San Francisco Frontiers - Pro-Russian disinformation makes its Bluesky debut

The @antibot4navalny collective, which specialises in tracking influence operations, revealed the extent of the so-called "Russian doll" campaign last year.

In recent weeks, there are indications of a similar phenomenon on the new US network Bluesky, which claimed to have some 26 million users by the end of December last year, many of them disillusioned former members of X.

The data, analysed by AFP, show dozens of posts with a similar pattern, consisting of calling out media asking them to verify disinformation.

The twist is that on Bluesky, as well as sometimes imitating content from media outlets, certain posts use artificial intelligence to impersonate universities.

In essence, the aim seems always the same: to present Russia in a favourable light, while criticising Western support for Ukraine and often castigating a favourite target -- French President Emmanuel Macron.

The accounts used have all the characteristics of pro-Russian "bots" -- fake profiles used to artificially increase the visibility of posts, argued Eliot Higgins, the co-founder of open-source investigation group Bellingcat, last month.

- Academic deepfakes -

Using data collected by @antibot4navalny, AFP pinpointed about 50 "Matryoshka" posts.

Most simply republished messages already on X but the collective also spotted posts first on Bluesky, which has become a haven for many users unhappy with the former Twitter.

Valentin Chatelet, research associate for security at the Atlantic Council's digital forensic research lab, said: "The operation is trying to test its efficacy in reach and assess how much and how fast it is going to be taken down."

Peter Benzoni, investigative data and research analyst at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund, said the aim of pretending to be universities could be "an appeal from authority... adapted to Bluesky's audience".

In one doctored video, a professor at Aix-Marseille University in southern France talks about "numerous errors in the organisation of the Olympic Games" linked to difficulties of "the French economy".

The caption suggests it is because of "sanctions against Russia".

The video is a deepfake whose audio has been manipulated. AFP found the original video that was broadcast at the end of October on the university's Instagram account.

The law professor makes no mention anywhere of the French economy and was reviewing his university department's year in 2024.

Dozens of other videos use a similar staging, with an expert facing the camera and the logo or the name of the university.

After a few sentences, illustrations follow using images from the media or stockshots.

In another example shot on the campus of Sunderland University in northeast England, students and teachers supposedly give their opinion on Russia in glowing terms.

The video is again fake. In the original, which AFP has seen, Russia is not mentioned at all.

- 'Industrialised' fakes -

"This indicates that the campaign has managed to industrialise its manufacturing of deepfake voiceovers, which echoes a trend that is common among various Russian-sponsored disinformation operations," said the Atlantic Council's Chatelet.

He likened it in particular to influence campaigns such as "Doppelganger", which works by copying Western media internet sites.

The @antibot4navalny collective has shared a list of accounts spreading disinformation on Bluesky, and called on users to report them.

AFP noted that the majority of publications singled out were deleted from the platform, which encourages users to report problematic content and claims to be actively committed to tackling disinformation.

In 2023, Bluesky moderators said they had processed more than 358,000 reports.

Chatelet said that the social network, which did not respond when contacted by AFP, was "aware of the problem and that the community of fact-checkers and open-source researchers is already investigating and reporting this content to prevent its virality".

Its efforts "are rather efficient at deplatforming the operation", he added but said it remained "very much 'reactive'.

"Bluesky has yet to prove that it can proactively take down this operation," he said.

S.Hall--SFF