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  • Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Charged Over Alleged Criminal Activity on the App

    Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Charged Over Alleged Criminal Activity on the App

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    Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is forbidden from leaving French territory after being charged for complicity in running an online platform that allegedly enabled the spread of sexual images of children, creating an uncertain future for the messaging app that has become one of the world’s biggest social media platforms.

    Durov was arrested on Saturday at 8 pm local time after his private jet landed at an airport near Paris. He was then detained for four days as part of an investigation into alleged criminal activity taking place on Telegram. On Wednesday evening, local time, he was indicted and forbidden from leaving the country, according to a statement released by the Paris Prosecutor. He was released under judicial supervision, the statement said, must post a €5 million ($5.5m) bail and report to a police station in France twice a week.

    The Telegram founder was placed under formal investigation for a range of charges related to child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking, importing cryptology without prior declaration as well as a “near-total absence” of cooperation with French authorities, Laure Beccuau, the Paris Prosecutor, said on Wednesday.

    French authorities noted an “almost total lack of response from Telegram to legal requests,” Beccuau noted. “This is what led JUNALCO [the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime] to open an investigation into the possible criminal liability of this messaging service’s executives in the commission of these offenses,” she said. The preliminary investigation began in February 2024 and initial investigations were coordinated by the OFMIN, an agency set up to prevent violence against minors, her statement added.

    “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the abuse of that platform,” Telegram said on Sunday, before Durov was charged. The platform, which has 900 million active users, did not immediately respond to a request for comment to the charges.

    Since his arrest, both the UAE and Russia have requested consular access to Durov, who has citizenship in both countries. It’s unclear why Durov, who also obtained a French passport after leaving Russia, was in France. “I don’t take holidays,” he said on his Telegram channel in June.

    Russia has claimed, without evidence, that Durov’s arrest is an attempt by the United States to exert influence over the platform via France. “Telegram is one of the few and at the same time the largest Internet platforms over which the United States has no influence,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said on the app.

    France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Monday that Durov’s detention is “in no way a political decision.” “It is up to the judiciary, in full independence, to enforce the law,” he added in a post on X. The European Commission tells WIRED the arrest was conducted under French criminal law and is not connected to new European regulation for tech platforms. “We are closely monitoring the developments related to Telegram and stand ready to cooperate with the French authorities should it be relevant,” a spokesperson says, declining to be named.

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  • Pavel Durov’s Arrest Leaves Telegram Hanging in the Balance

    Pavel Durov’s Arrest Leaves Telegram Hanging in the Balance

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    “Civil society has had a complicated relationship with Telegram over the years,” says Natalia Kapriva, a lawyer at the digital rights group Access Now. “We have defended Telegram against attempts by authoritarian regimes to block and coerce the platform into providing encryption keys, but we have also been raising alarms about Telegram’s lack of human rights policies, reliable channel of communication, and remedy for its users.” Kapriva stresses that French authorities may try to force Durov to provide Telegram’s encryption keys to decrypt private messages, “which Russia has already tried to do in the past.”

    The hashtag #FreePavel has been spreading online, including via X’s CEO, Elon Musk, who has posted numerous times about Durov’s arrest. “POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme,” he wrote on Saturday night in response to a post about the Telegram CEO’s detention. “The need to protect free speech has never been more urgent,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who on Friday endorsed Donald Trump for US president, wrote on X, where he referred to Telegram as “uncensored” and “encrypted.”

    While Telegram is frequently described as an encrypted messaging app, messages are not end-to-end encrypted by default, and senior executives previously told WIRED that they view the platform as a social network. This is largely due to Channels—an one-to-many broadcast feature that allows unlimited subscribers to view posts.

    One of the posts that has gained the most traction on X was by right-wing former Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson, who alluded to the oft-repeated but debatable story that Durov left Russia because the government tried to take over his company. “But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech. It was a western country,” Carlson wrote in a post that has so far been viewed at least 5.7 million times. Carlson also linked to an hour-long interview he did with Durov earlier this year, one of the first and only interviews the Telegram CEO has given in recent years.

    In Durov’s absence, Telegram’s future looks uncertain to some: “I am in shock, and everyone close to Pavel feels the same,” says Georgy Lobushkin, former head of PR at VK, a social network Durov cofounded, who is still in regular contact with Durov. “Nobody was prepared for this situation.” Asked if he worried about Telegram’s future and who could run the company in Durov’s absence, Lobushkin says: “[I] worry a lot.”

