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How Russia Shapes What the World Thinks · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's missing. We don't know where she is.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: The Russians have her, at the very least, it's quite
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: possible the Russians have misled her in some way or another,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: and maybe they tricked her into leaving when it was
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: time to record.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: You cheeky boy, don't worry everybody, Jerry's just really on vacation.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: But that was a very clever setup to this episode
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: on essentially on Russian propaganda and how you know, I
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: think we all knew that, like their propaganda machine was
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: big back in the cold worn stuff obviously, but it's
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: it's a really big problem now and has been for
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a while, ever since the advent of the Internet and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: especially social media.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because those two things are wide open set up
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: for people to distribute misinformation, deliberate misinformation. The Russians are
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: far from the only ones that do it. They're just really,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: really good at it, and they've been doing it for
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: a long time. They I would guess they were probably
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the first country to really start doing this on like
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: a wide scale. But I mean as far back I
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: think as twenty ten or at least the two thousand, Yeah,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: but like the twenty tens, at least twenty thirteen at
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: the absolute latest. The Internet Research Agency was the first
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: kind of famous one that surfaced. And the whole premise
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: back then and now is to basically game social media
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: and use whatever you can whatever like weaknesses it has
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: in like the entire structure of it, to confuse people,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: to sow discord and disinformation and chaos and questioning what
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: reality is, getting the media to start using words like
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: post truth and stuff like that, that kind of stuff.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: It might not have a specific aim where it's like
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: we want to say, get Trump elected that was part
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: of this too, like that was a Russian name as well,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: or we want to stir America up over the border crisis.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Just creating a climate where people question what's real or
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: what's true. That in and of itself is a huge
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: triumph for these Russian operations that have been going on
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: for more than a decade.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that was one of the things that
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: chilled me most was it wasn't like we really need
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: to get people to believe this one thing right about Ukraine,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: let's say it's more like, no, let's just so chaos
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: in confusion to where you doubt what you're reading and
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you don't know what the truth is anymore. And that's
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: just like that feels even scarier, you know.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: It does, because ultimately, eventually most people would be like,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: it's not worth trying to get to the bottom of this.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm just gonna stop. I'm just not going
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: to pay attention anymore.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I'm just not going to care, or I'll just share
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: something because like I read.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: It, yes, exactly sometimes on Reddit.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good point. All right, So maybe we should jump
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: back a little bit and talk about the IRA, not
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the Irish Republican Army, but the Internet Research Agency or
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the Russian troll Farm as it might you might know
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: it better, as that was founded in twenty thirteen by
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: guy that was a former criminal eventually a successful entrepreneur
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and kind of higher up oligarch in Russia and you know,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: confidant of Vladimir Putin, and he also founded you know,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Confident up for a while because he also founded the
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Wagner Group, which you may have read about the news,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the Russian Mercenary organization that would eventually try and Overthrow putin.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, do you watch the age and see on Prime? No?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: It is magnificent. Yeah, it's one of the best spy
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: shows of recent times.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I love a spie show.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: You guys liked Black Doves, right, yep. This is at
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: least on that caliber, if not higher. Michael Fossbender's in it,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Richard Gear, Jeffrey Wright, a bunch of other very talented people.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: But it's all like spycraft stuff, and it's it's really
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: worth it. They just released their second season and I've
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: got three episodes left. I started two days ago, and
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: both seasons are well worth watching.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, I did not watch Black Doves. Actually, I thought
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: you were talking about the what's the Gary Eelman show,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Wild Horses something horses.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I know the one you're talking about.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: You watch that?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I watched that one.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Is it good?
