China, Iran and Russia contribute to the spread of misinformation on protests in Los Angeles, USA. This was stated on Friday by researchers from the Newsguard Newsguard. Their findings, according to AFP, show how the United States enemies use the distribution of American society as a tactic of information war, writes TASR.
Protests in the second largest city in the US broke out last Friday against raids and arrests focused on immigrants. US President Donald Trump demonstrations, which in some rare cases broke into violence, describes as a rebellion and repeatedly exaggerates the extent of riots, wrote AFP. He responded to their suppression by extremely unconventional measures – despite the alleviation of the California authorities, he ordered the mobilization of 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 naval infantry soldiers.
According to the company, Russian, Chinese, Chinese and Iranian sources have published approximately 10,000 contributions and articles on demonstrations in Los Angeles and spread false claims about the city as a “US Apocalypse base”. They joined a wave of misinformation and conspiracy theories that have already appeared about protests in the US, researchers said.
California is ready for independence, they said
Pročín accounts on the X network and Chinese platforms, such as Douyin and Weibo, used a political rupture between US President Donald Trump and Governor California Gavin Newsom and published unsubstantiated claims that California is ready to separate from the rest of the US and declare independence.
The newspaper based in Tehran, in turn, expanded the false news that the popular Iranian singer and composer, known as Andy’s artistic name, was detained in Los Angeles by the National Guard. The singer denied this information himself and urged people not to believe “rumors”.
Meanwhile, Russian media and pro -Russian activists have adopted right -wing conspiracy theories, spreading, for example, the unfounded claims that the Mexican government has encouraged demonstrations against Trump’s immigration policy.
Attack weaknesses
“The protests take place at the intersection of several weaknesses, such as impaired confidence in the institution, the spread of false claims about unrest through artificial intelligence, political polarization and retreat from security and moderator measures by large platforms,” said Newsguard McKenzie Researcher Sadeghi.
She described the apparent match in Russia, China and Iran in the spread of these misinformation. According to her, these countries are regularly involved in similar activities, but it is less common that they progress in such a coordinated way. “This time the state media escalated their reports to pursue their geopolitical interests and distract attention from their own domestic crises,” she added.
