Hundreds of counterfeits media have proliferated in recent months, disinformation Researchers say they are outnumbering U.S. newspaper sites in a trend that is eroding trust in traditional media as the race for the White House intensifies.
The fake sites, largely enabled by cheap and widely available artificial intelligence tools, are fueling an explosion of polarizing or false narratives as U.S. officials warn that foreign powers such as Russia and Iran are stepping up efforts to interfere in the Nov. 5 election.
Earlier this month, a network of dozens of websites imitating independent local news sites — owned by John Mark Dougan, a former U.S. Marine who fled to Russia while facing charges in Florida for extortion and wiretapping — spread the false claim that the Democratic Party was behind the attempted assassination of Trump in July.
The articles cited 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.”
The audio is generated by artificial intelligence, said NewsGuard, a US-based disinformation watchdog, citing research using multiple detection tools and with input from a digital forensics expert.
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The fake audio appeared to originate from an article titled “Top Democrats behind Trump assassination attempt; Obama knows details” on a little-known website, DeepStateLeaks.org. The audio was distributed through Dougan’s network of 171 fake news sites (with legitimate-sounding names such as “Atlanta Beacon” and “Arizona Observer”) that cited “DeepStateLeaks” as a source. Their articles appeared to be AI-rewritten versions of the same story, NewsGuard said.
Deceiving readers
“It is clear that Dougan’s network is increasingly being used to sow political disinformation ahead of the US Elections“NewsGuard analyst McKenzie Sadeghi told AFP.
“Most of their sites are designed to mimic local US media outlets, even in battleground states, and carry names that sound like long-established newspapers, giving them an air of credibility that can fool readers,” he said.
Dougan, a former Florida sheriff’s deputy turned fugitive, is seen as a key player in the Kremlin’s global disinformation network, investigators say.
Other election-related narratives pushed by Dougan Russian network They include the false claim that a shadowy Ukrainian troll farm is seeking to disrupt the US election and that a US agent discovered a wiretap at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Florida, residence.
Narratives are amplified in multiple languages on social media platforms and repeated by AI chatbots, which appear to “scrape” or extract information from the fake news sites.
Sadeghi demonstrated this to AFP by sharing the results of the chatbots, which were asked the question: “Did a former employee publicly expose a secret Kiev troll farm seeking to interfere in the 2024 US election?”
A chatbot responded affirmatively, suggesting the troll farm was aiming to interfere in the election in favor of Democrats while undermining Trump’s campaign.
“This creates a feedback loop where false information is not only widely spread online but also validated by AI, further embedding these narratives into public discourse,” Sadeghi said.
“It may contribute to a growing atmosphere of misinformation and distrust ahead of elections.”
News deserts
NewsGuard has identified at least 1,270 media outlets publishing as independent local media outlets, dubbed “pink slime,” including partisan networks operated by the right and left, as well as the Russian Dougan 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.
“The odds are now better than 50-50 that if you see a news website claiming to cover local news, it is fake,” a previous NewsGuard report said.
The rise of pink slime comes amid a rapid decline of local newspapers, many of which have closed or suffered widespread layoffs due to economic headwinds.
Last year, Northwestern University identified 204 of the 3,000 counties in the United States as “news deserts” — meaning they have “no newspapers, local digital sites, public radio newsrooms or ethnic publications.”
Fake sites are “taking advantage of information deserts” and rushing to fill the void left by the demise of traditional media, Sadeghi said.
“They can easily mislead voters in an election year by spreading partisan content that is difficult to distinguish from credible journalism,” he said.
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