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah? It's really good. I mean Gary Oldman's fantastic Slow Horses.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Slow Horses. I swear you watch Black Doves because Emily
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: said she liked it, the one with she may have
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: watched it, bend it like.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Beckham, Yeah, Kiera Knightley, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't see it.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: May have watched that without me though, because she watched.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, just watch them, watch them both, but definitely watch
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: the agency. It's much more likely to be in your
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: wheelhouse if either one of them are going.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: To be all right, Okay, So back to the show.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, I know I brought that up. They battle essentially
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: the Wagner Group, but it's Valhalla in the agency.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha, sorry about that. That's okay. Everyone loves a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: good recommendation from either one of us, I think.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I also, I want to be clear here, this
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: was not brought to you by Prime. We're not trying
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: to manipulate you or propagandize you or market to you.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: This is just I watch it on Prime and it's
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: on time, and it's so good that I just took
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: that time to share that with everybody. That's all exactly
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: what it seemed like on face value. And do you
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: know why I have to say that.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Chuck, I don't know, Josh, because of.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Stuff like this operation that we're going to talk about.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: That's right. So the IRA that I spoke of, the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Internet Research Agency that what they did this is like
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: mid twenty tens. They hired a ton of you know,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: young people basically who could speak English and who knew
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a lot about politics to like, hey, why don't you
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: start a troll farm, you know, get on board this
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: troll farm and just create fake stuff, create fake news stories.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Although I'm love to even say those words together, fake
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: social media posts, YouTube videos. Eventually, you know, as you'll
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: see what would become like deep fakes and AI and
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. But this is before that. Yeah, and
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: while this was going on, Sputnik and Russia Today or
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: RT these are you know, I think legitimate or one point,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: we're legitimate Russian news outlets. Right.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: They were always backed by the Kremlin. Oh well okay, yeah,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: but yeah, I think that they were still they still
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: had journalists and stuff like that, but they were trying
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: to get the Russian viewpoint across to Western audiences.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Right, So they started distributing stories around the world, basically,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: like we were saying, trying to get people to like
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: to believe whatever they wanted to believe at the time,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: like politically.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Right, And the twenty sixteen United States election was a
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: real big kind of debut. They've been kind of ated already,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: but the twenty sixteen election they really showed just how
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: much they could monkey with stuff, or at least the
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: potential of them monkeying with stuff. And this is where
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: that the allegations of Trump colluding with the Russians, this
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: is what they were talking about unproven, by the way,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: to Rachel Maddow's great dismay right Pizzagate. These they didn't
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: necessarily come up with these things, but they were able
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: to amplify them, yeah, and get people talking about them
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: and make people questioning what was what, you know, or
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: the Democrats like really keeping child sex slaves in the
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: basement of Comet Pizza in DC. Who knows? Maybe you
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: should take an assault rifle from North Carolina and go
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: find out.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So once this start sort of starts coming out,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and the United States and you know, all over North
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: American and Europe started realizing what was going on. In
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: February twenty twenty two, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: there started to be a little bit of action taken.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: The EU banned Russian state media, including Sputnik and RT.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Other companies Google News dropped them from aggregation service. I
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: think Google, Microsoft and Apple all started like pulling their apps.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: So that sort of started happening and then in twenty
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: three was when that failed uprising against Putin by the
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Wagner group happened. And the long and short is after
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: all this, the IRA finally disbanded, but this work continued
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: among other groups.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a good example of the whack a
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: mole that the West is playing. The Russian Internet disinformation
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: operations have the West on our heels. Clearly, there's basically
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: no one who knows what they're talking about with this
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: stuff who would disagree with that. The West still has
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: not figured out how to do it, aside from piecemeal
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: responses like taking Russia Times app off of the Apple market,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: off of the Apple app store, you know, like that's
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: the kind of response we have to this. Still, and
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: this has been going on for more than a decade.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why it's so hard to
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: do anything about it is because they use what the
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Rand Corporation researchers Christopher Paula and Miriam Matthews call a
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: fire hose of falsehood, just put everything out there. It's
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: not the quality, it's the quantity that they focus on.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. For sure, after CRIMEA was annexed in twenty fourteen,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and then obviously after the invasion of Ukraine in February
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, they really ramped up a lot
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: of messaging to try and get you know, sentiment, sometimes
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: on their side, but a lot more times like just
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: against Ukraine and what was going on. And this eventually