    TF1Info, which first broke the news in France of Durov’s arrest, reported that it was “beyond doubt” that Durov would remain in custody during the investigation. “Pavel Durov will end up in pretrial detention, that’s for sure,” one unnamed investigator told reporters.

    “No one in Telegram was prepared for such a scenario,” says Anton Rozenberg, who worked with Durov from the early days of VK in 2007, before working for Telegram from 2016 to 2017. Rozenberg foresaw Durov acquiring the best legal defense money could buy. “But without him, the messenger may have huge problems with management, all crucial decisions and even payments,” he added, given Durov’s personal involvement in running the company. Rozenberg saw no obvious replacement for Durov, who makes key decisions on nearly all matters at Telegram—financing, development strategies, product design, monetization, and content moderation policy.

    For now, everything can be expected to continue as normal, says Elies Campo, who directed Telegram’s growth, business, and partnerships from 2015 to 2021. “Depending on how long this is going to last, it’s like a government, right? There’s this structure, there’s self-momentum.” Campo adds that the company’s staff is small enough—around 60 employees—that the infrastructure won’t be affected.

    The challenge, Campo concedes, would be if Durov needs to be physically present to pay providers—something Rozenberg also flagged.

    “As far as I know, Pavel did the payments,” Campo says. “So what’s going to happen when there needs to be some payments for infrastructure providers, or providers in terms of connectivity—and he’s still under arrest?”

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  • When War Came to Their Country, They Built a Map

    When War Came to Their Country, They Built a Map

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    Over time, Deep State has added more advanced features and quirks to the map. A toolbar in the bottom-left corner offers the option to enable different layers, including weather patterns, fortifications, and gamma radiation levels in case of nuclear disaster. Users can simulate the effect of different weapons, calculating the range and potential damage of everything from self-propelled howitzers and ballistic missiles to Patriot air defense systems and nuclear explosions. A hidden Easter egg summons an animation of Baby Yoda that, when poked, uses the Force to destroy Russian units.

    The map soon became too much for Mykula and Pohorilyi to manage alone; they now enlist the help of more than 100 paid employees and volunteers. Their methods have also evolved. They still use open source intelligence to verify new information, but also acquire data directly from frontline military units whom they’ve developed relationships with. In some cases, the authority of a single source whom they’ve learned to trust is enough, though Mykula admits there have been occasional errors. In other cases, when multiple sources contradict one another, they wait until definitive evidence emerges. Propaganda is rife on both sides, and Mykula insists that Deep State will take no part in it. “We want to win,” he says. “Propaganda will not win.”

    Mykula and Pohorilyi do, however, oblige when Ukrainian military commanders request delays to map updates that may compromise their activities. They also receive some government funding for an alternate version of the map available only to verified members of the military. The government funding also goes toward other intelligence activities that Ruslan refuses to discuss; most of their funding comes from public donations.

    Late in the first year of the war, Mykula and Pohorilyi learned that their map was helping another, unexpected group of users: Russian soldiers. The map’s designer had added a function that would display instructions to surrender if a user tried to access from a Russian IP address. Then, in October 2022, in an interview with a popular Ukrainian blogger, a Russian POW testified that he had used Deep State’s map for this exact purpose.

    The success of Deep State’s map has attracted more users to their original Telegram channel, which now has more than 700,000 subscribers. It publishes its own original reports of the war, all available through a free app, which other established Ukrainian media organizations sometimes refer to. But the map remains the most popular product, used by Ukrainians at home and abroad to track the front line that, at the time of writing, creeps further toward their office in Kyiv every day.

    Both Mykula and Pohorilyi approach their work with a stern dedication that belies their youth and inexperience. “We don’t want to disappoint our audience because our projects have become critical for Ukrainians,” Mykula says. “If you compare us to other maps, you will see that Ukrainians don’t go to check on them. They come to us.”

    This story first appeared in the September/October 2024 edition of WIRED UK.

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  • A Russian Chess Player Allegedly Poisoned Her Opponent With Mercury

    A Russian Chess Player Allegedly Poisoned Her Opponent With Mercury

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    Russia is no stranger to unique poisonings. State agents have been known to use everything from polonium-laced tea to the deadly nerve agent “novichok” when making assassination attempts against both defectors in the UK and internal political rivals like Alexei Navalny. But a new “first” in the long history of poisonings was opened this month in the Russian republic of Dagestan, where a fortysomething chess player named Amina Abakarova allegedly attempted to poison a rival by depositing liquid mercury on and around her chess board.

