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The 2026 edition of the Nobel Peace Prize could favor a group or organization rather than an individual personality to avoid controversies, particularly due to the tensions raised by Donald Trump after he was not awarded the prize last year. #PrixNobel #DonaldTrump #Geopolitique (translated)

The article highlights that the recent awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics to Francis Halzen is a significant recognition of teaching and research in Belgium, particularly for his role in the IceCube project, which uses neutrinos to explore extreme astrophysical events. #Nobel #Astrophysique #RechercheBelge (translated)

Brazil’s synthetic voters – when AI manufactures public opinion They look like ordinary street interviews. A reporter approaches a passer-by in a Brazilian square and asks a simple question: who will you vote for? A young voter explains why Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva deserves another term. An elderly woman says Brazil needs Flávio Bolsonaro because he represents political renewal and greater security. The locations look plausible, the microphones are visible and the answers sound much like the brief political opinions heard in television vox pops around the world. None of the people are real. Ahead of Brazil’s presidential election on 4 October, fact-checking organisation Aos Fatos identified at least 50 TikTok videos in which artificial intelligence was used to manufacture voters, reporters and apparently spontaneous political interviews. Together, the videos had accumulated around 7.4 million views by mid-August. Some promoted Lula, others Flávio Bolsonaro, while another group used synthetic characters to ridicule or stereotype supporters of one side. Aos Fatos found no apparent evidence linking the accounts producing the videos to either presidential campaign. The opinion poll that never took place The format is important. These were not conventional deepfakes in which a recognisable politician is made to say something he never said. Instead, the creators reproduced the visual language of the vox pop – the short street interview used by broadcasters and social-media creators to illustrate what ordinary people supposedly think. In pro-Lula videos, synthetic voters described themselves as beneficiaries of social programmes or credited the president with improving their lives. In videos supporting Flávio Bolsonaro, artificial interviewees associated him with political renewal, public security and fighting corruption. Other clips were openly hostile: AI-generated characters presented as poor or living in parts of Brazil’s north-east were shown in dirty clothes or run-down surroundings, declaring support for Lula because they supposedly preferred welfare payments to work. The deception is therefore subtler than fabricating a candidate’s statement. It manufactures something that political communication normally treats as evidence of public sentiment. A real vox pop may be unscientific, but the people interviewed at least exist. These videos created the appearance that identifiable social groups – young people, pensioners, welfare recipients or residents of particular regions – were spontaneously expressing political preferences when no such encounters had taken place. An electoral-law specialist interviewed by Aos Fatos described the technique as the fabrication of a “social fact that never occurred”. That captures the central innovation: AI is being used not merely to falsify political speech, but to manufacture the impression of grassroots opinion. Fifty videos, but not one proven network The available evidence does not support describing the 50 posts as a centrally controlled influence operation. Aos Fatos located them through TikTok searches and recommendations produced by the platform itself, then examined the accounts responsible for publication. Most had relatively small individual audiences, although their combined reach was substantial. The first examples identified by the investigation appeared as early as March 2026. Activity increased in June and was concentrated particularly in July and the first half of August as Brazil’s election calendar intensified. Some accounts specialised in AI-generated videos generally, including fabricated podcast-style material. Others were explicitly political or supportive of a candidate, but Aos Fatos found no apparent links between those profiles and the official Lula or Bolsonaro campaigns. That distinction is essential. The evidence demonstrates a common technique and a shared political environment, not a single command structure. Some creators may have been motivated by ideology, others by engagement or monetisation. Publicly available evidence does not establish who commissioned the individual videos or whether any coordination existed between the accounts. This decentralised model also creates a different enforcement problem from a traditional bot network. There may be no headquarters to expose and no infrastructure whose removal disables the entire operation. The format itself can be copied by anyone with access to inexpensive generative-video tools. When the algorithm mixes real and synthetic citizens Aos Fatos documented another important feature of the phenomenon: TikTok’s recommendation system placed AI-generated interviews alongside genuine street interviews. For a user scrolling quickly through the platform, the transition between an authentic citizen and an entirely fabricated one could therefore be almost invisible. In 18 per cent of the 50 videos analysed, there was no indication that the people shown had been generated using AI. After Aos Fatos provided TikTok with the videos, the company said it had removed all of them for violating its rules on edited and AI-generated media. TikTok said its policies require creators to identify synthetic content and prohibit manipulated media capable of misleading users about matters of public importance or impersonating genuine journalistic material. The issue extends beyond one platform. Factchequeado’s review of Brazil’s 2026 election campaign found that synthetic endorsements and other deepfakes had become one of the most visible forms of AI-assisted electoral misinformation, alongside fabricated candidate statements and invented scenes. Brazil already had rules for synthetic politics Brazil entered the campaign with unusually detailed electoral rules governing artificial intelligence. The Superior Electoral Court, the TSE, requires electoral propaganda using synthetic multimedia to disclose clearly that AI was used. More importantly for the fake-voter videos, its rules prohibit synthetic audio or video used to favour or harm a candidacy when it creates or alters the image or voice of a living, deceased or fictitious person. The difficulty is attribution and enforcement. When a synthetic video is published by an official campaign, responsibility can be relatively straightforward to investigate. When it comes from an apparently independent account with no demonstrated relationship to a candidate, lawyers interviewed by Aos Fatos said responsibility is more likely to fall on the individual creator, while imposing electoral sanctions on a campaign would require evidence of a connection. For the final 72 hours before the election and the 24 hours following it, the TSE has imposed additional restrictions on newly published or republished synthetic material involving candidates or public figures, reflecting the particular difficulty of correcting fabricated content immediately before voting. From deepfake politicians to synthetic electorates The Brazilian case illustrates a broader change in political manipulation. The first generation of electoral deepfakes concentrated on famous people: make a politician appear to say something damaging, or fabricate an endorsement from a celebrity. Synthetic vox pops reverse the perspective. The politician can remain completely authentic; it is the electorate around the politician that is fabricated. That changes the psychological proposition of the message. Instead of saying the candidate believes this, the video suggests people like you believe this. Age, clothing, accent, neighbourhood and social class can all be generated to construct an artificial constituency around almost any political claim. There is no evidence that the 50 Brazilian videos identified by Aos Fatos constitute a single centrally directed campaign, nor evidence that they changed voting intentions. What they demonstrate is a technique whose barrier to entry has become extremely low. AI no longer needs to forge the politician. #DISINFORMED #Episode14 #Brazil #BrazilElection2026 #Elections #ElectionDisinformation #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #GenerativeAI #SyntheticVoters #SyntheticMedia #AIAvatars #AIGeneratedVideo #VoxPop #FakeInterviews #Astroturfing #AIPropaganda #PoliticalDisinformation #InfluenceOperations #InformationWarfare #SocialMediaManipulation #TikTok #PublicOpinion #ManufacturedConsent #SyntheticPublicOpinion #DigitalInfluence #Deepfakes #ElectionIntegrity #TSE #AosFatos #FactChecking #OSINT #MediaManipulation #WRLD (translated)