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: it would become known as Dappelganger. But to be clear,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Dappelganger isn't like it wasn't Operation Dappelganger or there's not
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: an organization called Dappelganger. It's more of just sort of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I think the media sort of misread that and labeled
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: it that, but it's really just sort of this method
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: of doing what they're doing and how they're doing it.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to be specific, it's a way of cloning dummy
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: websites that look like actual legitimate websites. The ones some
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: of the ones that they targeted were Lamonde and France,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: their website, Washington Post in the US, the Guardian in
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: the UK, and they would essentially just take they would
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: have the bots start sending links or putting links all
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: over the Internet to basically share, right, hey, look at
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: this crazy article. Right. The Washington Post actually reported this,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: so it seems like it would be legitimate. Then you
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: would click that and it would take you to a
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: different series of domains that got smaller and smaller to
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: where if you were in the area they were targeting,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: say you were in the United States and you had
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: clicked you know, this thing to find out about whatever
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: this fake Washington Post thing was saying, it would it
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: would take you to this fake website like Washingtonpost dot PM,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: just different enough that like you probably wouldn't notice, but
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: it's a different domain name. And the way that they
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: were able to get away with this was shell companies
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: and using shady kind of hosting services around the world.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And that that was doppelganger, that technique that they used
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: for getting this stuff out. There is no operation like this.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: These these using bots or creating like fake accounts on
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Facebook or whatever. That wasn't dopplgetor that is constant. It's
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: so constant and so embedded that there's no name for that.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Doppelganger was just the technique of the way that they
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: use the infrastructure of the Internet to deliver misinformation for
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: this short period of time.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sort of one of the main companies. And we're
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: not going to go through all of these because it's
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: a little mind numbing. But there's one called the Social
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Design Agency, which is a pr firm that started up
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, founded by a political consultant who
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: had you know, that was their business, so you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: they know exactly how to do it, and the Russian
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: government all of a sudden was like, wait a minute,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: we would love to hire you to do like all
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: this stuff. It's literally as of I think a couple
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: of years ago, run by the Kremlin and directed by
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the Putin administration, so they're kind of in the middle
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: of most of this doppelganger activity. Yes, and you know,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: like you said, when you go to one of these websites,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: when you click on the link, if you're not paying
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: attention to the dot whatever, and you realize it's not
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: you know, Washingtonpost dot com. It looks like it, it
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: smells like it, it acts like it for the most part.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: So it's really easy to fool people.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: It is. I mean, if you really look closely, and
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: you look with a skeptical eye, you'll turn up some stuff.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I saw. One example is that the US must not
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: become the world's gendarme, which is police in French, like
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: the Washington Post would not use a phrase like that, right.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: But you have to know that, like I think they
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: count on just fire hosing it such where they're like, well,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: who cares if most people don't, If we just get
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: this percentage of people, that's great.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, And even more than that, I feel like going
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: to the trouble of actually creating the article on the
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: fake website is almost superfluous because so many people on
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the internet just share, Yeah, share, like that headline gotcha? Now,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: I think that this is going on, not even bothering
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: to click into this to read the actual article. All
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: I need is the headline because it got me juiced up.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And of course they're amplifying this through
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the bot farms. Russian social media bots will post links
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: and then there are more bots that retweet these links.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I think I mentioned on the show. I saw a
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: picture of a bot farm one not too long ago
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that was in big expose.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Were they all just doing grass?
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: No? That was terrifying. It was like a dude sitting
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: at a desk on a computer and there were a
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: thousand cell phones connected hardwired to the computer, and then
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: there were dozens and dozens of these guys with hundreds
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and hundreds of smartphones wow, connected on a big wall.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: So when you see how it actually works, like literally
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: connecting to phones to send this stuff out and amplify it,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: it's just it feels really dystopian and scary.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like it's becoming clear that we're going
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: to have to abandon the Internet and come up with
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: a new one because this one got cooked.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: A creed. Should we take a break? All right, Well,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: we're going to ruminate that, and I hope we can
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: even come back after we ruminate, but we'll be right back.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: I hope.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: All right. So I mentioned after the invasion of Ukraine
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: in February twenty twenty two, that's when things really ramped
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: up again. They you know, a lot of these ideas
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: were really pretty clever. There was a one group that