    Malcolm Pein, the English Chess Federation’s director of international chess, told the UK’s Telegraph that he had “never seen anything like this before … This is the first recorded case of somebody using a toxic substance, to my knowledge, in the history of the game of chess.” Usually, he said, chess rivals confine themselves to “psychological” tactics.

    Oliver Carroll, a Ukraine war correspondent for The Economist, summed up the situation with some social media snark: “I know that on the standards of Russian doping it’s perhaps only a 7 out of 10. But still …”

    Mercury Near the Caspian Sea

    The strange story began on August 2, when a regional chess tournament was taking place in Makhachkala, a Russian town on the Caspian Sea just north of Azerbaijan. According to the Telegram channel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Dagestan, emergency services were called after 30-year-old Umayganat Osmanova fell ill during a chess match.

    Osmanova said she had seen some tiny gray or silver “beads” rolling out from beneath her side of the chess board, but this apparently didn’t seem odd until she began to feel unwell. A Chess.com story translated some of Osmanova’s remarks about what happened. “I still feel bad,” she said. “In the first minutes, I felt a lack of air and a taste of iron in my mouth. I had to spend about five hours on this board. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t seen it earlier.”

    Such symptoms are consistent with exposure to elemental mercury, the liquid or “quicksilver” version of mercury sometimes used in thermometers. According to the Cleveland Clinic, this form of mercury is “usually harmless if you touch or swallow it because its slippery texture won’t absorb into your skin or intestines.” But if you breathe in any of it, watch out—symptoms occur “immediately” and can include coughing, breathing trouble, nausea, bleeding gums, and a “metallic taste in your mouth.”

    Tournament officials consulted security camera footage, where they saw Abakarova walking through a nearly empty room of chess tables some 20 minutes before play was to begin. (In one news account, Abakarova had been asking casually beforehand whether there were any such cameras in the venue.) In the footage, Abakarova allegedly walked over to one particular table, pulled a small vial from her bag, and appeared to smear something on the pieces and the table itself.

    The security camera footage was soon released onto the internet, and you can now watch it on YouTube.

    Sazhid Sazhidov, the minister of sports of the Republic of Dagestan, posted a note to Telegram after footage of the incident began circulating, alleging that “a multiple winner of these competitions, Amina Abakarova from Makhachkala, treated the table at which her opponent—the no less titled European Champion Umayganat Osmanova from Kaspiysk—was to play with an unknown substance which, as it later turned out, was mercury compounds.”

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  • US Hands Over Russian Cybercriminals in WSJ Reporter Prisoner Swap

    US Hands Over Russian Cybercriminals in WSJ Reporter Prisoner Swap

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    If it seems like there’s suddenly a whole lot more data breaches, you may be right. Part of this apparent spike is thanks to the growing popularity of infostealer malware. These types of malicious software are increasingly being used by cybercriminals to scoop up as many login credentials and other sensitive data as possible. That stolen data is then sold on criminal hacker forums, then used to break into victims’ accounts, which can include those of massive corporations. It’s a good reminder to always enable multi-factor authentication anywhere it’s available.

    A security researcher this week disclosed the discovery of more than a dozen unsecured databases containing sensitive information on voters in counties across Illinois. The data, which was stored by a government contractor, includes driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, death certificates, and more. While election security has generally improved in recent years, the episode illuminates how difficult it can be to protect all voter data all the time.

    The history of confidential FBI informants is long and sordid—and ongoing. A WIRED investigation published this week revealed how one informant infiltrated far-right groups and turned over their secrets to the Feds—all while pushing hateful ideologies that helped inspire a new generation of violent extremists online.

    Hacking computers with lasers has always been a rich person’s game—until now. Security researchers Sam Beaumont and Larry “Patch” Trowell are releasing an open source laser hacking tool called RayV Lite, which can be produced for just $500, a tiny fraction of the $150,000 price tag of laser equipment historically used for hardware hacking. The pair will be detailing the RayV Lite at the Black Hat security conference next week in Las Vegas. (WIRED will be on the ground for Black Hat and Defcon, the other big security conference happening next week in Vegas, so check back for our full coverage starting on Tuesday.)

    Finally, we dove into the fine print of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o to lay out the privacy wins and pitfalls of the generative AI tool.

    But that’s not all. Each week, we round up the big security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

    In a historic prisoner swap between the US and Russia, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan were freed from Russian detention on Thursday. The White House said the secret deal, negotiated for over a year, involved 24 prisoners: 16 moved from Russia to the West and eight from the West to Russia, including two cybercriminals. NBC News reports this is likely the first time the US has released international hackers in a prisoner exchange.

