This weekend, information was released stating that one of the first volunteers to test an experimental vaccine in the United Kingdom, the Italian-born scientist Elisa Granato, had died. It is not true. It is a hoax that began to spread on websites like this one.

The BBC's medical correspondent, Fergus Walsh, denied the information in a tweet on Sunday: "This is not true! I spent several minutes this morning chatting with Elisa Granato on Skype. She is very much alive and told me that she feels "absolutely well." In addition, he published a video of Elisa Granato herself: "I'm very much alive, thank you. Having a cup of tea. It's Sunday April 26."

Elisa Granato has also included the phrase "100% alive" in her profile on her private Twitter account.

For its part, the UK Department of Health and Social Welfare has also denied the death of this 32-year-old woman. "News circulating on social media that the first UK volunteer to receive the coronavirus vaccine trial has died is completely false."

In addition, the University of Oxford itself, the institution that promotes the investigation of this vaccine, has asked not to give any credibility to said information.

The BBC reported on April 23 that Elisa Granato, a zoology and microbiology researcher at the University of Oxford, was one of the first volunteers to undergo the first phase of human testing of the vaccine developed in England called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 . In this first phase, 800 volunteers participate and the double-blind mechanism is used.

No, Apple has not detected any problems with your account

The National Police has reported a new phishing attempt, this time related to Apple customers.

The scammers have sent a mass email in which they pose as the company and in which they report an alleged failure in the user's account. According to that email, to obtain more information, the user must open an attached document, at which point the criminals would be accessing the information on your device.

At Verifica RTVE we remind you that all these types of tricks, which range from filling in your data to reinforce the security of your accounts, as well as downloading files that can hide viruses to gain control of the computer, are very dangerous and that under no circumstances should provide personal data.

Beware of the supposed raffles that you win without competing

The electronics store MediaMarkt has published a tweet in which it warns that several customers are receiving SMS about shipments of orders, gifts or raffles impersonating their identity.

The company has informed that it has no relationship with them and has requested that the message be deleted and in no case data be transferred to avoid potential risks.

"Factory of lies", a documentary about disinformation

As a recommendation for those interested in understanding how disinformation works, we recover the documentary 'Fabrica de Lies', which was broadcast on Monday by Documents TV, a report that recounts how the Kremlin saw in the digital space a decisive weapon of war to attack its enemies and how information professionals risk their lives to dismantle these lies. It is available on RTVE's A la carta until May 12, 2020.

-We went to one of the largest sand extraction mines

from the St. Petersburg region.

There is this rock,

what are we looking for.

And because?

Well, because it appears in a fake video in which a man,

american Soldier Dress,

he shot the holy book of Muslims.

-Use a Russian gun to shoot the Koran,

and thereby discredit the US military.

-Order in the room, the session is about to start.

-How is it possible that Facebook did not realize

that the election ads

that were paid in rubles

did they come from Russia?

-I don't want journalism to be considered a lie,

a falsehood

If fake news is created,

no one will trust journalists anymore.

In Russia it is more difficult to be a journalist

because, more and more, to be a journalist is to be a liar.

Our job is to explain

that most of the news

what people watch on russian tv

they are actually a kind of "Russian Hollywood".

It's all fake, from start to finish.

My name is Andrei Soshnikov.

And I'm an investigative journalist.

I am 27 years old

and I dedicate myself to dismantling false news

that are disseminated in the media.

-The troll factory published this video on September 11th.

They did not choose that date by chance, of course.

And the first who paid attention

were those of the national news agency,

which is officially registered

at 55 Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg.

In the same direction as the trolley factory.

And they released that video of a soldier shooting at the Koran.

Before coming here I have inspected a lot of old mines

from the St. Petersburg area.

The reason why we have chosen this in particular

It's because of the texture of the sand.

If you look at the gray lines of the mountain

They are the same ones that appear in the video.

It is a rare feature

because here the sand is gray.

We've been here a couple of hours

and we have found many stones similar to the one we are looking for.

