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| Founded | 23 February 2022 |
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| Owner | Timofey Vasiliev |
| URL | waronfakes |
War on Fakes is a Russian website and associated Telegram channels [1] which claims to fact check news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has been identified as a purveyor of Russian propaganda and disinformation about the invasion.
According to the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research (DFR) Lab, the War on Fakes website's original Russian version and Telegram channel were registered on 23 February 2022, the day before the invasion of Ukraine. The English website was registered on 1 March. As of 9 March, the Telegram channel had over 625,000 subscribers and was one of the most viewed Telegram channels in Russia, with over 30 million views. [2]
A March 2023 investigation by Logically, a British disinformation analysis organisation, found that Timofey Vasiliev, a former Russian journalist, is behind War on Fakes. [3] [4] Vasiliev previously worked as a "citizen journalist" for various pro-Kremlin news organisations. [4]
A review of the website's purported fact checks by PolitiFact in August 2022 found that they were pieces of disinformation that relied on well-known techniques used in Russian propaganda to confuse readers trying to learn about the war in Ukraine. [5] In February 2023, Roman Osadchuk of the Atlantic Council's DFR Lab said that War on Fakes had "become a powerhouse of spreading false debunks", adding, "It works primarily because fact-checking usually serves for readers as an 'authoritative' source to seek 'objective information.'" [6] War on Fakes has been promoted by the Russian government on its social media accounts, [2] [6] and by Russian state media outlet RT. [2]
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic deceptions and media manipulation tactics to advance political, military, or commercial goals. Disinformation is implemented through attacks that "weaponize multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value judgements—to exploit and amplify culture wars and other identity-driven controversies."
RT is a Russian state-controlled international news television network funded by the Russian government. It operates pay television and free-to-air channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in Russian, English, Spanish, French, German and Arabic.
Sputnik is a Russian state-owned news agency and radio broadcast service. It was established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya on 10 November 2014. With headquarters in Moscow, Sputnik maintains regional editorial offices in Washington, D.C., Cairo, Beijing, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro. Sputnik describes itself as being focused on global politics and economics and aims for an international audience.
New Eastern Outlook (NEO) is an internet journal published by the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. According to its website, this journal looks at world events "as they relate to the Orient." According to a 2020 report from the US State Department, NEO is "a pseudo-academic publication ... that promotes disinformation and propaganda focused primarily on the Middle East, Asia, and Africa." According to the United States Department of the Treasury, NEO is run by SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence agency. NEO is included in the EUvsDisinfo project, which tracks online disinformation.
The propaganda of the Russian Federation promotes views, perceptions or agendas of the government. The media include state-run outlets and online technologies, and may involve using "Soviet-style 'active measures' as an element of modern Russian 'political warfare'". Notably, contemporary Russian propaganda promotes the cult of personality of Vladimir Putin and positive views of Soviet history. Russia has established a number of organizations, such as the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests, the Russian web brigades, and others that engage in political propaganda to promote the views of the Russian government.
The East StratCom Task Force (ESCTF) is a part of the European External Action Service, focused on "effective communication" and promotion of European Union activities in Eastern Europe and beyond. The task force's flagship project is EUvsDisinfo, a database of articles and media which the organization considers as providing false, distorted or partial information.
Fake news websites are websites on the Internet that deliberately publish fake news—hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be real news—often using social media to drive web traffic and amplify their effect. Unlike news satire, fake news websites deliberately seek to be perceived as legitimate and taken at face value, often for financial or political gain. Such sites have promoted political falsehoods in India, Germany, Indonesia and the Philippines, Sweden, Mexico, Myanmar, and the United States. Many sites originate in, or are promoted by, Russia, or North Macedonia among others. Some media analysts have seen them as a threat to democracy. In 2016, the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs passed a resolution warning that the Russian government was using "pseudo-news agencies" and Internet trolls as disinformation propaganda to weaken confidence in democratic values.
Eva Karene Bartlett is a Russian-based American Canadian activist, journalist, commentator, and blogger who has propagated conspiracy theories in connection to the Syrian civil war, most notably the disproven allegation that the White Helmets stage rescues and "recycle" children in its videos.
The People's Voice is an American fake news website based in Los Angeles. The site was founded as Your News Wire in 2014 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai and his husband, Sinclair Treadway. In November 2018, it rebranded itself as NewsPunch. Your News Wire was revived as a separate website in November 2020, and has continued publishing hoaxes similar to those in NewsPunch. In 2023, NewsPunch adopted its current name, The People's Voice.
The StopFake website is a project of Ukrainian media NGO Media Reforms Center. It was founded in March 2014 by Ukrainian professors and students with the stated purpose of refuting Russian propaganda and fake news. It began as a Russian- and English-language fact-checking organization, and has grown to include a TV show broadcast on 30 local channels, a weekly radio show, and a strong social media following.
The Russian information war against Ukraine was articulated by the Russian government as part of the Gerasimov doctrine. They believed that Western governments were instigating color revolutions in former Soviet states which posed a threat to Russia.
Logically is a British multinational technology startup company that specializes in analyzing and fighting disinformation. Logically was founded in 2017 by Lyric Jain and is based in Brighouse, England, with offices in London, Mysore, Bangalore, and Virginia.
As part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian state and state-controlled media have spread disinformation in their information war against Ukraine. Ukrainian media and politicians have also been accused of using propaganda and deception, although such efforts have been described as more limited than the Russian disinformation campaign.
Russian disinformation campaigns have occurred in many countries. For example, disinformation campaigns led by Yevgeny Prigozhin have been reported in several African countries. Russia, however, denies that it uses disinformation to influence public opinion.
In March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials falsely claimed that public health facilities in Ukraine were "secret U.S.-funded biolabs" purportedly developing biological weapons, which was debunked as disinformation by multiple media outlets, scientific groups, and international bodies. The claim was amplified by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese state media, and was also promoted by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory and subsequently supported by other far-right groups in the United States.
Patrick Lancaster is an American vlogger, podcaster and influencer. Although described as pro-Kremlin, Lancaster has been called a double agent due to his videos covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine regularly revealing compromising Russian military information, which is used against Russia by Ukrainian forces, western intelligence agencies, and western media. Lancaster is known for regularly filming staged scenes and attempting to pass them off as real, and has been referred to as a fake master.
Disclose.tv is a disinformation outlet based in Germany that presents itself as a news aggregator. It is known for promoting conspiracy theories and fake news, including COVID-19 misinformation and anti-vaccine narratives.
Social media has played a prominent role during the Russo-Ukrainian War, and especially the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has made the war one of the most "meticulously documented" in recent history.
Sonja van den Ende is a Dutch citizen journalist and political activist. She reported on the wars in Syria and later the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In her reporting she is critical of the mainstream media in the Western world, which she accuses of spreading lies about Russia and the wars in Ukraine and Syria. In turn, her reporting has been described by said media as pro-Russian and affiliated with Russian propaganda and disinformation.