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: launched sort of like a Snopes like site, but a
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: fake one, I know, War on Fakes, and it was
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: design to discredit Ukraine and support Russia obviously. And then
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: another one called are in Reliable Recent News which replace
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: reliable Russian news. So on one side you've got something
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: that says like, hey, this is reliable news, so this
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: is real. On the other side, it's like, hey, we
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: root out the fake stuff, but it's fake, so it's
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: almost like, you know, it's not almost like they've got
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: all their bases covered.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if you pay too close attention to this,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: you'll start bleeding out of your ear guaranteed.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Doppelganger got its name from the EU's Disinformation Lab. One
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: of the disheartening things to me, Chuck was figuring out
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: that the people who are tracking this stuff, there's not
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: a government agency involved anywhere. These are all like independent
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: NGOs that are dedicated to tracking disinformation.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting journalists.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Like these are the people doing the actual work, and
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: then seven years later the governments like, oh, we're going
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: to have our Department of Justice do something about this.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: So where that's where Doppelganger got its name from. I
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: think it's basically it suggests that these are or it
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: points out like the cloned sites, they're like Dappelgangers of
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: the real thing.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: But that war on Ukraine, after the invasion of Ukraine,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: they really ramped up the misinformation flood that was coming.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Like they targeted in twenty twenty four and I think
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, their main targets were France, Germany, the US,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the UK and Ukraine. And essentially what they were trying
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: to do was to make the people, the public in
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: each of those countries lose support or turn on the
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: idea of supporting Ukraine so that Russia could get them
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: out of the Ukraine business in Russia could just get
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: back to trying to take over Ukraine as best it could.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they, you know, they did it in a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: lot of ways. Obviously, some ways were just fake articles
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: about like, you know, stuff that Ukraine does, or maybe
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a fake article about that whitewashes a Russian atrocity like
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the Buka massacre, like that never happened, right, But cleverly
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: they're also going like through celebrities and like faking that,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: you know, Taylor, like a real influential celebrity like Taylor
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Swift or Kim Kardashian, Like fake messages where they're supporting
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: or they're criticizing America and Europe for supporting Ukraine. Or
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: did you find something about Oprah?
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do you want to read that quote? Go ahead,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Oprah says supporting Ukrainians is unacceptable. Their actions destroy lives
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: in societies.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, especially if you're some like young
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: person who supports Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian, you're probably
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you know, not even aware that this kind of stuff
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: even goes on. All you're thinking is like, well, Taylor
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Swift said, Ukraine deserves what's coming, So that's probably true.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right, that's exactly what they're trying to do.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Or maybe not deserves what's coming, but like America, this
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: is what a big sort of angle for them is.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: America first, like, we shouldn't get involved in this. Let
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Ukraine handle it themselves.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Right, And so that you just hit the nail on
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: the head. As far as why Republicans typically get targeted
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: with this stuff, it's not because the Trump administration is
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: colluding with the Russians. It's because the message that the
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Trump administration and MAGA in general and Republicans by extension,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: are basically basing their platform on. It's like you said,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: America first, focus on domestic issues, get ourselves out of
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: foreign affairs, and that goes lockstep with what Putin wants.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: It's like, yes, America, go mess with your own stuff,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: and by pointing out and creating turmoil about all the
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: things that are going on in America at any given time.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: It makes it seem even that more urgent to just
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: stop giving money to Ukraine when we've got all of
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: these middle class white people who need that money too,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: and like tax breaks and stuff like that. That kind
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: of messaging that's not necessarily wrong, but is making it
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: seem like the American public sentiment is behind that. That's
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: the part that's wrong. They're manipulating that to kind of
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: try to get the public to swing that way, all
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: because they just want to be able to invade Ukraine
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: more easily.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They had one project called the Good Old USA Project,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: which one of the SDA founders had come up with
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: with some other people, and it targeted voters in six
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: swing states during the last election in twenty twenty four
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: about just that, like let's not help Ukraine, like why
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: are we doing that when we have problems here? And
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: they also spent about ten million bucks encouraging right wing
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: influencers to get on board with pro Russia opinions. So
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that's why if you've if you've ever been on like
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the comment section of any social media site about anything
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: political like this, first of all, we would both encourage
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: you to stop doing that because it's just not good
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: for your mental health and well being. But if you
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: do and you see people saying like, oh yeah, thanks,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: comrade or whatever Russian bought, like, that's that's what they're