There are so many.

Is it possible that they filmed the fake video here?

Yes, of course.

The environment is the same

the color of the sand is the same

and the rocks are very similar,

but we can't be sure.

The main products of the trolley factory

they are what is known as sockpuppets

sock puppets.

And what they do is use false identities on the internet.

Multiple people use different accounts

pretending to be real people.

and receive instructions

about what they have to say

And what point of view do they have to defend?

-And what do they write?

well comments,

blog posts,

videos, topics in forums...

In short, fake news.

All kinds of false stories.

My name is Ben Nimmo.

and study on propaganda and misinformation on the internet

for the Digital Forensic Research Laboratory

of the Atlantic Council.

The trolley factory was launched between 2011 and 2012,

at the time of the greatest popular opposition to the Putin government.

In the main cities of the country,

Demonstrations were held against his re-election

and a climate of skepticism was created around him.

And above all,

the debate was installed in the network:

on social networks,

on internet forums...

The opposition used these means to organize.

Journalism has rules and principles,

among which is

the obligation to preserve impartiality and accuracy.

And it seems that what happened is that the Kremlin officials

They sat down to watch and realized

that the internet is a space that they did not control.

where the russians could say whatever they wanted

and what they wanted was to complain

for Putin to return to power.

So what they set out to do was take that space

who had been free until then

and make an army of trolls

in favor of the Kremlin

would take control.

That's how it started

but as soon as you enable a capability like that,

the next thing you're going to think about what else you can do with it.

-Digital evidence can be found,

can be investigated

because when people interact through social networks,

everything they do

leaves a lot of traces

Fingerprints.

And I dedicate myself to follow those traces.

-Try to sound like you're African-American,

but his English is quite worse than mine.

That, for starters.

-The first thing that jumps out at you

is that it is not an authentic US Army uniform,

but one of those that can be bought

at any military or extreme sports clothing store.

The helmet is also not military,

It's for practicing base jumping.

Some Syrian soldiers saw it

and wrote about him on Facebook.

-It's very dangerous.

It is dangerous for someone with radical ideas

watch a video like this.

It's like a bomb, it can blow someone up.

-The staff of the troll factory

I kept posting selfies all the time

and in one of them

I thought I saw someone who looked like the man in the video.

so i downloaded the whole video

until you find the only moment,

the only second he looks at the camera.

And then I found his account.

If we measure the ear

and the proportion with respect to the face,

we check that he is the same person.

Please, when you edit the video,

cover his face so people don't see who he is,

because I don't want them to kill him

or anything like that.

-No, don't worry. Do you think he's in danger?

Yes, because he participated in this

and he was hired at the troll factory,

which is a dangerous place.

-My name is Roman Dobrokhotov.

I'm the editor in chief of The Insider,

an online magazine dedicated to investigative journalism.

We have a project called Anti fake,

«anti-falsity»,

with which we investigate Russian government propaganda.

The way the state fabricates false news and stories.

Who is going to call Leontiev?

One of our most interesting investigations

It was about a woman who lives in Germany.

and she worked as a kind of producer

for Russian state television channels

helping them create fake news.

-There are waves of refugees invading Europe,

What do the Germans think?

What intentions does Mrs. Merkel have?

Today, special report from Germany,

only on the Zvezda channel.

-My husband told me

that he always had to carry

a pepper spray in your pocket,

and I always carry it with me.

-So he showed up under a false name

on a television channel owned by the Minister of Defense

and explained that Germany is mired in a serious crisis

because immigrants are violent

and that she had been the victim of her aggression.

-Victoria Schmidt and her family

they are considering moving to Russia to live.

The invasion of immigrants has meant that in his life

There is a "before" and an "after".

-A woman

she was cleaning a flat where some immigrants lived,

and so...

She went through a horrible thing.

They raped her and killed her.

-Okay, see if you find something interesting there.

We found her real name and tracked her down.

we made a call

posing as one of the Russian TV channels

and we ask him about everything.

