Disinformation for hire in the post-Soviet world

In the second episode of Integrity Insights, I talk to Vlada Tkach, a managing partner at Berlin Risk. We discuss the topic of commercialisation of disinformation by private actors in the post-Soviet space. Apart from illuminating the socio-economic reasons behind the development of a private disinformation market in the post-Soviet territory, Vlada provides many useful tips on how to  distinguish authentic from inauthentic online content. Given the global nature of such private disinformation campaigns, often referred to as “disinformation as a service” or “disinformation for hire”, this conversation is relevant not just for compliance professionals. 

You can also read our article on the subject on Berlin Risk's website https://berlinrisk.com/the-rise-of-disinformation-in-osint/

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Transcript

Hi Vlada, thanks for joining me today. Hello, Philip. Um, so before we jump into today's topic, could you please tell us a little bit about your background? My background is in journalism. I graduated from the journalist department of, uh, Kyiv University. And um, I worked for three years for bbc BBC World Service, um, in London, the Ukrainian service.

And then a couple of years for a magazine there is a part of Financial Times business. It's called Investors Chronicle in London. And um, yeah, education wise it's international security, so it's not. It wasn't very related to my last job. Mm-hmm. Uh, as an equity reporter. Uh, and from about 2004, 2005, I started working, uh, for the due diligence, um, uh, sector.

So in other words, you have almost 20 years of experience in due diligence. Indeed. Wow. Well, that is great as it means that you are. Perfectly positioned to help me tackle today's topic, which, uh, is disinformation. And as I outlined in the intro to this episode, we are interested in this, uh, subset of disinformation, known as disinformation as a service, and maybe vada we could start with, uh, discussing this, uh, this question of geography.

Why do you think that there are so many. Companies or actors active, active in this field are running their operations outside of the, the post of it region. As more, more than one reason, of course, um, after the collapse of communism and the rise of oligarch economies, the 1990s during the, um, way of privatizations in these countries, uh, many of these oligarchs, um, is acquired or founded media to advance the interest, uh, in politics, uh, but also in order to destroy competition.

Um, I'm not saying all media and all journalists were up for sale, of course, but many people working in such publications. We're used to write so-called contracted articles IE paid for and paid for, I mean, not as a fee for an article, but actually paid for by people who ordered them. Um, and this articles often contains a so-called compromise or information that could compromise the subject.

And some publications, especially internet based and especially in recent years, um, made their, uh, ma made it their business model, is it to publish articles for money. Was it positive or negative or to publish unsolicited articles in order to get paid and then to pull them off? It's quite cynical actually.

And vda, would you say that this, what you've just described, uh, a, a applies specifically to Ukraine or also to. To other countries in the region. I think we see this type of journalism, uh, still persistent. Uh, but I, what I cannot say is how many of these companies that you are talking about, uh, offering this type of services, um, to, to make or break some of these reputations.

I can, I cannot. Really tell how spread they are in Central Asia. I would think Russia and Ukraine would be the two main suppliers. Okay. So I understood why we are seeing these practices in, in countries like Ukraine or, or Russia, that it has these deep, uh, historic, historical reasons. But I mean, as you know, we have been seeing these activities, uh, from these actors.

Uh. All across the globe. I mean, I mean, they are running these operations from these countries, but they are really conducting this business globalist. So how, how do you, how do you view, view that development? Well, first the caveat. Yeah. Not all the media all exists. We're talking about a particular segment.

Yeah. There are also high class, uh. Uncorrupted and very courageous journalists in Russia and Ukraine. So let's not attain everyone with that. But, uh, for those who do work in this field, and they're not necessarily journalists, they could be PR people or other type of, of, of professionals, let's put it this way.

Um, obviously the, the reason is money. Uh, you work with the markets that can pay. So, um, if there are customers, uh, with money and they are based outside of Ukraine and Russia, because there is perhaps more money outside of Ukraine and Russia in some ways, uh, then that's where they would be targeting their, their services too.

