If I was slightly ahead of the curve, it’s only because I saw it firsthand. A couple of years ago, I was the focus of a smear campaign. Elements of it could have been lifted out of a spy novel, but the basic idea was quite simple: In the wake of the invasion of Crimea, when I was writing quite a bit about Ukraine, nasty little articles about me started appearing on Russia-based websites. The technique was the same as that used by people who later dressed up the stories from the emails of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta: mix truth and lies — my book contract and royalties were described as mysterious income from questionable sources — make ludicrous claims, pass on the lies to other Russian-backed websites, and then watch them pass it on again.
There was no way to correct the stories — to whom would I complain? — and as I’m not running for president, frankly who cares. But it was eye-opening to watch the stories move through a well-oiled system, one that had been constructed for exactly this sort of purpose. Eventually the articles about me were echoed or quoted in a dozen places: on quasi-respectable websites with ties to Russian business, on Russia Today, and on pro-Russian American websites like Ron Paul’s Institute for Peace and Prosperity. The process finally peaked in November 2015, when WikiLeaks — out of the blue — tweeted one of the articles to its 4 million followers.
It was a peculiar experience, but I learned a lot. As I watched the story move around the Web, I saw how the worlds of fake websites and fake news exist to reinforce one another and give falsehood credence. Many of the websites quoted not the original, dodgy source, but one another. There were more phony sites than I’d realized, though I also learned that many of their “followers” (maybe even most of them) are bots — bits of computer code that can be programmed to imitate human social media accounts and told to pass on particular stories.
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