Friday, 3 May 2024

Opinion | Operation Infektion: A three-part video series on Russian disinformation

WATCH: This is a three-part film series. Scroll down and click to play any episode.

Russia’s meddling in the United States’ elections is not a hoax. It’s the culmination of Moscow’s decades-long campaign to tear the West apart. “Operation InfeKtion” reveals the ways in which one of the Soviets’ central tactics — the promulgation of lies about America — continues today, from Pizzagate to George Soros conspiracies. Meet the KGB spies who conceived this virus and the American truth squads who tried — and are still trying — to fight it. Countries from Pakistan to Brazil are now debating reality, and in Vladimir Putin’s greatest triumph, Americans are using Russia’s playbook against one another without the faintest clue.

Episode 1

Meet the KGB Spies Who Invented Fake News

We reveal how one of the biggest fake news stories ever concocted — the 1984 AIDS-is-a-biological-weapon hoax — went viral in the pre-internet era. Meet the KGB operatives who invented it and the “truth squad” that quashed it. For a bit.

Episode 2

The Seven Commandments of Fake News

The Pizzagate playbook: same tactics, new technologies. How the seven rules of Soviet disinformation are being used to create today’s fake news stories.

Episode 3

The Worldwide War on Truth

Governments from Pakistan to Mexico to Washington are woefully unequipped to combat disinformation warfare. Eastern European countries living in Russia’s shadow can teach us how to start fighting back, but only if our politicians decide to stop profiting from these tactics and fight them instead.

Adam Ellick and John Sipher, a former C.I.A. station chief, answered questions about Russian disinformation in a Reddit Ask Me Anything.

Adam B. Ellick is the Director and Executive Producer of Opinion Video at The New York Times. He has produced Pulitzer Prize and Emmy winning video journalism. Previously, he was a senior international video correspondent and print reporter at The Times covering human rights. @aellick Facebook

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