Russia's conspiracy-theory factory is swaying a brand new audience

Its direct viewership was always modest. But the disruptive conspiracy theories pushed by its hosts—including questioning official accounts of the Sept. 11 attacks and claiming the Ukrainian government was riddled with Nazis—energized the political fringes in Europe and North America. It appealed equally to partisans of the hard right and hard left, united by their skepticism of establishment politics. In 2015, Mike Flynn, the former US general who’d later be named as Donald Trump’s national security adviser, flew to Moscow for RT’s 10th anniversary gala, where he was seated next to Putin as an honored guest. Right across the table was Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate, breaking bread with Putin’s chief spokesman.

The European Union banned RT shortly after the Ukraine invasion began in late February, in response to what it said was a Russian campaign of “disinformation, information manipulation and distortion of facts.” The UK soon followed suit, while US TV carriers canceled its distribution deals. YouTube, vital for amplifying its videos, suspended RT’s accounts, citing a policy to prohibit “content denying, minimizing, or trivializing well-documented violent events.” Still, RT remains alive and well, serving Russia’s effort to muddy the picture of what’s really going on in Ukraine.

In particular, it’s become a key part of the Kremlin’s strategy to blunt the impact of sanctions by winning friends in Africa, Asia, and Latin America—places where news is consumed primarily through social media and most governments have no particular animus toward Putin. At the same time, RT is helping to spread stories through a broad ecosystem of Russian-backed outfits such as the news agency Sputnik and video provider Ruptly. And it continues to inspire other efforts to break the dominance of traditional news organizations, whether it’s China’s attempts to refine its outward-facing propaganda or projects such as TalkTV, a new British channel financed by Rupert Murdoch that promises “straight talking” on hot-button issues.