Um, there is a limit to how much you can earn. Um, in, in, in certain countries. So yeah, international expansion is always the way to go. And, and just going back for a second to this topic of, um, of this very difficult media terrain in the, in the, uh, in the post COVID world where, you know, there's so many different interests and, uh, the, the media work in a way that it's, it's just, it's just very difficult to find reliable information.

And, and, and I wonder. You know, you have spent, you have spent a lot of time researching, working on due diligence assignments in, in the region. How do you, you know, how do you navigate, navigate a media landscape like this? When you're looking at the internet outlets, you look at the websites, how long has it been in existence?

Um, does this website. Have a history of such operations. Um, some sites are known to specialize in that type of thing, even if they're actually, um, long, uh, in existence. Um, is there a known affiliation to particular, uh, business or political group? Um. Is the ownership of the website is transparent, where is it based?

Because some of the, uh, offices, for example, uh, they would be nominally based in Ukraine. But if you try to look where the registry, there will be some kind of offshore jurisdiction and you would never know who's behind. Um, do the articles publish their contain very wild allegations. Uh, are they supported by photographs and documents that could be either doctored, uh, or leaked by certain interested parties?

The information that you wouldn't just define in a public domain, I mean, if you're a very good, uh, ENT investigator, you have to be very careful when you see information that seems, um, out of this world, because if it seems like it, it is more often than not. Is not true. Um, and also you look at other sort of very simple markers such as a author, a no name article, or an article whose author has no previous record, or whose previous record is only consistent of this type of, uh, publications.

You know, this type of scandalous revelations, um, would be, um, a red light. Um, so when you look at, at, at kind of constellation of all these factors together, obviously ideally coupled with the knowledge of the region so that you actually understand the background, the politics, the affiliation, associations, um, it is.

I, I don't say it's easy to tell what is fake and what is not, but it's easier to distinguish, um, um, the, the truth from, from the untruth. Uh, but of course, technological advancement prints new challenges and some fakes look really convincing. And, uh, you can find articles that, that, or reports, whatever that look, um, very, um, um, real.

But turned out to be, uh, very unreal. Yeah. I, I think this is a very important point that you are making, and I, and I just wanted to add that this is not. This is not just, uh, uh, you know, specific to the post of it space. We are, we, we, we are seeing this more and more really globally, uh, in whether it's in the US or in Europe or in other parts of the world.

We are seeing more of these, these very specifically almost micro targeted. Disinformation operations where, um, we see, uh, you know, news websites that are created specifically for a purpose to publish. D articles damaging to someone's reputation or promotion of, of someone's reputation. And usually those articles are then shared via social media accounts that are also specifically created for, for this purpose.

And they're all part of this one. This information operation, it's like a package that the, the, these, these, these, these operators sell for, for as little as couple of hundreds of dollars on the, on the dark web. And, um, it's, it's, it's, it's really important. It's a really important topic for due diligence investigators that they need to be aware of, uh, of, of these, of these tactics and, and how to, uh, how to spot, uh, this information, uh, like that.

But, uh, what I wanted to say is that, you know, when, because my background is in journalism like yours, um, the role that we had long time ago in the BBC was that any piece of information had to come from at least two sources. I have no doubt they have the same role now, probably more. And I think in our work, it's even more important that you base your research on.

More than one, two, or in our case, many more sources. Um, any research we do, um, ideally you would support a public demand research resource inquiries, but if you, that is talking to people who know, but also simply. Public domain research on its own. Um, you have to check as many uh, sources as possible. You have to make sure this information is consistent.

You also have to make sure the sources you use are not simply reprinting one another, because what tends to happen is, uh, this. Piece of misinformation or, or disinformation, depends on the context. Um, is often it originates on one website, but then it is disseminated or printed on other websites. And sometimes it's done copy paste, and sometimes it's slightly modified to look like it's a different information, but very often it's not.

So you have to be able to tell that. There is no other source. Sometimes you will have five, five different websites, but this is the same source. Um, and you have to make sure that your sources come from different. Domains, so to speak. When I say domains, I mean not just media, but if we're talking about, uh, some sort of investigation, quite often you can find, uh, legal records, uh, at least in Ukraine for example, and in Russia as well, I think used to be, uh, where you can look up if a certain investigation, there is a trace of certain investigation, some information will be blank, blanked out.