    The two Russian hackers are Roman Seleznev and Vladislav Klyushin. Seleznev was sentenced in 2017 to 27 years in prison for racketeering convictions. According to the US Department of Justice, he installed malware on point-of-sale systems software that allowed him to steal millions of credit card numbers from more than 500 US businesses. In September 2023, Klyushin was sentenced to nine years in prison for what US prosecutors described as a “$93 million hack-to-trade conspiracy.”

    Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will pay $1.4 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by the Texas attorney general, whose office accused the social media behemoth of illegally capturing the biometric data of millions of Texans. In 2022, the state sued Meta over its implementation of a feature that used face recognition to automatically suggest people to tag in photos and videos uploaded to Facebook. Prosecutors say the feature, initially called Tag Suggestions, violated a Texas law that makes it illegal for companies to capture and profit from someone’s biometric identifiers without their consent. While Meta did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the agreement, according to Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s office, it’s the single largest privacy settlement ever obtained by a state.

    A widespread Microsoft Azure outage that impacted a range of services—including Microsoft 365 products such as Office and Outlook—was caused by a cyberattack, the tech company revealed on Wednesday. According to Microsoft’s Azure status history page, the incident lasted approximately eight hours on Tuesday and affected “a subset” of customers globally.

    The company described the attack as a distributed denial of service, a malicious attempt by hackers to disrupt a target company’s operations by overwhelming its infrastructure with a flood of internet traffic. According to PCMag, two hacktivist groups have claimed responsibility. Microsoft plans on publishing a review of the incident.

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  • Russia is building ground-based kamikaze robots out of old hoverboards

    Russia is building ground-based kamikaze robots out of old hoverboards

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    Hoverboards, or self-balancing scooters, are already used by hobbyists as a basis for robots, but now a group in Russia is putting them to use on the battlefields of Ukraine

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  • A Russian Propaganda Network Is Promoting an AI-Manipulated Biden Video

    A Russian Propaganda Network Is Promoting an AI-Manipulated Biden Video

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    Among the prominent accounts sharing the video was Russian Market, which has 330,000 followers, and is operated by Swiss social media personality Vadim Loskutov, who is known for praising Russia and criticizing the West. The video was also shared by Tara Reade, defected to Russia in 2023 in a bit for citzenship. Reid alsoaccused Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993.

    The video, researchers tell WIRED, was also manipulated in a bid to avoid detection online. “Doppelganger operators trimmed the video at arbitrary points, so they are technically different in milliseconds and therefore are likely considered as distinct unique videos by abuse protection systems,” the Antibot4Navalny researchers tell WIRED.

    “This one is unique in its ambiguity,” Fink said. “It’s maybe a known Russian band, but maybe not, maybe a deepfake, but maybe not, maybe has reference to other politicians but maybe not, In other words, it is a distinctly Soviet style of propaganda video. The ambiguity allows for multiple competing versions, which means hundreds or articles and arguments online, which leads to more people seeing it eventually.”

    As the Kremlin ramps up its efforts to undermine the US election in November, it is increasingly clear that Russia is willing to utilize emerging AI technologies. A new report published this week from threat intelligence company Recorded Future highlighted this trend by revealing that a campaign, which has been linked to the Kremlin, has been using generative AI tools to push pro-Trump content on a network of fake websites.

    The report details how the campaign, dubbed CopyCop, used the AI tools to scrape content from real news websites, repurpose the content with a right-wing bias, and republish the content on a network of fake websites with names like Red State Report and Patriotic Review that purport to be staffed by over a 1,000 journalists—all of whom are fake and have also been invented by AI.

    The topics pushed by the campaign include errors made by Biden during speeches, Biden’s age, poll results that show a lead for Trump, and claims that Trump’s recent criminal conviction and trial was “impactless” and “a total mess.”

    It is still unclear how much impact these sites are having, and a review by WIRED of social media platforms found very few links to the network of fake websites CopyCop has created. But what the CopyCop campaign has proved is that AI can supercharge the dissemination of disinformation. And experts say, this is likely just the first step in a broader strategy that will likely include networks like Doppelganger.

    “Estimating the engagement with the websites themselves remains a difficult task,” Clément Briens, an analyst at Recorded Future tells WIRED. “The AI-generated content is likely not garnering attention at all. However, it serves the purpose of helping establish these websites as credible assets for when they publish targeted content like deepfakes [which are] amplified by established Russian or pro-Russian influence actors with existing following and audiences.”