Disinformation for hire – the network of 70 fake newsrooms sold as a service The websites looked local. Naija Pulse appeared to cover Nigeria, Echo Berlin Germany, The British Daily Britain, Fifty States the United States and Commonwealth Post Australia. Each had its own branding, articles, supposed journalists and matching social-media presence. Taken individually, they resembled small independent news outlets. According to Anthropic, however, they were parts of a single commercial influence network spanning six continents. Anthropic’s September 2026 threat report identifies the operation as GTG-54002, a commercial “influence-as-a-service” network that used Claude to generate and rewrite political content at industrial scale. Investigators linked roughly 70 fabricated news websites to around 70 matching X accounts and more than 250 additional inauthentic commenting accounts designed to create the appearance of genuine public engagement. The network produced at least 8,913 articles in about 20 languages before Anthropic disrupted the activity. The significance of the case is not simply the number of fake sites. It is the business model. The network did not consistently promote one government, party or ideology. Anthropic found that its political position changed according to the apparent interests of different customers. The company therefore described it as a commercial influence operation: political manipulation offered in much the same way as other outsourced digital services. A fake media ecosystem built at scale Anthropic says the infrastructure was created rapidly. Domains were registered from France during a roughly ten-week period in mid-2025 and deployed through shared technical infrastructure, allowing investigators to connect publications that outwardly appeared unrelated. Most of the supporting social-media accounts were also created within a narrow timeframe in June and July 2025. The sites were designed to look like functioning local newsrooms rather than anonymous propaganda pages. Articles carried fabricated bylines belonging to journalists who, according to Anthropic, did not exist. Each outlet had a corresponding account on X, while a second layer of fake profiles commented on and amplified the articles. Many of those accounts used AI-generated profile photographs. The result was a three-tier structure: the newsroom published the story, the branded social account distributed it, and apparently ordinary users supplied the appearance of public reaction. Some of those sites remained publicly visible after the operation was exposed. The British Daily, for example, described itself as providing “conservative insights” on British sovereignty and migration, while Commonwealth Post presented itself as an Australian liberal publication focused on democracy, migration and regional security. Those contrasting editorial identities illustrate the central feature identified by Anthropic: the network was capable of taking different political positions in different markets. Claude as a publishing engine Claude was not simply asked to draft occasional articles. The operators built a structured production pipeline around it. Prompts required fixed JSON outputs, formatted HTML, precise character limits and internal links, allowing articles to move directly into an automated publishing workflow. The system could generate entirely new material or take reporting produced by legitimate journalists and rewrite it to fit a desired political perspective. Anthropic identified three recurring techniques. The same source article could be rewritten in opposite ideological directions for different audiences; a political interpretation could be added to a story that originally contained none; and material could be moved from one country to another after its original context had been removed. The articles were also structured to improve the apparent authority of the sites in search engines, helping the network imitate ordinary digital publishing practices rather than simply broadcasting propaganda. This is where generative AI changes the economics of an influence operation. A conventional network of dozens of supposedly local publications would normally require writers, translators, editors and social-media staff. Here, much of that production could be standardised and automated while human operators concentrated on political direction, customer requirements and distribution. The DRC–Rwanda conflict as a test case The clearest concentration of activity involved the Democratic Republic of Congo. Anthropic identified 318 articles concerning the DRC across the fake-news network. The material generally supported positions aligned with the Congolese government, particularly on regional mineral agreements and tensions with Rwanda. Early in the network’s growth, many of the fake social-media personas following and amplifying its accounts also presented themselves as Congolese. Investigators observed one especially revealing episode on 11 September 2025, when multiple sites published almost identical articles about the DRC–Rwanda conflict within approximately three minutes of one another. The wording and political tone were adjusted for different regional audiences, while associated X accounts distributed the links in a coordinated pattern. Anthropic said the activity contained signals suggesting that one or more customers had interests connected to the DRC–Rwanda conflict. It did not, however, identify those customers and explicitly stated that it found no evidence that any government had directed the operation. That distinction is essential. The content may have benefited a political actor without demonstrating that the actor commissioned or controlled it. Influence without ideology Commercialisation is what distinguishes GTG-54002 from many state-linked information operations. A government propaganda network usually has an identifiable strategic direction. A commercial influence provider does not need one. Its infrastructure can support one position in one country and the opposite position somewhere else, provided different customers are willing to pay. That makes attribution more difficult. Analysts cannot necessarily infer the operator from the ideology of the content because ideology may simply be part of the service package. The enduring asset is the infrastructure: domains, publishing systems, fake journalists, social-media accounts and automated amplification. Anthropic says the operation was disrupted before it achieved significant genuine reach. It classified GTG-54002 as Category Two on the Brookings Breakout Scale: material circulated across the network’s own sites and associated social accounts but showed no evidence of substantial penetration into authentic communities. Most of the 8,913 articles generated little observable engagement from real users. That limited impact is important. The case should not be presented as a successful global manipulation campaign. It is better understood as evidence that the infrastructure required to run such campaigns has become cheaper, faster and increasingly commoditised. The deeper shift is that a fake media ecosystem no longer has to be built around a single political cause. It can be built once, automated and then repurposed for the next customer. Disinformation, in this model, is no longer only a political instrument as it turend into the service. Sources: Anthropic — Countering misuse of AI: September 2026 https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026 Business Standard — AI scaling fake newsrooms, surveillance and online scams https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/anthropic-report-ai-fake-newsrooms-dating-surveillance-scams-126091100730_1.html Mimikama — KI baut 70 erfundene Nachrichtenportale https://www.mimikama.org/ki-netzwerk-erfundene-nachrichtenportale-echo-berlin/ Poliscoop Media — Anthropic exposes DRC propaganda network https://www.poliscoopmedia.com/articles/anthropic-exposes-drc-propaganda-network-20260911 The British Daily — example of a fabricated outlet identified in the network https://www.british-daily.com/contact Commonwealth Post — example of a fabricated outlet identified in the network https://commonwealth-post.com/category/science MalPulse — infrastructure references for network domains https://www.malpulse.com/infra-pivots/usom-pivots/list/?page=1105 Keywords: #DISINFORMED #Episode13 #DisinformationAsAService #InfluenceAsAService #FakeNewsrooms #FakeMedia #SyntheticMedia #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #GenerativeAI #ClaudeAI #Anthropic #Disinformation #InfluenceOperations #InformationWarfare #FIMI #CommercialInfluence #PoliticalManipulation #NarrativeManipulation #NarrativeLaundering #SourceLaundering #MediaImpersonation #FakeJournalists #SyntheticPersonas #Astroturfing #SocialMediaManipulation #CoordinatedInauthenticBehaviour #CIB #DigitalInfluence #AutomatedPropaganda #ContentAutomation #AIPropaganda #LKMCompany #NaijaPulse #AxumVoices #JamboJournal #EchoBerlin #TheBritishDaily #FiftyStates #CommonwealthPost #DRC #Rwanda #OSINT #WRLD

