The U.S. Justice Department announced last week that Russia is allegedly spreading disinformation about U.S. policies and politics, targeting prominent right-wing influencers in the United States.

The unsealed documents show that employees from RT, formerly known as Russia Today, were contracted with Tenet Media to offer lavish contracts with its influencers.

Tenet Media was founded in 2022 and contracts prominent right-wing and pro-Trump influencers such as Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson. 

Influencers contracted by Tenet received about $400,000 a month for four videos, which comes out to $100,000 per video made. On average, influencers usually make around $45,000 per post, which is a 122% increase for those contracted by Tenet. 

The influencers have indicated that they are “victims” of a scheme peddled by Russia, and they did not know that Tenet Media had connections to Russian state media. 

Critics are skeptical, with many wondering why these influencers would appeal to foreign adversaries in the first place. 

This is not the first time that Russia has tried to meddle in U.S. elections.

In 2016, Russia was found to have interfered in the presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Bots were created to fill comment sections with disinformation about the candidates, creating division between Americans. 

Dick Farkas, a political science professor at DePaul, explained that this year’s disinformation campaign was created to test Americans’ capabilities to decipher false information.  

“I think we understand these Russian efforts best by recognizing that Russians are testing our vulnerability to media manipulation (from any trajectory), their unbridled access to our systems via cyber systems, and their intricate knowledge of how the U.S. system is entwined with public opinion,” Farkas said.

Not only have these campaigns spread disinformation, but it is important to note that United States cyber capabilities are being targeted as well.

Cybersecurity is a new and critical area of foreign relations. Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, along with an increasing amount of cyber crimes. 

Sohaib Rana, a DePaul computer science major, explained how our national security is at risk because of the U.S.’s vulnerable cyber spaces.

“By using a VPN, people are able to post from wherever on the planet,” Rana said. “Social media cannot always target these bots since they can be operating in a foreign country, but have a VPN based in the United States.”

“Along with the VPNs, AI is another issue to talk about. AI is a new field with relatively no information on how to counter its impact on disinformation,” Rana said

Parnika Pagadala, a first-year political science student, commented on how disinformation can be easily consumed.

“This type of catfish media is alarming, but being aware of the media you consume and questioning what you see is important to not be taken advantage of or fall into the trap they have built,” Pagadala said.

The Department of Justice also released a common tactic used by RT, called Doppelganger. Doppelganger involves foreign state actors creating websites that vaguely look like media outlets.

The amount of false information that was spread is unknown, but the Department of Justice has seized 32 Doppelganger domains along with AI-generated content, paid social media advertisements and social media accounts. 

To counter misinformation spreading on social media sites in the United States, Meta and X are utilizing a fact-checking program so Americans can see if the information they are reading is true or not.

Along with fact-checking, Meta bans accounts that are bots or that actively spread misinformation.

The Department of Justice is still investigating the influencers involved, along with the Russian media company RT.

“These are largely ‘unknown’ dimensions of our 21st century political reality. Be aware, we probe these issues as we frame our tactics and relationships with other political systems,” Farkas said.

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