report from Graphika.
Dubbed “Secondary Infektion,” the campaign spanned a number of online platforms, beginning on the Russia-based LiveJournal in 2014, and moving to Twitter and YouTube later that year. In the years that followed, the campaign shifted to Reddit, Medium, and even the user-generated portion of BuzzFeed. All told, the report spans more than 2,500 pieces of content, posted across seven languages and more than 300 different forums, websites, and social networks.
“By April 21, 2020, Graphika had identified some 250 images that the operation had planted in its articles, almost all of them suspected forgeries,” the report states. “We expect that more remain to be found.”
According to researchers, the content tended to promote themes that align with Russian national interests during the period, including the unreliability of Ukraine, hostility to NATO interventions, or personal attacks on critics of the Kremlin or Russian government. The campaign took particular aim at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which instituted a four-year ban on Russian involvement in international sports after finding evidence of doctored lab results.