IRAN: MEK/NCRI – when AI impersonated a real activist in live conversations For years, synthetic media has largely meant fabricated images, cloned voices and manipulated video. A case uncovered by Anthropic in September 2026 suggests a more consequential development: artificial intelligence being used not merely to imitate how a person looks or sounds, but to behave as that person in an ongoing conversation. Anthropic says it dismantled a distributed influence operation targeting Iranians inside the country and abroad that it linked to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or PMOI/MEK, and its political front, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The operators used a shared AI-agent platform to support impersonation, audience profiling, coordinated social-media activity, synthetic personas and the laundering of organisational content through apparently independent accounts. At least four people involved in the operation worked for official NCRI media outlets, according to Anthropic. The company also found references to committee approval processes and MEK leadership, but said it could not independently determine the precise level of central control. Cloning a person from 8,400 Telegram posts The most striking part of the operation involved a real activist whose Telegram identity was copied. According to Anthropic, the operators instructed Claude in Persian that it was now that person, then provided approximately 8,400 of the activist’s Telegram posts so the system could learn and reproduce his writing style. The AI-assisted account was subsequently used to conduct live political conversations with the activist’s existing contacts. Anthropic says that, to its knowledge, the people receiving those messages did not know they were interacting with an account being operated with AI assistance. This is materially different from a conventional chatbot or a static deepfake. The system was not simply producing a forged statement attributed to someone else. It was using a large archive of that person’s authentic language as behavioural training material, then applying the resulting imitation interactively. In practical terms, the deception moved from synthetic content to synthetic identity. Anthropic did not publish the identity of the impersonated activist, nor details of his contacts, and the public report does not establish what specific information the conversations produced. What it does establish is that the impersonation was operational rather than experimental: the cloned account was used in real exchanges with real people. From social-media monitoring to psychographic dossiers The impersonation sat inside a much broader targeting system. Anthropic says the network scraped more than 500 social-media channels and categorised individuals by location, age, profession, political orientation and arrest history. It then analysed approximately 51,944 archived messages from conversations to construct detailed psychographic dossiers on dozens of people inside Iran. The system was therefore not limited to broadcasting propaganda. It was also designed to understand specific audiences and individuals. Profiles could be used to decide what kind of message was most likely to resonate with a particular person, which political identity they appeared closest to and how they should be approached. Anthropic describes this as a structured targeting funnel rather than ad hoc social-media activity. That distinction is important in the Iranian context. Political activists, dissidents and opposition contacts inside Iran can face arrest and severe punishment. The report does not show that the dossiers directly led to arrests or other harm, but collecting and organising information such as arrest history and political affiliation adds a surveillance dimension to what would otherwise be described as an influence operation. A shared AI system for an influence network Anthropic found that the actors used a shared Claude-based platform named “Viktor”, with separate workspaces and persistent memory. Those memory files contained approved sources, prohibited words, account-management instructions and methods intended to reduce the risk of detection. One operator loaded MEK founding doctrine into the system as what the report called “strategic base data”, allowing others to reuse it across their work. This persistent-memory structure meant the AI did not have to be briefed from scratch for every task. Once doctrine, stylistic rules and operational constraints had been stored, the system could repeatedly produce material consistent with the network’s objectives. Anthropic says the same general playbook appeared across different workspaces despite the operators not sharing obvious account infrastructure. The network also used automated pipelines to coordinate Instagram posting schedules and tailor messages to different audiences. Some accounts initially avoided mentioning the Mojahedin at all, allowing material aligned with MEK/NCRI narratives to appear as neutral or independent political commentary. Content was distributed through the organisation’s own media ecosystem as well as accounts presented as ordinary news or activist profiles. Anthropic assessed the campaign as Category Two on its Breakout Scale: active on multiple platforms with distribution through NCRI-linked media properties and amplifier accounts, but without evidence of broad authentic penetration. Synthetic citizens and disguised organisational media The same infrastructure generated AI avatars presented as ordinary Iranians, complete with Persian audio, to promote Maryam Rajavi’s political programme. Anthropic says the synthetic nature of these personas was intentionally concealed. Operators also rewrote and redistributed content originating from MEK-affiliated media while stripping identifying features or presenting it through apparently independent accounts. The network’s political messaging targeted the Iranian government but also rival opposition currents, including monarchists and supporters of the Pahlavi camp. Anthropic documented fabricated video material attacking a member of the Pahlavi family and the use of the slogan “Neither Shah Nor Sheikh”, consistent with the NCRI’s broader competition with other opposition movements. That rivalry provides relevant context. Reuters describes the MEK as one of Iran’s principal organised opposition movements in exile and the dominant force behind the NCRI, led by Maryam Rajavi. Its relationship with other opposition currents is often contentious, while the extent of its support inside Iran remains uncertain. What can be attributed – and what cannot Anthropic’s attribution is unusually specific but still needs to be stated carefully. The company says its investigation linked the operation to MEK/NCRI and established that at least four participants worked for official NCRI media organisations. It also found a common operational playbook, committee review structures and repeated references to MEK leadership. On that basis, Anthropic said central tasking was likely. It nevertheless stopped short of saying it had proven that NCRI’s senior leadership directly ordered or managed every component of the operation. That caveat matters. The strongest public evidence supports describing GTG-84006 as a MEK/NCRI-aligned influence operation involving personnel from official NCRI media, rather than asserting that every action was directly commanded by the organisation’s top leadership. The broader significance of the case lies elsewhere. Earlier generations of synthetic media attempted to fabricate evidence: a photograph, a voice recording or a video. Here, AI was used to maintain an identity over time, remember doctrine, analyse targets and speak directly to real people while appearing to be someone they already trusted. The deepfake was no longer merely an artefact. It had become a participant in the conversation. Sources Anthropic — Countering misuse of AI: September 2026 https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026 AI Misuse Case Library — GTG-84006 activist impersonation case https://www.misuseofai.com/en/cases/gtg-84006-activist-impersonation/ Reuters — Who makes up Iran’s fragmented opposition? https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/who-makes-up-irans-fragmented-opposition-2025-06-18/ Reuters — Iran’s divided opposition senses its moment https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-divided-opposition-senses-its-moment-activists-remain-wary-protests-2025-06-19/ Reuters — NCRI and Maryam Rajavi https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dissident-leader-abroad-urges-iranians-bring-down-khamenei-2025-06-24/ Keywords #DISINFORMED #Episode12 #Iran #MEK #PMOI #NCRI #IranianOpposition #Disinformation #InfluenceOperations #InformationWarfare #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #GenerativeAI #ClaudeAI #Anthropic #AIDeception #AIImpersonation #IdentityImpersonation #SyntheticIdentity #InteractiveDeepfake #DigitalImpersonation #PersonaCloning #BehaviouralCloning #Telegram #PsychographicProfiling #TargetProfiling #AudienceTargeting #SocialMediaManipulation #Astroturfing #SyntheticPersonas #NarrativeLaundering #CoordinatedInfluence #PoliticalInfluence #DigitalInfluence #OppositionPolitics #IranPolitics #OSINT #WRLD

