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Don’t listen to China and Russia even if they appear in the American press or websites. These two countries are taking advantage of American freedom and democracy or bribe them to spread black and gray anti-American propaganda.
Indeed, VOA reported on July 30, 2024 that U.S. authorities warned that Russia is exploiting unwitting Americans to spread disinformation about the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin is exploiting Americans’ lack of attention and Russian public relations firms to spread disinformation about the election, top U.S. intelligence officials said on July 29. The officials also detailed the latest efforts by U.S. adversaries to shape public opinion ahead of the election.
The officials said China and Russia’s determination to spread false and inflammatory claims about American democracy online to undermine confidence in the election has not changed. “The American public should be aware that what they read online — especially on social media — could be foreign propaganda, even if it appears to come from fellow Americans or originate in the United States,” an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Russia continues to pose the biggest threat when it comes to election disinformation, while there are signs that Iran is expanding its efforts and China is treading cautiously in relation to the 2024 election. Kremlin-linked groups are increasingly hiring marketing and communications firms in Russia to handle the creation of digital propaganda while also hiding their tracks.
The misinformation could focus on candidates or elections, or on issues that are controversial in the United States, such as immigration, crime or the war in Gaza. But the ultimate goal is to get Americans to spread Russian disinformation without questioning its origins. Officials say people tend to believe and repost information they think comes from domestic sources. Fake websites designed to mimic U.S. news outlets and AI-generated social media pages are just two of the methods.
In some cases, Americans, tech companies and media have been willing to amplify and repeat Kremlin messages. Sen. Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on July 29 that warnings from intelligence officials showed the U.S. election was “in the crosshairs of bad actors around the world.”
Russia and other countries have also been quick to pivot to exploit recent developments in the presidential race, including the assassination of former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Regarding the press and Vietnamese media overseas, they are also susceptible to this trap of Russia and China. Editorial boards with few people or few foreign languages often copy news from domestic newspapers, often using Russian and Chinese commentary, sometimes even using the original communist text.
The American press has a reputation for lying to get money from China. The Epoch Times published an investigative report on June 4, 2024, about how the Chinese Communist Party uses money to manipulate the US media. China’s foreign propaganda is not trusted, and few people pay for it. But with enough money, they can insert news ads into mainstream international magazines, reaching millions of households by “borrowing their brand” to “win the hearts of people around the world.”
To publish an article that “speaks well of China” in the US magazine Time, you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars or more per page. Time allows the CCP to use their brand for propaganda, designing advertisements that look like news, with headlines, images, and long text. But in reality, all of these are paid for by advertisers to design.
To publish the entire Beijing section in the Los Angeles Times or the ChinaWatch supplement on China’s economy, natural environment, and culture in USA Today, it costs several thousand dollars per page. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Registry, China Daily paid Time Magazine about $85,000 per month in 2023 to run ChinaWatch ads and articles. Similarly, it paid the Los Angeles Times $34,000 per month, including the September 17, 2023, issue with four pages of the Beijing Section, Chengdu Section, and special features. In 2023, USA Today received $107,500 for the same practice.
(Compiled by Vi Anh, source: VOA Radio, Epoch Times)