President Trump’s stupid and neglected conspiracy theories are only negative for the long run of American democracy; they are also a lucrative gift for disinformation traders based in Eastern Europe.
A new report through Alethea Group in collaboration with the Global Disinformation Index as a component of the Joint Election Protection Project shows how fake conservative news sites running through Macedonian spammers benefit from the same types of conspiracy theories that have invaded Trump’s campaign wallet. five hundred million dollars. The report also shows how “alternative” social media platforms like Gab and Talk have a refuge, not only for misinformation, but also for those looking to benefit from it.
“False accusations of voter fraud are gold mines for financially motivated disinformation providers because they get the highest volumes of clicks and traffic,” Cindy Otis said of the report to the Daily Beast. “We have noticed that foreign and national actors are pushing for incorrect information to increase their presence on more marginal social media platforms, such as Talk and Gab, where they see their goals increasingly moving and where they will not face any moderation.
Alethea researchers discovered a network of at least thirteen Internet sites that are passing through conservative US news organizations. But it’s not the first time Operating from Macedonia. Since then, many sites have inactive or suspended their social media accounts on larger platforms like Facebook and Instagram, but two remain active and have pointed out the generation of false stories about voter fraud.
USA News Advice, which began publication in October, began as a site primarily aimed at spam-containing fitness articles that produced unreliable juice cleanses and recommendations on biological foods, but as the election warmed up, the government aimed to spread pro-Trump conspiracies. about Hunter Biden and, after the election, the allegations of voter fraud.
Like several Macedonian clickbait sites, plagiarism provides most of its content. Site operators scam conservative media outlets like The Daily Wire, whose articles are among the most read “news” content on Facebook, according to the CrowdTangle research tool. But USA News Advice also snatles content from other fake and fraudulent data sites, adding Independent Minute, a medium known in the past as a hyperpartisan clickbait site through RiskIQ researchers.
It turns out that it generates original content, but with limited English professing. One article, “Democratic activists (also known as enriched peoples) infiltrate the voter count,” seized a viral video of an election employee in Georgia to falsely claim that the votes for Trump were The article, which asks readers to “look conscientiously at video what this guy does with the paper, he’s not allowed to do it,” turned out to have caught the attention of British far-right specialist Katie Hopkins. who posted the video alongside the serious English name of the attached article on their Instagram account.
The site, registered through Aleksandar Tasevski of Kumanovo, Macedonia, has social media accounts on Instagram, Talk and Gab, which stores conservative memes and links to articles.
A Facebook account for him has already been deleted at some point in the last two months.
Faced with the crackdown on incorrect election information on primary platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, Macedonian fake news sites have turned to conservative social media platforms such as Gab and Parler, which are adopting a more laissez-faire technique for conspiring and incorrect information. A Macedonian clickbait site, Resist the Mainstream, grew so much in Talk that at one point, one in seven Talk users was a follower of the platform.
“These platforms are filled not only with others fleeing what they understand as censorship, but also for-profit scammers, troll farms, and misinformation providers,” Otis said.
Most of the sites known to the Alethea investigators seem to run through Teodor Mircevski, a Macedonian fake news mainstay in the past known through The Daily Beast as connected to a number of internet sites posing as by affiliates to the local television network, and They are connected with it through email. The web handles and records information. The sites have introduced viral false stories about parents taking violent revenge on pedophiles and engaging in conspiracy theories about sexual assault allegations through former Biden aide Tara Reade, opposed to the President-elect Mircevski began his career. in the conservative clickbait in the 2016 election and since then is one of Macedonia’s top identifiable fake news entrepreneurs.
Four of Mircevski’s sites, ConservativeFighters (. org and Arraycom), Donald Trump News and ConservativeMedia, remained active during the election and focused on spreading misinformation from voters.
While foreign spammers still benefit from the MAGA movement, President Trump remains the largest source and largest beneficiary of election plots. The Crusade of Trump and GOP organizations have raised more than $1 billion since the election, as the president and his crusade have tried to overthrow him and cast doubt on his legitimacy.
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