Iran’s cognitive warfare – when AI becomes the operating layer of state propaganda Iranian state-linked influence operators were not using artificial intelligence simply to write faster social-media posts. According to Anthropic’s September 2026 threat intelligence report, three separate operations connected to Iranian propaganda institutions were using Claude to help construct the machinery behind what the operators themselves called “soft war” and “cognitive warfare” – non-military efforts intended to shape public opinion inside Iran and abroad. Anthropic linked the activity to the Islamic Culture and Communications Organization (ICCO), which operates under Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance; the Islamic Propaganda Office of Khorasan Razavi; and the Bina Cultural Observatory, part of the Islamic Propaganda Organization. The company said each operation was run by someone working within or on behalf of the named institution. The attribution was based on a combination of account telemetry, institutional references disclosed during conversations, branded documents and open-source corroboration. Anthropic subsequently removed the accounts. AI as an operational headquarters The most significant feature of the operation was the role assigned to AI. Claude was used to develop campaign plans, doctrine manuals, coded project portfolios, persona systems, target databases, early-warning protocols, amplification schedules and ministerial planning documents. Anthropic described the model as the principal administrative and operational layer supporting the three campaigns, allowing relatively small groups of operators to create organisational structures and planning material that would otherwise have required a much larger staff. This distinction matters. The reported use of AI went considerably beyond content generation. Operators were using the model to help organise how influence activity should function: which audiences to target, which identities should deliver particular narratives, how official material should be repackaged and when amplification should take place. Human operators still determined objectives and supplied the underlying political doctrine; AI helped translate those decisions into an operational system. Anthropic found that all three operations explicitly connected their activity to Jihad al-Tabyin, often translated as “explanatory jihad”, a concept used within the Iranian state system to frame information activity as both a strategic and ideological responsibility. In internal planning material examined by the company, this doctrine was not merely rhetorical: it informed manuals and campaign structures used by the operators. ‘Not the narrator, but the director’ One sentence contained in the ICCO material captures the model particularly clearly. According to Anthropic, an operator described the role of Iranian cultural attachés as being “not to be the narrator, but the director” of the narrative. The distinction reveals the logic of attribution laundering. Instead of publishing an overt state message and asking foreign audiences to believe it, the operator attempts to create the appearance that the same narrative emerged independently from journalists, activists, foreign writers or ordinary citizens. Anthropic found that Claude was used specifically to make content appear to come from foreign authors or independent media organisations and to design hashtag campaigns that looked grassroots rather than centrally organised. The ICCO operation reportedly used the organisation’s international cultural network as part of this structure. Anthropic found ministerial-level documents carrying official ICCO branding, including a nine-part international influence portfolio. This makes the operation particularly significant because the infrastructure was not limited to anonymous social-media accounts; it intersected with formal state institutions and an existing network of cultural representation abroad. A multilingual content factory A second operation was associated with the Islamic Propaganda Office of Khorasan Razavi and what Anthropic described as a “cognitive warfare command room” operating from a seminary in Mashhad. Its organisers ran a multi-province content production system known internally as Manjanegh, or “Catapult”. According to Anthropic, dozens of activists were involved in repackaging publicly available reporting from Iranian security institutions under different personas so that the material no longer appeared directly connected to those institutions. The network used Claude to transform official government intelligence bulletins into customised material in Farsi, Arabic, Urdu, Malay, Spanish and English, while planning expansion into a total of 20 languages. Distribution extended across Iranian platforms such as Eitaa, Bale and Rubika and international services including X, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok and YouTube. Anthropic also documented paid amplification across more than 100 Iranian channels, including channels associated with IRGC narratives. The scale should nevertheless be interpreted carefully. Anthropic documented production infrastructure and some real-world dissemination, but it did not demonstrate that all planned campaigns were fully deployed or that they meaningfully changed public opinion. The company placed the operation in Category Three of its Breakout Scale, indicating multi-platform activity with content observed in external distribution channels, rather than evidence of strategic impact on entire populations. From security bulletins to apparently independent voices The Bina Cultural Observatory operation provides another example of the same architecture. Anthropic linked a director-level official at Bina to activity in which Claude generated messaging in the voice of an IRGC spokesperson. During the 2026 US–Israel–Iran war, the network also attributed false claims to Western institutions including CSIS, Brookings and RAND. The apparent objective was to make Iranian state-aligned claims look as though they had been independently validated by respected foreign research organisations. That technique is more sophisticated than simply publishing propaganda under a false name. It attempts to manufacture a chain of external validation: official information is transformed into apparently independent commentary, which can then be recirculated as evidence that outside observers have reached the same conclusion. Anthropic also found target databases naming international officials and Iranian opposition figures, as well as aggressive counter-narrative material directed against the Bahá’í community. These findings show that the infrastructure was designed not only for broad messaging but also for targeted influence activity against specific groups and individuals. What AI changed The Iranian operations described by Anthropic did not create a new doctrine of influence. Iran has used cultural institutions, official media, aligned organisations and covert or semi-covert online networks for years. What AI changed was the economics and organisational capacity of that model. A relatively small team could use the system to draft doctrine, create personas, translate material, structure target databases, produce campaign calendars and generate multiple versions of the same message for different audiences. The operator remained responsible for intent, political direction and selection of targets. AI reduced the amount of human labour required to turn those decisions into a functioning influence operation. The most revealing part of the case is therefore not that an Iranian propaganda network used a chatbot. It is that AI was being treated as part of the back office of information warfare – a system for converting state doctrine into apparently decentralised, multilingual and plausibly independent voices. Sources Anthropic — Detecting and countering misuse of AI: September 2026 https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026 Iran International — Iran state-aligned accounts used Claude to push IRGC narratives https://www.iranintl.com/en/202609105561 BNE IntelliNews — Yemen missile cell used AI to write guidance software, Anthropic says https://new.intellinews.com/articles/yemen-missile-cell-used-ai-to-write-guidance-software-anthropic-says-467296 This is Beirut — Anthropic report details Iranian propaganda operations https://thisisbeirut.com.lb/news/politics/anthropic-report-details-iranian-propaganda-operations-and-yemen-missile-development-using-claude Anthropic report — PDF mirror https://static.foxbusiness.com/foxbusiness.com/content/uploads/2026/09/anthropic-detecting-and-countering-091026-1.pdf Keywords #DISINFORMED #Episode11 #Iran #IranianInfluence #IranianPropaganda #CognitiveWarfare #SoftWar #JihadAlTabyin #Disinformation #InformationWarfare #InfluenceOperations #ForeignInterference #FIMI #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AIPropaganda #GenerativeAI #ClaudeAI #Anthropic #SyntheticMedia #NarrativeManipulation #NarrativeLaundering #AttributionLaundering #PersonaNetworks #Astroturfing #SocialMediaManipulation #DigitalInfluence #StatePropaganda #IslamicCultureAndCommunicationsOrganization #ICCO #IslamicPropagandaOrganization #KhorasanRazavi #IRGC #MultilingualInfluence #Targeting #Amplification #OSINT #WRLD