How much does it cost to fabricate this kind of false stories,

what is she in charge of,

how often does she do it,

what channels does she work with...

We recorded all of her responses and she was very explicit,

because she believed that she was going to start working with us too.

-I can put different voices.

I have lived here for a long time and am married to a German.

I can do whatever you ask me.

-It depends on the price.

If I'm honest,

I don't know what something like that can cost today.

If you could give us an approximate price...

-Zvezda paid me 500 euros.

-And a federal channel?

Channel one also paid me 500 euros.

"So that's the market price?"

-Yes, it starts at 250 euros

onwards.

-For Vladimir Putin

it is very important to show that in the European Union,

and especially in Europe, such as Germany,

the situation is very bad.

That Europe is in crisis and all that.

It is important to convince Russian voters

that Russia is no exception,

that all countries have their problems

and that Europe may be a little richer,

but that the problems there are worse than those here.

So when I come they can't say it's alright

because we realize the situation we are in,

They say that in other countries it is even worse.

Our job is to explain

that most of the news that people see on Russian television

they are actually a kind of «Russian Hollywood»

It's all fake, from start to finish.

It is very difficult to find real facts on Russian television,

because that is not what interests them.

What they want is to create a false image in the minds of the population.

-We are going to record the newsletters

of the StopFake project in Russian.

-StopFake is a project that started in March 2014,

just after the occupation of Crimea,

to refute false information

and the lies that were told about Ukraine.

Kremlin-affiliated websites

They publish conspiracy theories regularly.

A week ago today since the Ukrainian armed forces

they retook control of Sloviansk.

The story that we are going to show you happened then,

It was told to us by a refugee from the Rostov region.

She tells us of a public execution,

-A three-year-old boy

in underpants and t-shirt,

he was nailed to a board of wood like Jesus Christ.

-There is supposed to be a witness,

which on channel one statesthat in Sloviansk,

a Ukrainian city,

Ukrainian soldiers crucified a child.

-One of the men nailed him to the board

while two others held him.

His mother was there

they had her grabbed so that she could see her son bleeding.

-But there is no more evidence than the testimony

of this "alleged" witness,

there are no recordings or photographs,

despite the fact that they say it happened in the center of the city.

It's a small city,

with few inhabitants

and that is important because, soon after,

several journalists traveled there

to ask people

camera in hand, what had they seen.

And no one knew anything about it.

-They told it two or three days ago

on channel one of Russian television.

They reported that the day

in which the Ukrainian army entered the city,

gathered the women and children in this square

and killed a child.

-No, no, that's not true.

-Could you tell me what happened?

-Nothing like that happened.

We haven't heard anything about that.

and it is very unlikely that it will happen.

-Were you here that day?

No, but we haven't heard anything like it.

Everyone would have known.

That didn't happen, it's just gossip.

Has no one told you about this?

-Nerd.

We live near here and we would have known.

Everyone would know. -Very well.

They are nothing more than inventions.

-It is a widely used form of manipulation

in Crimean propaganda.

Use a child, an innocent,

someone who appears innocent in the public eye

to show that the Ukrainian military

they are so ruthless that they are capable of crucifying a child.

What Russia is doing

is to try to maintain control over the area,

so that ukraine

cannot become a democratic country

and financially stable

and join the European Union.

I didn't know how much fake news was being spread

until I started with the project.

We decided that it was best to disprove the montages one by one,

for people to see what is the pattern that is followed,

become a kind of fake news archive.

This is how the work of StopFake began

and what we continue to do three years later.

-Let's lower the logo a bit.

-In the 1990s, in Russia,

journalism was a free market.

There were many newspapers and television channels,

most independent of the government.

Now the situation has changed.

Most media owned by the state

and they have marked editorial lines.

That is why it is very important, not only for the good of the public,

but the collective of journalists,

disassemble...

The lies that are being spread.

-In the early afternoon of July 17, 2014,

a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200

took off from Schipholen Amsterdam Airport.

