Kremlin shifts to influencers: A new era of Russian propaganda

Troll farms and bots on social media have ceased to be the main tools of Russian propaganda. Now, the Kremlin prefers to use influencers with a large online reach and are credible to their audiences.

The company Tenet Media, involved in social media, was allegedly funded by the Russian authorities. The United States Department of Justice has alleged that two Russian government employees transferred nearly £8 million to the company.

Politico reports that the indictment mentioned that influencers, although claiming they were unaware of Tenet's connections to Russia – received compensation exceeding £305,000 per month. "Influencers with a fanatic following are far more successful at spreading disinformation than bots and trolls," notes Pekka Kallioniemi, a Finnish disinformation researcher and author of "Vatnik Soup," a book on informational wars in Russia.

The expert also emphasises that large influencers find it much easier to spread disinformation than even massively operating online trolls. Internet creators often boast millions of followers, and their content even reaches public media.

According to the expert, Russian propaganda had already used social media. Russian agents created websites or information blogs, the content of which was entirely artificial intelligence.

"It is also worth mentioning that probably they are using AI now and in the future, because it’s just automating things. It’s so much cheaper and also more effective. You can create huge volume by using AI. So for example, what Russian operatives have done is create fake news sites or blogs, and the content on these blogs is completely generated by AI, but sometimes they inject Russian narratives or propaganda manually. There are hundreds of these blogs," warns Pekka Kallioniemi.