En France, bien qu'il soit légal d'écrire un livre avec l'aide de l'IA sans déclaration obligatoire, chaque jury de prix littéraire fixe ses propres règles, ce qui pose des questions sur l'attribution éventuelle de récompenses à des œuvres assistées par l'intelligence artificielle. #Littérature #IntelligenceArtificielle #DroitdAuteur

"Nous serons sans pitié, nous vous traquerons sans relâche"David Guiraud, le maire LFI de Roubaix (Nord), a annoncé jeudi 24 septembre dans une vidéo sur les réseaux sociaux, repérée par ICI Nord, avoir réalisé un signalement auprès du procureur de la République pour dénoncer "l'existence d'un système d'escroquerie voire de corruption" dans l'attribution de logements par des bailleurs sociaux. #LogementsSociaux #Escroquerie #Roubaix

UAE / Sudan – when an influence operation tried to enter the United Nations A network of roughly 300 apparently independent social-media influencers. A human-rights organisation borrowing the identity of a real NGO. Personal dossiers on European politicians and journalists. And testimony prepared for delivery at the United Nations without revealing the state interest behind it. These were elements of an influence operation uncovered by Anthropic and disclosed in September 2026. The company says it linked the activity with high confidence to UAE government officials. Tracked as GTG-84002, the operation targeted several overlapping issues: the Muslim Brotherhood, perceptions of the war in Sudan and international mechanisms examining the United Arab Emirates' role in the conflict. What distinguishes the case is not simply its use of artificial intelligence. It is the attempt to make state-aligned messaging appear to originate from independent influencers, human-rights organisations and potentially witnesses addressing an international institution. An influence network built around 300 fake voices Anthropic identified a single actor using Claude to support a sustained influence campaign. At its centre was an AI persona called “Deadshot”, running on the operator's own platform. A master doctrine file repeatedly instructed the system to support what it described as a coordinated international effort to dismantle the Muslim Brotherhood. The operator simultaneously managed several components of the campaign, including approximately 300 inauthentic influencer accounts across social-media platforms. Internal material examined by Anthropic described the apparent independence of this network as its greatest strategic advantage. That phrase captures the central method. The objective was not simply to broadcast a political position but to conceal where that position originated. One visible example appeared on 4 June 2026, when accounts participated in a coordinated campaign using #SudanIslamists and near-identical graphics connecting Sudanese Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood with regional instability. Anthropic says the amplification network was centrally funded and coordinated. Its investigation also found that the operator financing the social-media network was connected to the wider influence operation. A human-rights organisation that was not what it appeared to be Social media was only one layer. The operator also created a front NGO that copied the identity of a genuine Swiss organisation and used that borrowed legitimacy to publish human-rights material produced for the campaign. Anthropic's description elsewhere also refers to the identity of a real Sudanese human-rights organisation being used in connection with the preparation of testimony. The public report does not fully clarify whether these references describe the same front or separate elements of the operation, so they should not be treated as definitively identical. The underlying technique, however, is clear: political material was designed to appear as if it originated from independent civil society rather than from actors linked to a government. This is particularly significant in the human-rights environment, where the perceived independence of an organisation or witness can determine how seriously evidence is received by journalists, diplomats and international institutions. The attempt to reach the UN The most consequential part of the operation concerned the 62nd session of the UN Human Rights Council. According to Anthropic, the operator used Claude to ghost-write complete testimony intended to be delivered by two individuals during the session. The texts were prepared under explicit constraints ensuring that neither statement would mention the UAE. This did not amount to a conventional government submission. The intention, according to Anthropic's reconstruction, was for material serving the interests of a party connected to the Sudan conflict to reach an international forum through apparently independent voices. But an important limitation remains: Anthropic could not confirm that the testimony was ultimately delivered. The company similarly could not establish whether other dossiers produced by the operation reached their intended recipients or influenced policy. It therefore assessed the campaign as Category Three on the Brookings Breakout Scale – activity distributed across several platforms, but without evidence of broad public impact sufficient for a higher classification. The distinction matters. The evidence demonstrates a sophisticated attempt to influence international debate; it does not demonstrate that the attempt succeeded. Politicians, journalists and UN investigators became targets The operation was not limited to generating public content. Anthropic found that the operator researched and compiled detailed profiles of 18 members of the European Parliament and prominent journalists. Some material was prepared for direct delivery to senior UAE officials. The network also assembled what Anthropic describes as “counter-accountability dossiers” on UN Special Rapporteurs who had criticised the UAE's conduct in relation to Sudan. This places the campaign in a broader context. Since Sudan's civil war began in April 2023, the role of external powers has become an increasingly important part of international scrutiny. Sudan has accused the UAE of supporting the Rapid Support Forces, allegations Abu Dhabi has repeatedly denied. In 2025, Sudan brought a case against the UAE before the International Court of Justice, accusing it of complicity in genocide against the Masalit through alleged support for the RSF. The UAE rejected the allegations. The ICJ subsequently removed the case from its list after finding that it lacked jurisdiction because of the UAE's reservation to the relevant provision of the Genocide Convention. The ruling therefore did not determine whether Sudan's substantive allegations were true or false. That contested international environment helps explain why narratives about Sudan, human rights and accountability were valuable targets for an influence operation. AI as an operating system for influence The role played by Claude is also important to understand accurately. Anthropic did not find that artificial intelligence independently conceived or directed the campaign. Human operators established the objectives, political doctrine and targets. AI instead helped operationalise them. Across hundreds of sessions, Claude was used to transform predetermined political objectives into social-media narratives, human-rights reports, testimony, intelligence-style briefs and detailed profiles of individuals. The same system could support narrative production, target research and preparation of material for different audiences. That represents a more significant development than simply using generative AI to produce propaganda faster. Traditional influence operations require different teams to research targets, write content, manage personas, adapt messages and prepare briefing material. Generative AI can compress several of those functions into a single operational