When flight MH17 was traveling over the eastern part of Ukraine,

a Buk surface-to-air missile system

fired a projectile.

Flight MH17 disappeared from radar

at one, twenty minutes and 3 seconds.

-There's a name on this phone call.

Nikolai Fedorovich

Nikolai Fedorovich?

-Yes, Nikolai Fedorovichal speaks. Charmed.

The first step was to check how many top military commanders

they were called Nikolai Fedorovich.

And we only found one person with that name.

The next thing was to find his voice

to compare and see if it was the same.

So we did a 15-minute interview with him.

I am Roman Dobrokhotov,

I'm calling from The Insider magazine.

He wanted ...

Yes Insider.

And we send you the voice samples

to two different organizations

one from the United States and one from Lithuania,

for a forensic analysis.

They both told us there was a very high probability

that it was the same person.

The sooner the better.

We have to hide it and remove it, in the afternoon, okay?

-And if we add to that that the name coincides,

it can be said that we are one hundred percent sure

that he is the same person.

Since we were sure

We decided to publish the interview.

Of course he denied having anything to do with it.

-My theory and that of my colleague

is that General Tkachev

was responsible

to get that missile launcher from Russia to Ukraine.

that would not have been possible

without the collaboration of some high command of the army.

We believe that Vladimir Putin as head of the army,

he is ultimately responsible

but that there were also officers involved,

and that the "dolphin" had that profile.

Someone from the Russian side,

one of the high military officials.

Colonel General

that he brought those missiles to Ukraine.

-We must not forget that it was the second Malaysian plane

which fell over the course of a couple of weeks.

And that makes it possible

that those who died in Ukrainian airspace

They did it twice

because we have no answers of how it happened.

-The idea was to create the perception that you would never know

who had launched the missile against flight MH17.

We'll never know, it's impossible

There are tons of theories...

It is very common in Russian propaganda.

About almost anything a tangle of theories is created.

In order to demonstrate that the truth does not exist.

Everything is relative.There are many opinions,

and the truth cannot be known.

-It was in 2013.

I was working at a local newspaper.

And I saw a very short message

of a woman in a social network.

She said that they had given her a very strange job interview,

in which she was only asked:

"What do you think of the Kremlin

and the current political situation?

And she replied that she was against it,

that she was totally opposed.

And they said: "Goodbye, it's not what we're looking for."

I asked for the phone number

who contacted her

and I passed

by a teacher who was looking for a job.

And I went to the troll factory,

which is in a modern Finnish-style building,

and I worked there as an undercover journalist for a day.

They asked me to write stories with different profiles,

So I had to act

Although I am not an actor.

Then I published my report

and a couple of months later,

I got a confidant inside.

She is called Lyudmila.

She worked there for a month and a few weeks,

and she told me she from the start

that she wanted to get it shut down.

I asked her to send me all the material she could,

to find out how it works

and what are the guidelines they give.

-I present to you Lyudmila Savchuk,

one of the bravest people i have ever met.

She infiltrated the famous troll army in 2015,

as a freelance journalist.

Tell us,

What do they do?

What happens there?

-All the time,

every minute,

every second,

comments are being written in favor of the Kremlin.

Not just comments

but also articles,

because there are fake journalists.

People who produce videos with demotivating messages.

They criticize and praise people without knowing them.

-In a matter of minutes

after the assassination of Boris Nemtsov

comments began to appear

and posts about it

in all news agencies

and social networks.

I saw how it was done.

The chiefs ran from one side to the other,

telling us:

Everyone, get on the Nemtsov thing.

It must be said that the government has had nothing to do with it.

They are defamation

the opposition has killed one of their own.

Things like that.

the trolls,

foot workers,

they had no idea who Nemtsov was,

but they began to write

all sorts of horrible things about him,

and even those who knew of its importance,

They also said horrible things.

There were some older

that they knew him,

but they also began to slander him.

One thing is what they think and another what they write.

For those who oppose the regime,

the message was clear:

We can kill anyone.