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: talking about here.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And to be fair, those right wing influencers, the
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: YouTubers that were hired to disseminate Russian propaganda were not
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: aware that that's what they were doing. They were hired
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: by a front company called Tenant Media. Yeah, they hired
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: like six hardcore right wing YouTubers and just basically said, hey,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: let's talk about this kind of thing. But they were
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: not aware that they were being paid by the Kremlin.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: They didn't know that. And then once that was exposed,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: that company dissolved in. Those people, well, I guess had
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: to eat some crow, I would guess.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Another thing, if you ever heard, you know,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: you know, George Soros is paying those protesters like that
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: by the hour, like paid protesters, paid protesters. Yeah, that
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: comes from a fake Washington Post article, like you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: from one of these like completely fake cloned websites. That's
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: where that comes from. It was right after Israel invaded
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Gaza in spring of twenty twenty four and that there,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: you know, all the protesters were going on, and there
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: was a fake Washington Post article that came out about
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the Sorols Foundation and Rockefeller like paying people thirty bucks
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: an hour to go protest.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh, well, the one I remember was that the
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Ukrainian government was actually like Nazis. Oh yeah, yeah, and
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: really what Russia's doing is liberating the Ukrainian people. I
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: remember that one for sure. That definitely came from this
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Doppelganger era.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the weirder ones was Princess Kate when
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: she sort of disappeared from the public eye. Yeah, and
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you know this is before she revealed it was because
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: of a cancer diagnosis. But they jumped on that and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: sort of hijacked that with all sorts of weird conspiracy theories.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And again I think that was one just to just
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: to create tension and chaos in the UK.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, I don't remember where I found this, but I
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: saw that their involvement in conspiracy theories is topic agnostic.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: They don't care about the subject. Whatever it is that
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: will push people's buttons, that will get emotional responses and
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: get people worked up, they will get in there and
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: amplify it if they if they didn't make it up
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: themselves in the first place. Man, they also apparently, according
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: to I think the Good Old USA Project, that they
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: there was a whole group at the Social Design Agency who, again,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: like you said, seem to be the ones behind this.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: If all of a sudden you start to hear negative
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: chatter about stuff, you should know, I'm going to go
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: ahead and say it was probably them after this episode
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: comes out.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: What's a little worried about that.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I am hopefully we're still under the radar enough.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I like to think so.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And if all of a sudden, Chuck and I
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: die in a fiery car crash together, it was probably
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: the Kremlin.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not flying anytime soon.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: You have to, although I don't want to say when
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: or how. We should probably edit this part out. But
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: there was a whole group at the Social Design Agency
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: that was their job was to monitor social media posts
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: from GOP lawmakers to figure out what was on America's
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: mind or what people were worried about or angry about,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and then they would start making memes and stuff based
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: on that and try to create like I guess, mess
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: from that, just from like one tweet or something could
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I don't know how much you want
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to get into this nuts and bolt section.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: We kind of already covered it really.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it gets sort of in the weeds, but like
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you sort of mentioned earlier, we just want to be clear.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: It's like they'll use disposable domains that are owned by
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: other companies. They will use virtual offices and set up
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: shell companies. They'll work with you know in places like
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: sometimes at the far reaches of the earth. Well they'll
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: set up like some company in Malaysia where you know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: it's then it goes to another shell company in Lithuania
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: and it's just you know, it's also obfuscated. And that's
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the whole point, you know that you don't know, it's
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: hard to even trace back to any origin.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Right, and it's just very decentralized. And then the companies,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: these shell companies are just legitimate enough to provide cover
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: for the shady hosting companies to say like, well they're legal.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: There's a UK company, so you know, we don't have
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: any obligation to check what they're doing, right, And as
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: it gets closer and closer to the actual fake website,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: the companies just get shadier and shadier, and apparently they're
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: not the one thing didn't come up with this technique.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: It's fairly common among bad actors. Yeah, like Brad Pitt.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I guess I.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Was trying to think of a bad actor. I didn't
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: want to be mean.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I think you can be mean to Brad Pitt at
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: this point.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because he's a fine actor. Oh yeah, and
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: a fine piece you know, a piece of what you know?
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Did you see he and Ed Norton at the soccer match?
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: No?
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I heard about it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of fun, the old fight club thing.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: What was I gonna say?