workflow. The result is not necessarily more convincing propaganda. It is potentially cheaper, faster and more scalable influence infrastructure. From fake influencers to institutional influence Anthropic says it linked the operation to UAE government officials with high confidence. Its assessment was based partly on internal material naming senior Emirati officials as intended recipients of the work, alongside other evidence available to its investigators. That remains an attribution by Anthropic rather than a judicial finding or publicly released forensic attribution by a government agency. The distinction should be retained. The larger significance of GTG-84002 lies in the architecture of the campaign. A network of fake influencers could create the appearance of public opinion. A cloned human-rights organisation could provide institutional credibility. AI-generated reports could give political narratives the appearance of research. Profiles of journalists and politicians could support more precise targeting. And ghost-written testimony could potentially carry the same message into an international institution without revealing the political interest behind it. This is a different model from the familiar troll farm. The objective is no longer simply to make propaganda look popular. It is to make state-aligned messaging look independent – and, if possible, to move it from social media into the institutions where international policy and accountability are debated. SOURCES: Anthropic — Countering misuse of AI: September 2026 https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026 International Court of Justice — Sudan v. United Arab Emirates https://www.icj-cij.org/case/197 International Court of Justice — press releases and case documents https://www.icj-cij.org/case/197/press-releases United Nations Geneva — Sudan v UAE proceedings at the ICJ https://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/news/2025/04/105241/world-court-begins-hearing-sudans-complicity-genocide-case-against UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs — UAE response to Sudan's allegations https://www.mofa.gov.ae/en/MediaHub/News/2025/4/10/10-4-2025-UAE-UAE UN Digital Library — Sudan's letter concerning alleged UAE support for the RSF https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4091008?ln=en UN Digital Library — UAE response concerning allegations of support for the RSF https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4046224?ln=en Ultra Sudan — reporting on Anthropic's UAE-linked influence-operation findings https://ultrasudan.usawtiq.com/أنثروبيك-أحبطنا-عملية-تأثير-إماراتية-استخدمت-الذكاء-الاصطناعي-لاستهداف-السودان/عامر-صالح/أخبار KEYWORDS #DISINFORMED #Episode8 #UAE #Sudan #UnitedArabEmirates #UnitedNations #UNHumanRightsCouncil #HumanRights #Disinformation #InformationWarfare #InfluenceOperations #ForeignInterference #FIMI #CoordinatedInauthenticBehaviour #CIB #FakeInfluencers #FakeNGO #NGOImpersonation #Astroturfing #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AIPropaganda #AIGeneratedContent #SyntheticMedia #SocialMediaManipulation #DigitalInfluence #Propaganda #NarrativeManipulation #InstitutionalInfluence #SudanConflict #SudanWar #MuslimBrotherhood #InternationalRelations #Geopolitics #Anthropic #ClaudeAI #OSINT #WRLD

Russia’s fake African newsrooms – propaganda designed to look local A Facebook user in Nairobi, Accra, Johannesburg or Luanda encounters what appears to be a local news page. It publishes stories about African politics, Western influence and relations with Russia. The language is tailored to an African audience and the page presents itself not as a foreign broadcaster, but as part of the local information landscape. Behind some of these outlets, however, Meta found operators based in Russia. In its 2026 threat research, the company disclosed a Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour network targeting audiences in Angola, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. Meta removed 37 Facebook accounts and 29 Pages connected to the operation. Around 30,000 users followed at least one of the Pages, while the operators spent approximately $7,000 on Facebook and Instagram advertising, mostly in euros and US dollars. The numbers are relatively modest. The method is considerably more important. Rather than openly distributing Russian state messaging, the network posed as local African news sources and grassroots organisations, promoting narratives about Western colonialism and political interference while presenting Russia as a credible economic and political alternative. It was an old geopolitical message delivered through a much more effective identity: not Moscow speaking to Africa, but Africans apparently speaking to one another. A news outlet that was actually an influence operation Meta's investigation found that the network attempted to conceal its Russian origin while creating media brands that appeared indigenous to the countries they targeted. Its content amplified historical grievances against former colonial powers, criticised Western involvement in Africa and promoted closer relations with Russia. One example helps illustrate how the infrastructure was assembled. A Facebook Page targeting Kenya was called Kenya Watchtower. According to OpenAI's subsequent investigation, Facebook transparency records showed that the Page had previously been named “Farmtown5”. It appears to have been acquired or repurposed rather than built from scratch as a Kenyan news organisation. Some Pages also exposed administrator locations in Russia and Ukraine. Other elements of the network had previously targeted audiences in Zambia and Namibia. This use of apparently local identities is particularly important in the African information environment. A story published by RT or another identifiable Russian outlet arrives with an obvious geopolitical provenance. The same narrative presented by something resembling an independent Kenyan, Ghanaian or South African newsroom carries a different kind of credibility. The source appears closer to the reader, and the geopolitical interest behind the message becomes less visible. Then investigators found Dr Manuel Godsin The Facebook operation was only one part of a broader information ecosystem. OpenAI investigated related activity after receiving information from Meta and subsequently banned a ChatGPT account it assessed as likely originating in Russia. OpenAI called the campaign Operation No Bell. The account was being used to generate long-form articles and social-media posts about African geopolitics. Prompts were primarily written in English, but OpenAI also observed Russian-language instructions that the user described as coming from a manager. The operator sometimes explicitly asked the model to make the material appear less AI-generated – including requests to avoid stylistic features associated with machine-generated text and to write more like a human journalist. Many articles appeared under the name “Dr Manuel Godsin”, presented as an academic with a PhD from the University of Bergen and an affiliation with an organisation called the International Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. OpenAI could find no credible evidence that Godsin existed. Searches of Norway's National Research Information Repository and the University of Bergen library produced no record of him. Investigators subsequently discovered that a photograph used to represent Godsin had appeared years earlier on a Russian professional networking site and apparently belonged to a law student in St Petersburg. The fabricated academic identity was nevertheless remarkably productive. OpenAI identified 53 online articles carrying the Godsin byline. The fiction had moved beyond fake social-media pages and into the real media ecosystem. When propaganda enters genuine newsrooms This is the most consequential aspect of the operation. The articles were not confined to websites controlled by the influence network. Some were published by genuine African news organisations, including established South African outlets. The content mixed local political issues with broader geopolitical narratives. Some pieces criticised the United States and Britain or defended Russia's role in Africa. One accused the British NGO Crisis Action of fomenting protests in South Africa. Another praised Russia's presence in the Central African Republic. Other material addressed Kenya, Angola and relations between African governments and Washington. The mechanism represents a significant evolution from the classic troll-farm model. Instead of building an audience entirely on its own platforms, an influence operator can manufacture an apparently credible expert, generate articles in his name and persuade genuine news organisations to publish them. Once this happens, the propaganda acquires something a fake Facebook Page cannot provide: the institutional credibility of a real newsroom. OpenAI