Russian Group Spread Disinformation About
Princess of Wales, Experts Say
A Kremlin-linked group known for online campaigns to
sow falsehoods and distrust among Russia’s foes helped fuel the frenzy of
conspiracy theories about Catherine and her health.
Mark
Landler Adam Satariano
By Mark
Landler and Adam Satariano
Reporting
from London
March 27,
2024
The whirl
of conspiracy theories that enveloped Catherine, Princess of Wales, before she
disclosed her cancer diagnosis last week probably didn’t need help from a
foreign state. But researchers in Britain said Wednesday that a notorious
Russian disinformation operation helped stir the pot.
Martin
Innes, an expert on digital disinformation at Cardiff University in Wales, said
he and his colleagues tracked 45 social media accounts that posted a spurious
claim about Catherine to a Kremlin-linked disinformation network, which has
previously spread divisive stories about Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr
Zelensky, as well as about France’s support for Ukraine.
As in those
cases, Professor Innes said, the influence campaign appeared calculated to
inflame divisions, deepen a sense of chaos in society, and erode trust in
institutions — in this case, the British royal family and the news media.
“It
provokes an emotional reaction,” he said. “The story was already being framed
in conspiracy terms, so you can appeal to those people. And people who support
the royal family get angry.”
The motive,
he said, was likely commercial as well as political. Social media traffic about
Catherine skyrocketed over the last three months, as a dearth of information
about her condition created a void that an online army filled with rumors and
speculation. For the Russian network, amplifying those posts through their
accounts would enable them to boost their own traffic statistics and follower
counts.
It is not
clear who might have hired the disinformation network to go after Catherine,
but it has a track record of campaigns to undermine the countries and people at
odds with the Kremlin. Britain’s robust support for Ukraine, and London’s
longstanding antagonism with Moscow, would make it a tempting target for the
Russians.
The Daily
Telegraph, a London newspaper, reported on Sunday that British officials were
worried that Russia, China and Iran were fueling disinformation about Catherine
in an effort to destabilize the country.
Asked about
these reports in Parliament on Monday, the deputy prime minister, Oliver
Dowden, did not name the countries, but said it was “a reminder to us all that
it is important for us to ensure that we deal with valid and trusted
information, and are appropriately skeptical about many online sources.”
In 2020, a
British parliamentary committee concluded that Russia had mounted a prolonged,
sophisticated campaign to undermine Britain’s democracy — using tactics that
ranged from disinformation and meddling in elections to funneling dirty money
and employing members of the House of Lords. The Russian foreign ministry
dismissed the conclusions as “Russophobia.”
Kensington
Palace, where Catherine and her husband, Prince William, have their offices,
declined to comment on Russia’s role in the recent rumormongering. The palace
has appealed to the news media and the public to give Catherine privacy, after
she announced she had cancer in a video last Friday.
Professor
Innes, who leads a research program exploring the causes and consequences of
digital disinformation, said his team noticed a mysterious spike in a certain
type of social media post on March 19, a day after video surfaced of Catherine
and William leaving a food shop near their home in Windsor.
One widely
repeated post on X featured an image from the video, with Catherine’s face
clearly altered. It asked, “Why do these big media channels want to make us
believe these are Kate and William? But as we can see, they are not Kate or
William. …”
Tracing the
45 accounts that recycled this post, Professor Innes said, the researchers
found they all originated from a single master account, carrying the name
Master Firs. It bore the characteristics of a Russian disinformation operation
known in the industry as Doppelgänger, he said.
Since 2017,
Doppelgänger has been linked to the creation of fake websites that impersonate
actual news organizations in Europe and the United States. Last week, the U.S.
Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions
against two Russians, and their companies, for involvement in cyberinfluence
operations. They are believed to be part of the Doppelgänger network.
Catherine
is not the only member of the royal family to have become the subject of an
online feeding frenzy in Russia. On the same day as the multiple posts about
the video, an erroneous report of the death of King Charles III began
circulating on Telegram, a social media network popular in Russia.
Those
reports were later picked up by Russian media outlets, forcing the British
embassies in Moscow and Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, to deny them as “fake
news.” Like Catherine, Charles, 75, is being treated for cancer, though he
continues to greet visitors privately and plans to attend church services on
Easter.
Beyond the
Russian involvement, the rumors and gossip about Catherine’s health sprouted in
many corners of the web, including on accounts sympathetic to William’s
brother, Prince Harry, and his wife, Meghan. With such a widespread online
frenzy, the impact of any state actor might be muted.
“It’s very
hard to isolate only one piece,” said Alexandre Alaphilippe, executive director
of the EU DisinfoLab, a research organization in Brussels that played a role in
identifying the Russia-based disinformation group in 2022 and gave it the name
Doppelgänger. “The question is what is being spun by the media, online
influencers or inauthentic sources. Everything is interconnected.”
Such
campaigns are also particularly hard to measure, he said, because social media
companies like X and Meta have restricted access to data that would allow
researchers, journalists and civil society groups to get a more granular look
at the spread of material on their platforms.
Nor are
some disinformation-for-hire outfits very discriminating about what material
they spread online, Mr. Alaphilippe said. “You may see bots pushing a Russian
narrative on Monday,” he said. “On Tuesday, they may do online gaming. On
Wednesday, they can do crypto-scam campaigns.”
Even as
awareness of Russian disinformation campaigns has grown since the American
presidential election in 2016, the volume of internet trickery and lie
spreading has not slowed.
Through
bots, online trolls and disinformation peddlers, Russia-linked groups jump on
news events to sow confusion and discord. Ukraine has been the major focus of
their efforts for the past two years as President Vladimir V. Putin seeks to
undermine the West’s resolve to continue supporting the war.
A French
government minister recently blamed Russia for artificially amping up concerns
about a bedbug scare last year in Paris. Another false claim that media
monitoring groups said was amplified by Russia was that the European Union
would allow powdered insects to be mixed into food.
The
spreading of rumors about Catherine is a more traditional influence operation,
but the Russians have been refining their tactics as governments and
independent researchers grow more sophisticated at detecting their activities.
In the
United States and Europe, fake news sites have popped up to push Russian
propaganda and potentially influence elections in 2024. In YouTube and TikTok
videos, people have posed as Ukrainian doctors and movie producers to tell fake
tales favorable to Russia’s interests.
“Whether
spreading it for profit or for political purposes, these types of actors tend
to jump on anything engaging and controversial,” said Rasmus Kleis Nielsen,
director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford
University. “Not unlike some news media,” he added, though their motives might
differ.
“When
politically motivated,” Professor Nielsen said, “the point is rarely persuasion
as much as attempts to undermine people’s confidence in the media environment.”
Mark
Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom,
as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has
been a journalist for more than three decades. More about Mark Landler
Adam
Satariano is a technology correspondent based in Europe, where his work focuses
on digital policy and the intersection of technology and world affairs. More about Adam Satariano
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