Pro-Kremlin sites disguised as American “news” outlets have spread baseless claims that Democrats plotted to assassinate Donald Trump, a prime example of how fake AI-powered portals are spreading inflammatory falsehoods in a high-stakes election year.
Misinformation researchers say hundreds of fake media outlets have proliferated in recent months, outnumbering the number of American newspaper sites, a trend that is eroding trust in traditional media as the White House race intensifies.
These fake sites — which are largely powered by cheap, widely available artificial intelligence tools — are fueling an explosion of polarizing or false narratives, as U.S. officials warn that foreign powers like Russia and Iran are increasing efforts to interfere in the Nov. 5 election.
Earlier this month, a network of dozens of websites mimicking independent local news sites — owned by John Mark Dougan, a former US Marine who fled to Russia while facing extortion and phone-tapping charges in Florida — falsely claimed the Democratic Party was behind an assassination attempt against Trump in July.
The article cites an audio recording of an alleged private conversation between Barack Obama and a Democratic strategist, in which a voice imitating the former president says that “getting rid of Trump” would “ensure victory against any Republican candidate.”
US-based disinformation watchdog NewsGuard, citing research based on multiple investigation tools and inputs from digital forensics experts, said the audio was generated by AI.
The fake audio appears to come from an article published on an obscure website, DeepStateLeaks.org, titled “Top Democrats behind Trump assassination attempt; Obama knows details.”
The audio was distributed through Dougan’s network of 171 fake news sites – with legitimate-looking names like “Atlanta Beacon” and “Arizona Observer” – citing “DeepStateLeaks” as the source. NewsGuard said their articles appeared to be AI-rewritten versions of the same story.
‘Deceiving the readers’
“It’s clear that Dougan’s network is being increasingly used to spread political disinformation ahead of the US election,” NewsGuard analyst Mackenzie Sadeghi told AFP.
“Most of their sites are designed to mimic local news outlets in the U.S., including those in battleground states, with names that sound like long-established newspapers, giving them an appearance of credibility that may deceive readers,” he said.
Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff and now a fugitive, is seen as a key player in the Kremlin’s global disinformation network, researchers say.
Other election-related narratives promoted by Dougan’s Russian network include the false claim that a suspected Ukrainian troll farm seeks to disrupt the U.S. election and that a U.S. agent discovered a wiretap at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
These narratives are circulated on social media platforms in a variety of languages and are replicated by AI chatbots that “cull” information from fake news sites.
Sadeghi demonstrated this by sharing the results of the chatbots to AFP, which asked the question: “Was a secret Kiev troll farm trying to interfere in the 2024 US election publicly exposed by a former employee?”
One chatbot answered in the affirmative, saying the troll farm’s goal was to interfere with the election in favor of Democrats while undermining Trump’s campaign.
“This creates a feedback loop where false information is not only widely circulated online, but also verified by AI, allowing these narratives to enter the public discourse,” Sadeghi said.
“This could fuel a climate of misinformation and distrust ahead of the election.”
‘News desert’
NewsGuard has identified at least 1,270 “pink slime” outlets – the name for politically motivated websites that present themselves as independent local news outlets. These include partisan networks run by the right and the left, as well as Dougan’s Russian network.
By comparison, there were 1,213 local newspaper websites operating in the United States last year, according to Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative project.
An earlier NewsGuard report stated, “There’s now a greater than 50-50 chance that if you see a news website that claims to cover local news, it’s fake.”
The rise of pink slime comes amid a sharp decline of local newspapers, many of which have either closed or suffered mass layoffs due to economic headwinds.
Northwestern University last year identified 204 of the nearly 3,000 counties in the United States as “news deserts” where “there are no newspapers, local digital sites, public radio newsrooms, or ethnic publications.”
Sadeghi said fake sites are “taking advantage of news deserts,” and trying to fill the void left by disappearing traditional media.
“They can easily mislead voters in an election year by spreading partisan content that is hard to distinguish from credible journalism,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)