assessed No Bell's social-media impact as limited. One Facebook Page had around 3,000 followers before Meta removed it, while several others had very small audiences. But the operation was more successful in placing material in established media. In OpenAI's impact framework, it approached the level at which an influence operation breaks into mainstream media. For information operators, a single article published by a recognised outlet can potentially be more valuable than thousands of impressions generated by an obviously artificial account. A much larger network of ghost journalists Subsequent research suggests that Manuel Godsin was not an isolated experiment. In August 2026, Graphika, working with Code for Africa and with support from Meta, published a much broader investigation into Russian ghostwriting operations across African media. Researchers identified 44 ghost writers and fake experts, 38 of them assessed as high-confidence fabricated personas, operating between 2021 and 2026. Their material appeared or was quoted across 138 websites and was subsequently republished through at least 113 Facebook accounts and Pages, including authentic users, coordinated inauthentic networks and official Russian communication channels. The narratives were strikingly consistent. They included criticism of France, Ukraine and the United States; attacks on organisations such as ECOWAS and the International Criminal Court; positive portrayals of Russian involvement in Africa; praise for Russian paramilitary forces; and support for sovereignty-oriented political projects such as the Alliance of Sahel States. The operation therefore extends beyond creating fake news websites. It attempts to insert Russian-aligned narratives into the legitimate African media ecosystem using identities that appear African, independent or academically authoritative. This also explains why measuring reach through the original Facebook network alone is misleading. A fabricated article may begin with an influence operator, appear in a genuine African publication, be republished elsewhere and eventually circulate without any visible connection to Russia. At that point, the provenance of the narrative has effectively been laundered. An old Russian strategy with increasingly local faces Russia's use of local intermediaries in Africa is not new. Meta documented Russian networks using African nationals as early as 2019. In 2020 it dismantled another operation involving people in Ghana and Nigeria working on behalf of individuals in Russia, with links to previous activity associated with the Internet Research Agency. More recent Meta investigations suggest that this model has continued to evolve. Networks have increasingly relied on local freelancers, social-media managers and authentic media outlets rather than exclusively operating armies of obviously fake Russian-controlled accounts. This decentralisation offers several advantages. Local operators understand language, political sensitivities and cultural references. Authentic accounts are harder to identify than newly created synthetic personas. Local media brands can also deliver narratives without immediately triggering the scepticism associated with Russian state outlets. There is no evidence that every African journalist, freelancer or publication carrying such material knowingly participates in Russian influence activity. Meta explicitly notes in its investigations that some local contractors may not know who ultimately commissioned their work. That distinction is essential. The operation's effectiveness partly depends on precisely this ambiguity between deliberate participation, commercial content placement and unwitting amplification. The objective is to make Russian narratives look African The significance of this network is therefore not its 30,000 Facebook followers or its $7,000 advertising budget. Those figures are small compared with the audiences of major African media organisations. What matters is the distribution model. Traditional foreign propaganda asks an audience to trust a foreign source. These operations attempt to remove the foreign source from the equation altogether. A Russian geopolitical narrative can be generated with AI, attributed to an expert who does not exist, published by a media organisation that does, amplified through a Facebook Page presenting itself as local, and then rediscovered elsewhere as apparently independent African analysis. By the time the reader encounters it, Moscow may have disappeared completely from the chain of attribution. The resulting information operation is therefore less about making Russian propaganda more persuasive than about making it look as though it is no longer Russian propaganda at all. In an increasingly fragmented African media environment, that may be the more important evolution to watch. SOURCES: Meta Threat Research https://threatresearch-team.github.io/indicators/meta-h1-2026-russia-based-cib-network-1/ OpenAI — Operation “No Bell” https://openai.com/index/disrupting-malicious-uses-of-ai-no-bell/ Graphika — Umbrae Ex Machina https://www.graphika.com/reports/umbrae-ex-machina News24 https://www.news24.com/southafrica/news/ai-expert-exposed-fake-kremlin-linked-analyst-planted-stories-in-african-media-20260318-0560 Vanguard https://www.vanguardngr.com/2026/03/ai-expert-exposed-fake-kremlin-linked-analyst-planted-stories-in-african-media/ Meta — Russian Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour, 2019 https://about.fb.com/news/2019/10/removing-more-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-from-russia/ Meta — Russian Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour, 2020 https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/removing-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-from-russia/ Meta Threat Research — Russian Use of Authentic Operators in Sub-Saharan Africa https://threatresearch-team.github.io/indicators/meta-h2-2025-russia-based-cib-network-2/ KEYWORDS: #DISINFORMED #Episode7 #Russia #Africa #RussianDisinformation #RussianInfluence #Disinformation #InformationWarfare #InfluenceOperations #ForeignInterference #FIMI #CoordinatedInauthenticBehaviour #CIB #FakeNews #FakeMedia #FakeNewsrooms #MediaImpersonation #GrassrootsManipulation #Astroturfing #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AIPropaganda #SyntheticMedia #FakeInfluencers #SocialMediaManipulation #Facebook #Meta #OperationNoBell #AfricanMedia #MediaManipulation #Propaganda #DigitalInfluence #Angola #Ghana #Kenya #SouthAfrica #OSINT #WRLD

Storm-1516 – Russia’s information war arrives early in France’s 2027 election France will not elect its next president until April 2027, but the information operations surrounding the campaign have already begun. In late July and August 2026, fabricated stories targeted several prominent figures associated with the presidential race, including Raphaël Glucksmann, Gabriel Attal and former prime minister Édouard Philippe. The methods included fake news websites copying established French media, impersonated journalists, AI-generated voices and manipulated video. French authorities identified the Russian operation known as Storm-1516 behind several of these campaigns. Other attacks were linked to Matryoshka, another Russia-aligned influence network. The timing is significant. Storm-1516 began targeting the French presidential environment roughly nine months before the first round, scheduled for 18 April 2027. Rather than a single disinformation campaign, the activity demonstrates how Russian influence networks can establish narratives and infrastructure long before an election reaches its decisive phase. A fake scandal targeting Raphaël Glucksmann One of the clearest examples appeared at the end of July. A website impersonating the French independent outlet Blast published a fabricated investigation claiming that journalist Léa Salamé had attempted to bribe media organisations in exchange for favourable coverage of her partner, Raphaël Glucksmann. The operation went beyond copying the appearance of a legitimate news site. The identities of real journalists were appropriated and a manipulated video used an AI-generated imitation of the voice of Edwy Plenel, founder of Mediapart, supposedly confirming the allegations. The accusation was false. On 4 August, Glucksmann said France's General Secretariat for Defence and National Security, the SGDSN, had informed him that he had been targeted by Storm-1516. Two days later, the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation into suspected Russian interference. The importance of the operation was not the quality of one particular deepfake but the construction of several mutually reinforcing elements: a fake media organisation, impersonated journalists, synthetic audio and social-media accounts distributing the material. Together they created the impression that the allegation had been independently corroborated. Different candidates, overlapping Russian