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: You were gonna say, we're gonna take a break, right.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think whatever I was saying, just peter it out.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Didn't matter.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, Josh is gonna Peter back up and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: we'll be back right after this.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, So we're back, and we know about Doppelganger. Like
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I said, thanks to journalists and non governmental organizations that
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: are dedicated to tracking and fighting disinformation. The first one
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: where it came up even before it was called Doppelganger,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: because remember that was the EU's Disinfo Lab that gave
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: it that title. But a full year or so before that,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: a German website t online not the thing it does.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: It sounds super fake. They published an article where they
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: were like, hey, there's a bunch of new Facebook accounts,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: all of our German women. And the weird thing is
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: they all say that they work for Netflix, and even weirder,
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: every single one of them seems to be really really
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: adamant about Germany not funding you and just leaving Russia alone.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sure Netflix is like seriously, thanks.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I know, although Netflix is probably like, hey, any publicity's good.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's a good point. I get this is
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: this is not this, But I know you're not on
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: social media a lot, but on Instagram I will get
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I will have to block a lot of people that
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: come on to follow me because it's clear that it's
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: some sort of a some sort of a porn thing. Sure,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Or I will get a comment from someone on some
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: random like I'll leave a comment on some random like
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: like Instagram posts that I think is cool or whatever,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: and then someone will comment on that like oh yeah, totally,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Chuck Brian or whatever, Chuck the podcaster, And then I'll
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: look at you like who is this and it's you know,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: it's clearly some fake person, and I just I don't
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: know what the angle is and I always block it,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: so obviously I don't know, but I wonder what the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: goal is. I got to be separating me from money somehow.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Somehow, or yeah or yeah, or getting money to somebody
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: like an influencer something or to boost whatever thing you
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: said was cool.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's very strange, but it's always quite obvious what
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: it is because they have like zero posts, uh follow
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: a ton of people, no one follows them, and it's
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: usually some you know, if I can be frank, it's
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: usually some very like well endowed you know woman.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you remember there was a period of time
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: when AI slop was really starting to gear up, where
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: it does not matter what video you were watching on
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: like YouTube or whatever. In the search it was like
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: a very beautiful woman standing there like Vana White, right
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: next to the video screen, like learn all about C
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: plus plus coding from me the sixty secretary, you know.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Like it was all videos were like that for a minute,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: and I was like, God, is this how it's going
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: to be from now on? And then it seems to
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: have vanished.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know the only reason I bring all
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: that up is because it's just sort of backs up
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: this thing that we're talking about in this idea that
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I keep edging toward, which is like, God, maybe it's
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: just best to get off and away from all of
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that stuff all together. Yes, is really going in the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: wrong direction.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: No, it definitely is. There's this thing called the dead
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Internet theory. Been wanting to do at least the short
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: stuff on it, but essentially it says that the Internet
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: has become a just a bunch of bots interacting with
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: bots trying to gain social media algorithms to make money
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: for some dude or whatever country Singapore or something like that, right,
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: And some studies have found that perhaps a third of
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: accounts on either Instagram or Facebook, probably Facebook, are bots
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: a third man, and that it's just gotten so far
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: out of hand that we're never going to get it back.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: And also, like those long tail articles where you make
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: like five cents but it costs nothing to have an
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: AI write and publish that article, those have have pushed
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: actual human written, researched articles about any given thing from
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: like page one Google search to like page twenty. So
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: there's still like no reason to go in and search
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: for anything anymore unless you want some AI article broken
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: into fifty different small paragraphs or sections that are basically
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: repeat themselves over and over again, that's what you have available.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: So it does seem like the Internet is pretty dead.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've noticed even on Instagram from some sites all
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I can follow, like music sites or whatever, it's sort
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: of a dead giveaway. Now if the caption instead of
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: being like, you know, led Zeppelin performs at this performance
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: and it was awesome, it's now some really long, like
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: four paragraph thing with like this detailed history of like
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: led Zeppelin was a band and blah blah blah, and
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: it's just so obvious AI is doing it. Yeah, and
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: it's just it's kind of ruining what I used to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: like about Instagram, along with a lot of other stuff. Yeah,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: like you know, these fake busting women. It's like it
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: just makes me want to run away. Stop it, run away.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Something else is going to come along, because there is