-My companions were quite normal people.

Nothing special.

Of diverse ages and interests.

Ordinary people.

The content we wrote

he was mostly from the Ukraine:

shootings,

war,

Kyiv,

Poroshenko,

Russia,

economy,

West,

NATO,

US shootings

and those things.

The most popular topics.

I didn't think I was betraying my country or anything like that.

It was just a job.

That was also what the director told us:

that it was just a job and we were paid for it.

whoever wanted

you could go no problem.

-When I started denouncing them publicly,

the system started working against me.

A coordinated attack from multiple accounts,

with several calls in which they asked me:

"You are not afraid?,

Have children?".

They asked me what was going on

and in the end they told me:

"Keep quiet, Lyudmila.

there are people who are killed for that.”

I took threats very seriously

and I decided to take my children with their father

so that they would get used to living with him if something happened to me.

That is what awaits people who live like me.

-My life was very boring and normal,

but all that changed in 2014,

when i started researching about trolls

of advertising on social networks.

-It was very difficult for us to contact you.

We tried in a thousand different ways

but we got no response.

And it's understandable

since you have received so many threats and so many hate messages.

But we finally got it

and you are here

I specialized in Russia,

in information warfare and extremism

and today I'm going to tell you what happened to me

when in 2014

I started researching it then

new phenomenon of Russian information warfare.

I quickly became the target of a fake news campaign,

both in Russia and internationally.

They published my personal data:

my phone number,

my email.

a couple of days later

I started receiving SMS

and hate mail messages in Russian,

of different people and trolls.

And I even received calls from a Ukrainian number

with someone shooting

or imitating the sound of a gunshot.

There were some activists,

with anonymous identities,

they posted a song about me.

The video was part of a campaign

which was organized on social networks.

And Facebook helped spread them,

because I discovered that those activists

they had bought visibility

to publish slander

and make fun of me.

Oh, they also investigated my judicial record

and they saw that when he was in his twenties,

I mean, 15 years ago,

I was fined 300 euros

for drug use.

So my bosses started writing

asking them

Why did they hire addicts?

-If any social network appears

criticizing the Kremlin in any way,

They are going to come for you, to attack you.

They will harass you and spread all kinds of things about you on the internet.

From the troll factory.

In the spring of 2015

I also received a very disturbing message.

Someone, the sender,

pretended to be my father

that he had been dead for 20 years.

I know this job is dangerous.

but if you protect yourself well,

there is not too much problem.

-How do you protect yourself?

- Being very cautious.

When someone rings the bell, I don't open.

If I'm not waiting for anyone,

I don't open

Never.

If you want to come see me,

call me before

In general,

I don't pick up the phone if I don't know the number.

When you handle dangerous information

you need to be careful.

It's part of the job.

How did your company react to that?

-In an exemplary way.

I wouldn't do this even once

if you don't trust my company.

And I don't think anyone should

because that's where you really play it.

It's important to know

that your employer supports you

and he is a true professional.

-Thank you so much.

-I think the most important

what can be done in Russia right now

is dedicated to dismantling false news

and to carry out journalistic investigations.

Because we are in a situation

in which the field of information is censored by the government

and people do not receive real information of what is happening.

And we journalists are who we should...

explain the situation,

Even if they censor us

although some are killed or threatened,

we have the responsibility to show

the most painful side

of the politics of this country.

-New Year's Day

I was watching an informative

on one of the federal television channels

and the presenter said

that in one of the battalions of the Ukrainian army,

the Azov,

there were members of ISIS.

-In the National-Ukrainian Azov Regiment

several Islamic State militants have enlisted,

as shown by the evidence provided by hackers

from Cyber ​​Berkut,

who managed to get hold of the mobile phone

of one of the soldiers.

-So it's supposed

that the Ukrainians asked ISIS

to fight with them

against Russia.

It seemed crazy to me.

Something unthinkable.

So I started looking for those people,

or at least,

the site where the video was recorded.

-I noticed an object that appeared in one of the images.