networks Édouard Philippe was also targeted by fabricated stories claiming that he suffered from dementia and was medically incapable of running for president. VIGINUM attributed the operation to Storm-1516. Gabriel Attal faced another wave of false content, including fabricated stories mimicking the identities of French outlets such as RFI, BFM TV, France 24, AFP, Le Parisien, Libération and Le Monde. Some claimed that Attal had symptoms of Parkinson's disease or links to drug trafficking. Attribution here is more complicated. French reporting connected at least part of the campaign against Attal to Matryoshka, rather than Storm-1516. A later digitally manipulated video, apparently associated with Storm-1516, used genuine LCI footage from an August debate but added a white earpiece to Attal, suggesting that someone had secretly been feeding him answers. NewsGuard compared the circulating clip with authentic LCI footage and found no earpiece in the original. The distinction is important. France is not facing a single Russian propaganda operation but several overlapping networks using similar techniques and narratives. Treating every manipulation as Storm-1516 would obscure how this ecosystem actually functions. The real weapon is media impersonation The most interesting feature of Storm-1516 is not artificial intelligence itself. It is the systematic appropriation of the credibility of established journalism. Instead of relying only on anonymous Telegram channels or social-media profiles, operators create material that looks as though it originated from organisations audiences already recognise. A fabricated investigation can resemble Blast, a manipulated television report can borrow LCI's visual identity, while fake journalists and social-media accounts provide additional layers of apparent confirmation. VIGINUM has documented this architecture extensively. Its 2025 investigation analysed 77 Storm-1516 information operations and described a mature Russian system using fabricated media, websites and distribution networks to promote anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western narratives. The European External Action Service found that the infrastructure continued to expand. According to its 2026 FIMI Threat Report, Storm-1516 almost doubled its output during 2025. Five networks created that year to target French, German, American, Moldovan and international audiences comprised 453 websites, including fictional news organisations and sites impersonating genuine media or political platforms. A typical operation therefore follows a recognisable pattern: a fabricated allegation is supported by synthetic or manipulated evidence, published through an apparently legitimate source and then distributed by networks of accounts that create the appearance of wider discussion. AI makes this process faster and cheaper, but the fundamental objective remains the same – to manufacture credibility. Why begin nine months before an election? VIGINUM concluded that Storm-1516 is capable both of reacting rapidly to current events and of conducting longer campaigns aimed at discrediting Western institutions and public figures, particularly around elections and other major political events. This provides important context for France. Storm-1516 activity around the presidential race became visible in July 2026, approximately nine months before voting begins. There is no public evidence of a predetermined Russian “nine-month plan”, and the timing should not be presented as such. Early activity nevertheless provides operational advantages: narratives can be tested, websites and accounts established, audience reactions measured and the responses of journalists, authorities and fact-checkers observed. The first operations may therefore also provide information about which themes and techniques are most effective before the campaign enters its decisive months. This remains an analytical interpretation rather than a demonstrated statement of the operators' intentions. Russian operation, but what about the GRU? Attribution requires similar precision. VIGINUM explicitly describes Storm-1516 as a Russian information operation, and French authorities have attributed individual campaigns to it with high confidence. Connections with Russian military intelligence have also been reported. Glucksmann said the SGDSN informed him that the network targeting him was controlled by Russia's GRU, while French media have repeatedly described Storm-1516 as linked to Russian military intelligence. However, VIGINUM's publicly available technical documentation describes Storm-1516 primarily as a Russian information modus operandi, rather than identifying it as a formally established GRU unit. It is therefore well supported to describe Storm-1516 as a Russian influence operation with reported links to military intelligence. Saying simply that Storm-1516 is a GRU unit would go beyond what France's published technical evidence currently establishes. An early warning for the French election There is also no evidence that the operations have so far had a significant effect on French voters. Some of the fabricated material generated only limited engagement, and measuring the real impact of foreign information operations remains extremely difficult. Even a video attracting hundreds of thousands of views does not establish how many viewers believed it or whether it changed political attitudes. The significance of Storm-1516 lies instead in the infrastructure already being deployed. Months before the election, Russian influence networks have been able to test fake newsrooms, synthetic voices, manipulated television footage, candidate-specific narratives and systems for distributing them. The French case illustrates a broader evolution in election interference. The objective is no longer simply to place false claims on social media. Modern operations can manufacture an entire chain of apparent evidence in which a fake journalist cites a fake investigation, synthetic audio appears to confirm it and networks of accounts give the impression that an authentic controversy is unfolding. France still has months to go before its presidential election. The information environment surrounding it is already being contested. Sources: VIGINUM / SGDSN — Storm-1516 analysis https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications/analyse-du-mode-operatoire-informationnel-russe-storm-1516 VIGINUM / SGDSN — Full Storm-1516 technical report https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/files/files/Publications/20250507_TLP-CLEAR_NP_SGDSN_VIGINUM_Technical%20report_Storm-1516.pdf VIGINUM / SGDSN — Storm-1516 operation targeting Emmanuel Macron https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications/storm-1516-detection-dune-operation-dingerence-numerique-etrangere-ciblant-emmanuel EEAS — 4th Report on FIMI Threats https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2026/documents/EEAS%204th%20Threat%20Report_web.pdf Le Monde — Russian interference targeting Philippe, Glucksmann and Attal https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2026/08/07/presidentielle-2027-glucksmann-attal-philippe-les-ingerences-russes-s-invitent-dans-la-campagne_6740451_823448.html Le Monde — Storm-1516 and Matryoshka analysis https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2026/08/06/ingerences-russes-pourquoi-il-ne-faut-pas-nourrir-le-troll_6739956_4408996.html NewsGuard Risk Briefing — Russian activity targeting the French election https://newsguardriskbriefing.substack.com/p/russia-targets-french-elections-iran Euronews — Operation targeting Raphaël Glucksmann https://fr.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/08/04/presidentielle-de-2027-raphael-glucksmann-vise-par-une-operation-de-destabilisation-russe Télérama / AFP — Glucksmann deepfake investigation https://www.telerama.fr/debats-reportages/presidentielle-2027-raphael-glucksmann-vise-par-un-deepfake-d-origine-russe-7032318.php Le Parisien — Operation targeting Gabriel Attal https://www.leparisien.fr/elections/presidentielle/presidentielle-2027-gabriel-attal-a-son-tour-vise-par-une-ingerence-en-provenance-de-russie-05-08-2026-I3Z67Z7ZUBDUVBXUNDARI5KGPA.php Euronews — Paris prosecutor investigations into suspected Russian interference https://fr.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/08/18/soupcons-dingerence-russe-visant-attal-et-philippe-le-parquet-de-paris-ouvre-dune-enquete Keywords: #DISINFORMED #Episode6 #Storm1516 #France #FrenchElection2027 #Disinformation #InformationWarfare #InfluenceOperations #ForeignInterference #FIMI #RussianInfluence #RussianDisinformation #Propaganda #Deepfakes #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #SyntheticMedia #FakeNews #MediaImpersonation #FakeMedia #DigitalManipulation #ElectionInterference #PoliticalDisinformation #Matryoshka #VIGINUM #OSINT #CyberInfluence #DigitalInfluence #MediaManipulation #EuropeanSecurity #Democracy #WRLD