Taylor Swift’s Pro-Russia Doppelganger
Uncanny Valley | WIRED14 Joulu 2023

Taylor Swift’s Pro-Russia Doppelganger

Does your favorite movie star or pop singer really love the Kremlin? Though the ads in your Facebook feed may lead you to believe such a thing, it’s just not true. In recent months, a major disinformation campaign has run rampant on Meta and X (aka Facebook and Twitter). The campaign uses fake ads that show existing photos of extremely famous celebrities—Beyoncé, Oprah, Justin Bieber, Shakira, Cristiano Ronaldo—which have been doctored to include fake quotes that back Russia and criticize Ukraine. The campaign, which is still in progress, was perpetrated by a pre-Kremlin group known as Doppelganger. Information shared exclusively with WIRED has also linked this disinformation campaign to Russia’s GRU military spy agency.

On this week’s show, we talk with WIRED contributor David Gilbert, who reports on digital disinformation. David says Doppelganger has been acting in plain sight for over a year, buying targeted ads and using networks of bots and fake Facebook pages to get its pro-Russia propaganda in front of millions of people.

Show Notes:

Read David’s story about Doppelganger’s campaign. Read all of David’s recent coverage. Also read our coverage of other online propaganda campaigns.

Recommendations:

David recommends the movie Saltburn. Mike recommends buying Italian blood orange soda instead of sparkling cider for your next holiday part. Lauren recommends supporting a union!

David Gilbert can be found wrangling all kinds of disinformation on social media @daithaigilbert. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jaksot(428)

Gift Rap

Gift Rap

It's been a rough year, and the typically stressful holiday season is bound to be even more so. You might be having a hard time figuring out what gifts to give people, or even how to give them. Lucky ...

11 Joulu 202030min

Ride Share’s Road Ahead

Ride Share’s Road Ahead

Uber and Lyft had it pretty good in the beginning. The companies could roll out their services to new cities, entice a bunch of drivers and riders to their platform, and "disrupt" transit before regul...

4 Joulu 202029min

Pedal Revolution

Pedal Revolution

Ebikes are having a moment. Today's electric bikes are powerful, elegant, maneuverable, and, as battery technology improves, they're able to ride for miles and miles. For some people, they're even rep...

20 Marras 202032min

Apple Chips Ahoy

Apple Chips Ahoy

Another month, another Apple event. This time around, we saw three new Macs, all with a shiny new chip inside them. Apple's M1 processor is a great big leap forward for the company. It marks a shift f...

13 Marras 202024min

Console Wars

Console Wars

Consoles: They're new, they're shiny, they'll be here next week. Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X launch a couple days apart, and together, they're expected to usher in a new era of ...

6 Marras 202030min

Car Talk

Car Talk

On November 3, Massachusetts voters will get to weigh in on Question 1, a proposal on the ballot that would make the data on a car’s computer available to third-party repair shops. This would change t...

30 Loka 202031min

Google and the Government

Google and the Government

This week, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against Google. It accuses the company of stifling competition and operating a near-monopoly on the search advertising industry. Natural...

23 Loka 202034min

The iPhones 12

The iPhones 12

Less than a month after its last hardware event, Apple held another one this week where it announced a slate of new iPhones. The standout feature of all four (4) phones is 5G capability. Apple, along ...

16 Loka 202029min