If you pay attention,

there is a roll of duct tape.

It is hardly appreciated, it is on the ground,

but you can see the logo of the company that has manufactured it.

It's not very well known

So I started looking for information about her.

After several hours of research,

I found the company's online store:

is in Podolsk

So I thought, very well, Podolsk.

Now I have to find them factories,

the building that appears in the video.

They will be in Podolsk,

because surely those who have made the video

they bought the tape there.

These are the images that were taken in the building

What are we searching for.

And you are,

specifications for factory construction

from the Soviet era.

All buildings were the same

that's why it's so hard to find the place,

you have to pay attention to the details,

And the main difference

is this window rolled,

identical to the one in the video.

But these other windows

they are not the same,

so this is not the building,

What a pity!

when i started my research

I didn't expect to take a year

or rather ten months,

in finding the scene of the recording.

I saw the pictures again

to analyze them again

to notice all the small objects that appear.

I looked at what it looked like

from the window of one of the videos.

There is a mountain

It looks like a coal quarry.

And what is the largest coal mining region of the countries

of the post-Soviet era?

Well, the one in the Donets basin,

which was under Russian rule,

so i thought:

"I'm going to look there."

And I found more than 30 artificial mountains.

I studied them all

until I came across this site.

It's the site I was looking for.

There is a little door,

Do you see her there?

It's this one here.

This door.

Isn't that wonderful?

I found the former owner of the factory.

She had installed an art museum,

one of the largest in Eastern Europe.

And she sent me this beautiful photograph,

prewar.

I used this image of the interior of the building

To illustrate my research:

the same tube, the same windows,

the same floor, the same ceiling.

You can change from one photograph to the other

to compare.

I spent several hours after posting it

moving from one to another.

Before the war,

after the war.

Why does someone from this territory

controlled by the Russians

did you make this video?

What interest did he have?

The point is that the western world

tried to influence the conflict with Ukraine.

Pro-Russian militants are likely

they would like to show the United States

or to the European Union

that the worst they could do

was to give money to Ukraine,

because it would end up in the hands of ISIS.

And there would be terrorist attacks in Europe,

Which is not true.

Ukraine had no relationship with ISIS

and the terrorist attacks in Europe

they had nothing to do with Ukraine.

(Shooting)

-Also!

Also!

Allahu Akbar!

-I checked if the video appeared in the press

and I have seen that there were two federal channels

that aired it on the news.

They used it without giving it any more thought.

-The rise of fascism in Ukraine,

According to data provided by CyberBerkut,

will make thousands of mercenaries join their ranks.

These are images from one of their training camps,

in which the militants organize their attacks

in the rest of Europe.

-The result took time.

I spent almost a year

many months,

to cover this story

and find the site where the video was recorded.

I think it was worth it.

-In the US section

About ninety people worked.

And aside from translators and content writers, there were analysts.

My name is Andrey Zahkarov.

and work for RBK magazine.

Reporting is my specialty.

and research articles.

Last spring

we were investigating

the press department of the factory

and we discover some examples of campaigns

addressed to the United States.

They worked very well.

in terms of the "likes" they got.

and how many times

that people spread them.

They were very provocative content.

Whose main objective was to create tension in the country.

In September 2014,

more than two years before the elections,

the troll factory

I was already working in English on many platforms.

Not only with texts,

but with videos, memes,

editing wikipedia pages.

It was an all-encompassing campaign.

There was an account that claimed to be from the movement

Black Lives Matter

for the rights of African Americans,

and sometimes,

they seemed to be on the left and others on the right,

it would be said that to cover all the possibilities.

-It was done professionally.

Weak points were analyzed

and then attack them.

-I worked in the American forums.

90 percent were about politics

and the remaining 10 percent,

about other things,

but with a politics section.

-First you pretend to be a redneck from Kentucky,

then,

a white man from Minnesota

who has been enslaved all his life paying taxes

And the next moment you're from New York

and you publish speaking in the slang of African Americans.