There may not be. All information available, but you can find, um, some records that would confirm that what you are seeing, um, is based in reality. Um, so you would look at different sources at the same time. You would look at media, you would look at legal database, you would look at corporate databases. Uh, ideally you would supplement it with, uh, um, human source inquiries.

Um. And only after such an research, um. You can be relatively secure that the information you are seeing and therefore reporting to the client in our case, um, is correct. Okay. So checking with multiple sources, that sounds like a very reasonable advice, but, uh, let me challenge you with this. What, and, and this is a real life example.

Because we have been seeing this, that some of these companies even offer for a small fee to file a criminal complaint against, uh, an individual or a complain. So then if you check the article against a legal database, then you will even find a criminal complaint that put, you know, quote unquote confirm the story in the fake media.

Uh, which, uh, this is, this I personally found very disturbing. And yeah. I wonder how, how would you then deal with that? Um, I think knowledge of context and knowledge of the jurisdiction you are working in is very important. For example, in Ukraine, you really can file a criminal complaint and there would be send some record of, in some cases there would been investigation open, but you have to see is it just open and filed an open and then nothing happens.

And possibly closed. Yeah, because nobody reports when it's closed. Articles tend to report when it's open, but you can quite often see that there was no activity at all. Or there was actually a formal closure is just not reported. So understanding how easy it is to file this complaint in certain jurisdiction is very important to know how it works, that anyone can file a complaint about the alleged, not about an individual, but but alleged fact of offense.

Then the third is a supposed to act and, and, and see if it, if there was an offense or no offense. So yeah, understanding of the context, understanding of the, um, legal environment, court environment, uh, well, independence of courts, you know. Of court system. This is also why of course, you know, in certain jurisdictions, uh, you tend to mistrust even legal records.

This is why you have to try and, and, and get it from as many sources as possible. Intuition helps. I find the experience, knowledge, but also intuition. When you look at it for many years, you develop a six sense and you feel when something smells fishy. I don't even know how else to explain it. Um. You dig and dig and dig as much as you can.

This is not to say that you can always get to the bottom of things. It is not always possible, especially when you are actually, uh, you are operating. In with legal constraints, you cannot hack websites. You as an investigator, cannot use illegal means, and you're working with people who are using illegal means, or let's say, you know, unlawful, corrupt tools.

Um, it's a challenge. It's a challenge and you just work and check and use your knowledge and your intuition and, uh, you come up with conclusions, uh, and caveats as well. Thank you, Vada. Those are some great insights. Uh, let me just ask you. One last thing before I let you go. Um, I was wondering, I mean, you mentioned at the beginning of this interview that you have almost two decades of experience in, in this field of, um, investigations.

And I, I wonder, do you have the impression that the, the way this, this information or fake information, uh, spreads has changed dramatically over the, you know, the, those. Those two last, uh, decades or so. Of course it has changed. Uh, the, the, the, the technological advancements is the perva, the, the perva pervasive nature of the internet.

Of course, it has changed. Everything has become so much easier. You know, putting a, a fake piece of information on, on a website for somebody who knows how to operate these things is really simple. Yeah. 20 years ago you dealt with, uh, printed records. Yeah. With, with articles, um, whose reach was much. More narrow.

Yeah, I mean, there was a certain number of copies printed and that was it. Um, now you are dealing with different jurisdictions, with different media. Uh, yeah, it, it has changed completely. And you also have some very far flung corners, such as dark web, you know, where information is not as available as, is simply, uh, putting it into a Google, um, search engine.

So. It's a constant challenge, and it's a challenge that's getting more and more complicated, um, every day. Um, but, uh, I still do think that, um, nothing can beat, um, expertise, um, of a, of a human who knows, um, the, the country answer. The context that they're looking at. And on this, uh, rather optimistic note, I thank you Vlada for joining me today, and I wish you a very nice rest of your day.

Thank you.