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: like it's very clear that the Internet, and it's like
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: ideally is really great and useful and important and we
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: need it. It's just this version of it is no
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: longer useful, so we need to figure out a different one.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: And somebody right now it'll.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Well it just it sucks because I don't like to
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: support that company because they're part of Meta, which I
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: hate and got off of Facebook. But I do like
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: the connection with listeners and be able to chat stuff up.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: So it's, uh yeah, it feels like it's a no
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: in situation.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I think what'll probably become is more of an
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: emphasis on email maybe again, and then like they'll that'll
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: get taken over and then it'll be handwritten letters.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: That'd be great. Speaking of Meta though, in twenty twenty two,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: and this was after that t online group that you mentioned,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: sort of out of this whole thing. Mm hm, that's
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: when like Meta and some other higher profile companies started
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: saying like, oh, well, like we know this is going on.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: We're going to start removing pages and we're going to
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: start deleting this and we're going to take this super
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: serious and who knows what's going on on the inside.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I sound like I'm being cynical, because I probably feel
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: like I am. But they have found that like a
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: lot of it is coming through ads, and like they're
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: not even catching a ninety five percent of undeclared political
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: ads aren't being caught in this supposed sweep to clean things.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Up right, Yeah, because it's not just posts or bots
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: creating posts or even commenting, it's buying ads, and so
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Facebook has a huge financial incentive to not root those
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: things out because they make tons of cash off of it.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean they said that they're doing this,
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: they're not actually doing it. And that's a good example
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: of the whole whack a mole thing too. Is like
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: a big company like that trying to police their own
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: social media site that's gotten out of their own control.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: That's not a good technique either, although I think all
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: of us could probably agree that medic could do way,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: way more than it does. So the finally, in September
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, after this has been identified for two
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: full years, the US Department of Justice is like, we're
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: going to take charge here.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll take care of it.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Get this. They took down thirty two websites wow, that
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: were related to Doppelganger, and they were like, this is
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: too risky before a US election, So we're gonna we're
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: gonna do We're gonna go the nuclear option and take
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: down thirty two websites.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the cynicism is coming through. It's I mean,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: whack a mole didn't even begin to describe it. I'm
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: sure like Russia hears the stuff and they're just like
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: laughing into their vodka, you know.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well that's the point that a lot of people make,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: is that it might not even be changing people's minds,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: but just the fact that we know it exists makes
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: you question everything then, And so you're right, are questioning
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: the legitimate stuff too, So you're not learning anything. Everything
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: has an angle.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and now we're seeing of course, and we've talked
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: about I think we did a whole episode on deep fakes, right,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: mm hmm, yeah, on deep fake and obviously the advent
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: of AI technology, which is now completely taken over already
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: where they have, you know, a fake video going up
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: where it looks like Joe Biden doing something, or it
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: looks like anybody doing something, and they will take you know,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: they try to evade detection, so they'll post a video
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: just a little differently in different iterations, like with just
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: a few milliseconds trimmed out, so they can't be automatically
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: rooted out when like a company builds a system to
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: root out this kind of stuff, right, and we're already
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: at the point like AI has moved so fast, we're
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: already at the point where people all over the place.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: For months now, I have been going like, I don't
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: even know if this is real, Like I don't know
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: if what I can believe anymore. So like it's working.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: What they're doing is working, right.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: The thing that got me is that they've figured out
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: because AI companies train their models on like the Internet
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: and specific parts of the Internet, the Russians have figured
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: out that they can flood those parts of the Internet
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: with misinformation, and that's what the AI is going to
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: learn and think is real. So the AI is going
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: to just give out bad information or misinformation as well
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: because that's what it thinks is true.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to go live in a cave right
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: after we record.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: This, We'll get into Buddhism.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's do that.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: So, like we said, I don't know if we gave
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: our a hat tip to Olivia, who really did a
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: good exhaustive job on explaining this, But one of the
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: things she points out is that it's really unclear whether
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: this actually sways opinion.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there have been some studies, right, Yeah, but.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: I mean just anecdotally, I think it does, but maybe
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: it's one of those things where like, Okay, if it
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: really comes down to somebody saying, do you truly believe that?
