Top U.S. intelligence officials say Russia, China and Iran are continuing to target voters in the U.S. with disinformation and propaganda related to the upcoming presidential election.

The Kremlin is turning to unwitting Americans and commercial public relations firms in Russia to spread disinformation about the U.S. presidential race, top intelligence officials said Monday, detailing the latest efforts by America’s adversaries to shape public opinion ahead of the 2024 election.

The warning comes after a tumultuous few weeks in U.S. politics that have forced Russia, Iran and China to revise some of the details of their propaganda playbook. What hasn’t changed, intelligence officials said, is the determination of these nations to seed the internet with false and incendiary claims about American democracy to undermine faith in the election.

“The American public should know that content that they read online — especially on social media — could be foreign propaganda, even if it appears to be coming from fellow Americans or originating in the United States,” said an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under rules set by the office of the director.

Russia continues to pose the greatest threat when it comes to election disinformation, authorities said, while there are indications that Iran is expanding its efforts and China is proceeding cautiously when it comes to 2024.

  • vga@sopuli.xyz
    75·
    5 months ago

    If anything is creating a huge amount of controversy and “outrage”, it’s probably either entirely invented by them, or the very least significantly amplified by them. Take a memory trip to 2 decades ago and think about what we’re passionately arguing about today that just weren’t an issue back then. Those kinds of things.

    Depressingly enough, they seem to have their tentacles on both the far left (due to historical reasons) and far right (due to being politically pretty much identical these days). This is also where a lot of hate towards centrists, liberalists and moderates comes from, as those camps don’t have historical or political links to them, making those groups somewhat less easy for them to manipulate.

    As a recent example, see the “Both sides!” post in Political Memes@lemmy.world