US Senate Bill Seeks to Shine Light on Foreign Disinformation

Chinese and Russian propaganda seen as threat to US national security and democracy

Epoch Times

A man dressed like a U.S. soldier appeared in a video in September 2015, where he lined up the sights on a Russian-made Saiga 401K rifle and fired three shots into a copy of the Quran.

The video was widely circulated in Russia’s Muslim communities, where it sparked anger against the United States and its troops. It played on deeper anti-American sentiments, similar to when Florida pastor Terry Jones burned a Quran in 2011, leading to riots in Afghanistan, which killed 11 people.

But this latest video was a fake. Its source, according to a BBC investigation, was none other than Russia’s own disinformation office, the Agency for Internet Studies, also called the “troll farm.”

Similar fake stories aimed at smearing the image of the United States have been recently traced to the Agency for Internet Studies. The New York Times Magazine found in June 2015 that the office was also responsible for other fake stories, including one that claimed a Louisiana chemical company was leaking toxic fumes and another that claimed there was an Ebola outbreak in Atlanta.

A propaganda video claims to show U.S. troops testing a Russian rifle at a copy of the Quran, however, an investigation pointed out that the alleged U.S. soldier is wearing the wrong camouflage along with the wrong type of helmet. Screenshot via Mayaese Johnson/Youtube