I’m a reporter for NBC News. We realized Russia’s disinformation playbook is hiding in plain sight -- so we made a documentary to tell everyone about it. AMA - Politics

I’m a reporter for NBC News. We realized Russia’s disinformation playbook is hiding in plain sight -- so we made a documentary to tell everyone about it. AMA
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I’m a reporter for NBC News. We realized Russia’s disinformation playbook is hiding in plain sight -- so we made a documentary to tell everyone about it. AMA

Posted: 20 Nov 2018 10:13 AM PST

Hi I'm Ben Popken and I'm a reporter at NBC News and a producer on our new 30-minute report on Russian disinformation, "Factory of Lies: Democracy Under Attack."

Full video https://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news-signal-presents-factory-of-lies-democracy-under-attack-1362496579619

Feature article https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/factory-lies-russia-s-disinformation-playbook-exposed-n910316

My proof of life https://twitter.com/bpopken/status/1063521660387696648

This was a big team effort here, many thanks to other producers and crew Allison Girvin, Hussein Saddique, Maura Barrett, Andrew Kozak, Michael Cappetta, Business and Technology correspondent Jo Ling Kent, and reporters Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny, and all of our fantastic experts and guests who shared their knowledge and time.

The title "Factory of Lies" comes from a phrase used by former Internet Research Agency worker Vitaly Bespalov to describe his previous employer in an interview last year and it stuck with me. It feels a little scary but also appropriate for an industrial bureaucracy designed to systematically pumped out disinformation and undermine democratic conversations. We've all been watching with great alarm and dismay as the fuller extent of the Russian disinformation operations come into sharp relief while the U.S. response has been uncoordinated and lacking in executive leadership. Journalists have not done a full fessing up on how the Russian-hacked Wikileaks content was laundered through the media. And the social media platforms have managed to avoid major repercussions to their business models by deflecting and denying their responsibility and exerting influence. I can't count how many times we head it was only this x small percent of the total content. Well, that's no way to gauge impact. What percentage of your body weight is the lethal dose of cyanide?

But a critical moment came this summer when I read descriptions of historical KGB documents detailing Cold War disinformation campaigns ordered by the Kremlin. They sounded and operated exactly like some of the heinous online hoaxes from the 2016 presidential campaign whose origins have been traced back by the intel community, social media companies, and online community of troll hunters to Russian information operations. The more I researched the more it became apparent that there was a centrally organized system of Russian disinformation tradecraft that has been handed down over the ages. And the more you learned about it, the easier it is to spot.

That was the story we wanted to tell and we hope people walk away better informed. Because even if you don't agree that it has any impact whatsoever, no one likes it when someone tries to manipulate them.

Happy to answer any questions about the reports content or production, historical KGB stuff we uncovered that didn't make the script, and shoot around ideas for spotting and stopping disinformation attacks, foreign and domestic!

Stick around to the end of the AMA and I'll post a link to an unpublished clip from our interviews showing a sort of secret weapon for disarming disinformation.

Previous Related Coverage:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/now-available-more-200-000-deleted-russian-troll-tweets-n844731

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/russian-troll-describes-work-infamous-misinformation-factory-n821486

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/russian-trolls-flood-twitter-after-parkland-shooting-n848471

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Crops are rotting in fields as Trump’s trade war bites US farmers

Posted: 21 Nov 2018 04:21 AM PST