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  • The Secret Telegram Channels Providing Refuge for LGBTQ+ People in Russia

    The Secret Telegram Channels Providing Refuge for LGBTQ+ People in Russia

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    Telegram’s prevalence as a far-right hub in some parts of the world and a place for both pro- and anti-LGBTQ+ content in Russia gets at broader questions of moderation and regulation on social media platforms. Any platform that’s not trying to crack down on any type of content, Walter notes, will become “a place where people who are not able to express themselves freely on mainstream platforms are gonna move, because they just feel safer posting there.”

    As Russia’s war in Ukraine has continued, it has embarked on a campaign to eradicate what it sees as the West’s influence, including acceptance of queer people. Walter notes that some anti-LGBTQ+ Telegram propaganda campaigns in the region go so far as to claim Ukraine is training its soldiers to be gay. Nine months into the conflict, the country’s parliament passed a law criminalizing attempts to promote “nontraditional sexual relations” in everything from movies to ads to online posts.

    “The restrictions, which render life precarious for LGBT+ individuals in Russia, have a much more ambitious purpose—to consolidate conservative support at home and position Russia as the defender of ‘traditional values,’” Graeme Reid, the director of Human Rights Watch’s LGBTQ+ rights program, wrote last year. That precariousness has only increased in the year since.

    Before Sozaev fled Russia, his primary organizing tool and social media hub had been Facebook. A Russian court banned Facebook, along with Instagram, in 2022, labeling the Meta platforms as “extremist.” The ruling spared WhatsApp, but for organizers like Sozaev, Telegram has become their meeting place.

    Still, LGBTQ+ people remain cautious. Some of their public Telegram channels have been targeted, indicating that the government is watching. Anyone who uses their real name on the app risks investigation. Sozaev explains that people often encourage each other to delete the Telegram app from their phones before trying to cross the border. Their devices could be searched, and the presence of the app could put them in jeopardy and prevent them from being allowed out of the country. Telegram groups also provide tutorials instructing LGBTQ+ people on what they should do if they are being questioned by Russian authorities.

    “Just going on our Telegram channel and seeing concrete steps for how people get out” and then finding community with other LGBTQ+ Russians is what is most effective, says Maxim Ibadov, the national coordinator for RUSA LGBTQ+, a nonprofit formed in 2008 to support Russian-speaking queer people in the US.

    There are about 1,000 people on RUSA LGBTQ+’s Telegram channel, and although most members are US-based, people in Russia frequently reach out to the organization looking for ways out of the country. Often, people active in the chat connect people looking to escape with organizations like Rainbow Railroad. Others share strategies for where they crossed the border.

    Ibadov notes that Telegram is one of the primary ways their organization connects with people trying to leave Russia and community members who have recently arrived in the US and need support rebuilding their lives. “They don’t know where to go, and they might not have the desire or comfort to go to our in-person events at first,” Ibadov explains, noting that being able to follow the RUSA LGBTQ+’s Telegram is a way to build trust and confidence in the organization and its members.

    Telegram also helps RUSA LGBTQ+ community leaders know what kinds of support their members need. The organization recently started a Telegram chat for queer-identifying parents after a lesbian couple who made it to the US from Russia reached out looking for opportunities for their children to connect with other kids.

    The interactive nature of Telegram also lends itself to community members providing mutual aid to each other. Ibadov says that often someone will come to their Telegram channel to ask about how to access health care or legal support, and before RUSA LGBTQ+ staff or volunteers can respond, numerous community members will have already weighed in.

    Ibadov notes that for many LGBTQ+ people in Russia, Telegram is one of the few places they can see people living openly. As a result, they see their organization’s presence on the platform as vital not just for providing resources but also giving hope. “LGBTQ+ people in Russia can’t [publicly] fight; we have to fight for them here,” they say, “so there is hope for them there.”

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  • US Bans Kaspersky Software | WIRED

    US Bans Kaspersky Software | WIRED

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    The Russian cybersecurity software firm Kaspersky’s days of operating in the United States are now officially numbered.

    The Biden administration on Thursday said it’s banning the company from selling its products to new US-based customers starting on July 20, with the company only allowed to provide software updates to existing customers through September 29. The ban—the first such action under authorities given to the Commerce Department in 2019—follows years of warnings from the US intelligence community about Kaspersky being a national security threat because Moscow could allegedly commandeer its all-seeing antivirus software to spy on its customers.

    “When you think about national security, you may think about guns and tanks and missiles,” Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters during a briefing Thursday. “But the truth is, increasingly, it’s about technology, and it’s about dual-use technology, and it’s about data.”