I saw a video on Youtube

of an African American,

at the end

turned out to be african

dressed in an american uniform

and shooting at the Koran.

-And they told me it was our thing.

Isn't that amazing?

The uniform was a mess

had nothing to do with it.

They hired a black

and recorded a video

which ended up going viral.

The way you choose to revolutionize people is the least important,

may be in the news

or in political forums,

that does not matter.

-All publications were of high quality

in terms of social media marketing.

An eye-catching image with a callout below.

Short messages that say:

"Do you want them to be Americans?

They're going to be Americans."

And at Secure Borders they used pictures of immigrants,

of Mexicans.

It is a page dedicated to questions about immigration from Mexico.

-The way they had to manage the accounts is manual.

It is the perfect technique to infiltrate a community.

Buena parte de la narrativaque construían

giraba en tornoa la idea de que las elecciones

estaban amañadaspara que ganara Hillary.

-Robar unas eleccionesen los Estados Unidos

puede ser la forma de asegurarsela victoria

para algún candidato.

-Es sencillísimo.

-Desde principios de 2016

era evidente que el Kremlin

había iniciado una campañacontra Hillary Clinton.

Solo había que ver lo que emitíany publicaban RT y Sputnik.

Todo estaba siempre en contrade Clinton,

de forma sistemática.

-Si nos fijamos en una cuentadenominada Tennessee GOP

buena parte de lo que publicaba

eran contenidos patrióticos sin más,

y poco a poco,

fueron aumentando la agresividadcontra Hillary.

Y, de hecho, cuando Twittersuspendió la cuenta,

la extrema derecha estadounidenseprotestó enérgicamente.

Empezaron a preguntar por las redescuál era el motivo de la suspensión.

-Hicieron un experimentodesde San Petersburgo.

Encontraron una cámara webabierta en Nueva York

y publicaron un evento en Facebook

para ofrecer «perritos gratis»tal día a tal hora.

Y esperaron a versi aparecía la gente.

Al ver que sí,

que la gente acudía,

se dieron cuenta de que podíanconvocar actos

en Estados Unidosdesde San Petersburgo.

Y eso fue lo que comenzarona hacer

en sus propias palabras,

era muy divertido.

Se lo estaban pasando muy biencon su trabajo.

-A mediados de 2016,

algunas de las cuentasde la fábrica de troles

habían entrado en contactocon ciudadanos estadounidenses.

Sobre todo con partidariosde Donald Trump.

-¡Pensacola con Trump!

-La fábrica de troles contactocon activistas estadounidenses,

con uno de Texas en particular,

que les aconsejó que centraranen algunos estados

a los que denominaban estados«morados»,

porque podían pasardel rojo al azul

o viceversa de unas eleccionesa otras,

como Florida, por ejemplo.

Así que no fue casual que Floridase convirtiera

en uno de los focos de activismode la fábrica de troles.

-La cuenta Being Patriotic

«ser patriota»,

tenía entre 17 y 20 campañas

de apoyo a Trump en Florida.

-Una vez que habían creadolas cuentas y plataformas iniciales,

empezaban a interactuarcon ciudadanos estadounidenses.

-¡Vamos, Trump!

Florida está contigo.

Aquí estamos todos, apoyándote.

-Lo grave es que en 2016

teníamos todas las pistas

para saber lo que estaba pasando,

pero nadie se paró a mirarlas.

-El grupo Corazón de Tejas

creó un evento público en Facebook

que tendría lugarel 21 de mayo de 2016

a mediodía en el centro islámicode Houston, Tejas.

contra la islamizaciónde ese estado.

Acto seguido, la Unión de Musulmanesde Estados Unidos,

creó otro para, cito:

«preservar el legado islámico»,

a la misma horay en el mismo sitio.

Lo que ninguno de los dosbandos sabía

es que los troles rusos

estaban alentándolospara enfrentarse en las calles

y crear división en la sociedadestadounidense.