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Are you gonna be like yes, then maybe it doesn't
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: really sway opinion. But there was a study that looked
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: at disinformation efforts by Russian the twenty sixteen US election,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: and it basically found that, like it had almost no
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: effect whatsoever.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they found that one percent of social media users
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: got seventy percent of the exposures, so a few people
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: getting most of this stuff, but that's still thirty percent
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: on the other ninety nine percent. And they also point
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: out that like a lot of the people getting exposed
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: to this are Republicans because the Russian posts are you know, again,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: they're sort of targeting them about like hey, America first stuff,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: America first stuff, and they already believe that stuff anyway,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: so it's not maybe like they're changing minds, maybe that's
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: the point, but they're reinforcing beliefs for sure.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but again, that fire hose or the fire
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: hose of misinformation or false information, that's the technique, and
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: it seems to be working. The thing that stuck out
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: to me was I couldn't find anything about what they're doing. Now,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: it seems like they're still doing much the same because
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: it works really, really well and it can just pop
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: up anywhere. Like there is a story I found, I
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: don't know if you saw it, where a twenty sixteen
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: disinformation campaign from Russia actually managed to get real life
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Texans to battle one another, at least verbally. I don't
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: think anyone was physically injured over the Islamification of Texas,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: which was just complete bunk made up by the disinformation group.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: And even more than that, they made up the group
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: that the protesters joined. They also made up the group
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: that the counter protesters joined, So the whole thing was
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: totally fat, fabricated and social engineered. So like that works,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: and at the time, these people were not thinking that
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: they were being manipulated by Russians, right, They thought it
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: was real. So it's going to keep continuing to work,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: so there's no reason for them to stop. I'm curious
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: about what the next thing is that they're doing now
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: that we're going to find out about three years from now.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: You know, right, yeah, for sure. The other thing that
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: sort of would send a chill up your spine is
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: like none of this is even secret anymore. Like it's
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: out and they know it's out, and they don't care.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: They're in crowd if.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: They're out and proud with their what they call a
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: high reach, low impact campaign, which is, like you said, again,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the fire hose and the volume of content doesn't really
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: matter how much people believe it or not, as long
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: as you're sowing chaos and getting people to eventually think
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: like I don't even know, like maybe I'll just disengage
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: altogether because I don't know what's real. When widespread coverage
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: of Doppelganger came out, the Russian government was like, awesome,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: let's give more funding to the SDA. And there's even
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: a suggestion that SDA deliberately leaked Operation Doppelganger like information
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: about that just to get more media coverage about it. Right, man,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I really do want to go live in a cave
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: after this.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: The best suggestion I saw was to fight fire with fire.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: That the whole wackamle thing is never ever going to work,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: and it actually just helps Russia, like you said, just
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: by giving it publicity, and that essentially the best thing
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: the West could do is to create its own SDA
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: and just turn it on Russia that that's basically the
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: only option to get them to stop.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: That sounds like a great idea for sure.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck and I are jaded, I think it's
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: time for listener mail.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Is beyond jaded, all right, guys, for this is a
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: nice light way to end. Guys. For years, my wife
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and I have had an argument over the pronunciation of biopic,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: like when you make a movie about a person like
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: a biographical picture. We've both been stubborn to admit defeat.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: She's part of the biopic crowd, but I prefer biopic.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: She of course claims she's right because she's a former
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: elementary school teacher and a big study of English lit
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: and knows the truth. Blah blah blah. But it wasn't
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: until Chuck said biopic in your recent Howard Hughes episode
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: that I got the vindication I needed. I don't care
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: if Chuck and I are wrong, it doesn't matter. All
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: that matters is I know I'm not alone anymore. And
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: we'll continue with my pronunciation, and I'll make sure to
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: pass this down to my seven and four year old kids.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: That is from Kevin Croyle in North Carolina, and I
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: also got a really rude email from a very I
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: guess angry person that I said it differently and they
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: were like, a goosh, you'd like being wrong. I guess
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: it is wrong. I don't even know. I never thought
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: about it. But I don't say biography. I say biography,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: so I say biopic and I don't know. That's just
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: how it flowed out of my mouth. So I may
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: be wrong. I don't care.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you may be prettrazy.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: You say biopic, right, mm.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Hmm, but that's just what I've always heard, and I'm
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: so used to you saying biopic. Now that's not even
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: I think that they're both right. I think you managed
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: to wedge it into reality.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Well maybe someday when someone writes the biography on our lives,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: it'll make it creat to do a biopic. Yeah all right.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Well, who is that from? The nice one?
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: That is from Kevin?
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Thanks Kevin, that was very nice and I'm glad. Do
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: you feel vindicated sorry to your wife although she and
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: I share the same pronunciation.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, we can all have an arm wrestling match
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: one day.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Or something if you want to be like Kevin and
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: write to us about feeling vindicated by me or Chuck
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: or Jerry or whoever we want to hear about it,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Stuff you should know the production of iHeartRadio.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.