    The US conducted an “extremely thorough” investigation of Kaspersky and explored “every option” to mitigate its risks, Raimondo said, but officials settled on a full ban “given the Russian government’s continued offensive cyber capabilities and capacity to influence Kasersky’s operations.”

    The Kaspersky ban represents the latest rift in relations between the US and Russia as the latter country remains locked in a brutal war with Ukraine and takes other steps to threaten Western democracies, including testing a nuclear-powered anti-satellite weapon and forming a strategic alliance with North Korea. But the ban could also immediately complicate business operations for American companies using Kaspersky software, which will lose up-to-date antivirus definitions critical for blocking malware in only three months.

    The Biden administration knows roughly how many customers Kaspersky has in the US, but government lawyers have determined that this information is proprietary business data and cannot be published, according to a Commerce Department official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. The official did say the “significant number” of US customers includes state and local governments and organizations that supply critical infrastructure such as telecommunications, power, and health care.

    Raimondo had a message for Kaspersky’s US customers on Thursday: “You have done nothing wrong, and you are not subject to any criminal or civil penalties. However, I would encourage you, in as strong as possible terms, to immediately stop using that software and switch to an alternative in order to protect yourself and your data and your family.”

    Commerce will work with the departments of Homeland Security and Justice to “get this message out” and “ensure a smooth transition,” including through a website explaining the ban, Raimondo said. “We certainly don’t want to disrupt the business or families of any Americans.”

    DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will contact critical infrastructure organizations that use Kaspersky to brief them on the alleged national security risks and “help them identify alternatives,” the Commerce Department official said.

    Kaspersky has consistently denied being a national security risk or an agent of the Kremlin. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new nationwide ban. But given Kaspersky’s past resort to litigation to defend itself, Thursday’s announcement could prompt another lawsuit that sets up a high-stakes legal test of Commerce’s national security powers.

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  • ISIS Created Fake CNN and Al Jazeera Broadcasts

    ISIS Created Fake CNN and Al Jazeera Broadcasts

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    The Islamic State has created fake videos mimicking the look and feel of mainstream news outlets CNN and Al Jazeera, according to a new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue shared exclusively with WIRED.

    Launched in early March, the campaign was orchestrated by War and Media, a pro–Islamic State media outlet that typically creates long-form videos pushing the group’s ideology and history. The Islamic State, or ISIS, is a UN-designated terror group that perpetrated a genocide of the Yezidi population in Iraq and conducted multiple terrorist attacks, including the 2015 attacks in Paris that left 131 people dead; it has also promoted videos of its members beheading journalists and soldiers.

    Central to the campaign were two YouTube channels. One was falsely branded as CNN and pushed English-language videos, and the other was branded with the Al Jazeera logo and pushed Arabic-language videos. The videos featured the logos of the real news outlets, and in the case of CNN, the videos also featured a real-time ticker along the bottom of the screen which changed to match the content being shown. The campaign also deployed a network of social media accounts branded to look like they were affiliated with news outlets, in what appears to be an effort to push ideology to new audiences.

    In total, the campaign created eight original videos, four in each language, that discussed topics like the Islamic State’s expansion in Africa and the war in Syria.

    One video also focused on the deadly attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow in March. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and the video attempted to combat a disinformation narrative promoted by the Kremlin that Ukraine, not the Islamic State, was accountable.

    “It was essentially fake news to debunk fake news,” Moustafa Ayad, the executive director for Africa, the Middle East, and Asia at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, tells WIRED.

    Ayad also believes the campaign was a test run to ascertain how successful it would be in circumventing censorship efforts on mainstream Western platforms.

    “It’s the first time we’ve really seen a concerted effort by an Islamic State outlet to create this fake ecosystem of news that isn’t branded as something that’s affiliated with the Islamic State,” says Ayad. “It was very much a test of the system and now they know where there are weaknesses in their strategy.”

    The videos remained on YouTube for a month and a half before they were removed by the company, but during that time, the videos were also downloaded and republished by Islamic State supporters on their own accounts. Some of those videos are still circulating online today, because they have not been added to the hash-sharing database that platforms use to coordinate the takedown of terrorist content.

    “What they did was essentially build this entire little fake ecosystem of social media channels that are doppelgängers of news outlets,” Ayad says.

    Each of the videos on YouTube racked up thousands of views, and while none of them went viral, it was “enough for the group to get some traction in circles outside where they would normally get [traction] and saw real people commenting under the videos,” says Ayad.

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