Russian Propaganda Unit Appears to Be Behind Spread of False Tim Walz Sexual Abuse Claims

They were probably spread it on right wing sites to reinforce to those voters they shouldn't vote for the Dems, just in case they were thinking 'maybe I shouldn't vote for the asshole that acts like a toddler and fucked up a pandemic response when there was a good plan?' Nope next vp has abuse claims so you can't vote for them, and they are all happy with being angry anyways so it's a win.

Ugh I hate how much it seems plausible, it's like a badly written movie plot that no one would think could happen if it was the 90s, even early 00s.

I wasn't either. Sounds like they did a pretty shitty job of spreading the false claims.

Yes. I followed a group of Russian trolls around for a bit and they will systematically seed right wing social media with shit stories. It'll start on far-right sources and if the story picks up steam, it'll migrate to more mainstream sites, like twitter, where it's usually repeated by right wing politicians.

Fake news sites are built and referenced until a site with better standing quotes the articles and is listed as the original source.

If you did deep enough, you can usually trace stories back to Kremlin run outlets as well. However, by the time you have done all the digging and research, the next new conspiracy is already topping the charts.

Many of the mega-posters on .ml follow the same patterns, actually. You can guess their timezones by when they post and comment and their day job seems to be posting on social media between 9-5. In the case of Lemmy, it seems to be used as a jump-off point for actual fake news sites. (Fake news sites are rarely used as headlines and are more used as comment fodder during any arguments.)

While I am picking on right wing and tankie stuff here, this applies to any opportunity to spread shit with a variety of agendas and no political views are immune.