Formar esos dos grupos

y pagar por sus anuncios

para organizar aquel enfrentamientoen Houston

le costó a Rusia unos 200 dólares.

-Señor Stretch usted comentó ayer

que el objetivo de su empresaes acercar a las personas,

y se diría que Facebookno han cumplido con él.

-En abril de 2014

se decidió que la fábrica de troles

trataría de interferiren las elecciones de 2016.

Eso son dos años y mediode preparación,

una campaña a largo plazo.

-Si lo comparamos con las eleccionesbritánicas de 2017,

solo disponían de seis semanas,

muy poco tiempo para ponernada en marcha.

En Francia fue muy interesante

porque la campaña de Macronempezó muy pronto

y enseguida dijeron:

«Rusia está lanzandonoticias falsas contra nosotros».

Fueron muy sinceros

reconociendo que pensaban que estabansiendo objeto de injerencias

por parte de Rusia.

Aquel fue un caso en el quehubo una campaña propagandística,

pero fue demasiado notoriay torpe y los descubrieron.

En Estados Unidoshabía sido facilísimo,

y aunque los analistaslo habían advertido,

la gente decía:

«bueno, aunque lo hagan no importa,Hillary va a ganar de todas formas».

Así que a los troles era muy fáciloperar en ese entorno,

fue pan comidopara la propaganda rusa.

-¿Intervino China en el pasadociclo electoral,

trató de influir en él de algún modo?

-No me consta, senador.

-¿No le consta?

¿Y Turkmenistán?

No, senador.No me consta.

-Señor Stretch,

¿Cómo es posible que Facebook

que se precia de ser capaz

de procesar miles de millonesde puntos de datos,

no se diera cuenta

de que los anuncios electorales

que se pagaban en rublos

venían de Rusia?

Esos son dos puntos de datos.

-En vista de los acontecimientos,

tendríamos que haber estadomás atentos.

No reparamos en esos indicios.

-¡Ven «rublos» y un anuncio electoral

y no son capaces de pensar «mmm»?

Esos dos puntos de datos juntosno podían significar nada bueno.

-Senador, nuestro objetivoes asegurarnos

de evitar todo tipo de abusos.

-Mire su objetivo debería serpensar en todo esto

un poquito más y mejor.

-Estas acusaciones deben servircomo recordatorio

de que la gente no siemprees lo que dice ser en internet.

Las acusaciones se basanen que los conspiradores rusos

querían sembrar discordiaen la sociedad estadounidense

y minar la confianzade los electores en la democracia,

y no debemos dejar que eso ocurra.

-La situación no es buena,

y se agrava día a día.

Yo, que estudié ciencias políticasen la universidad

y tengo conocimientos suficientes

sobre cómo se han desarrolladolas democracias en otros países,

creo que tengouna responsabilidad mayor

para explicarlo que debe cambiar en este país.

Tenemos que intentar cambiar algo

y, si fracasamos,

por lo menos podremos decirque lo hemos intentado.

-La fábrica de trolessigue en funcionamiento.

Se han trasladado de un edificiode negocios

de San Petersburgo a otro,

pero el Kremlin sigue necesitandosus servicios

y ellos se los siguen prestando.

Los contenidos que la fábricade troles genera y difunde

cada vez son más agresivos

y de mayor calidad.

Creo que, de alguna manera,

se debe a que nosotros,

los periodistas de investigación,

les estamos enseñando a protegerse

ya perfeccionar las campañasde desinformación.

Porque cuando empezaron,en 2013,

eran muy fáciles de desmontar.

Enseguida se veíaque lo habían hecho ellos.

Ahora se lo trabajan mucho más.

Aunque sepas que los han hechoen la fábrica,

no lo puedes demostrar,

porque con el tiempo,

sus contenidos van siendomás elaborados y agresivos.

Además, en La Mañana de La 1 Verifica RTVE ha abordado alguno de los bulos más virales esta última semana para explicar bien claro en qué debe fijarse la ciudadanía que sospeche de los mensajes que le son compartidos en sus redes sociales.