Russian Vax Disinfo Push Used ‘Every Trick in the Book’
From trying to pay off European influencers to unsuccessfully simulating a hack-and-leak operation, the trolls were apparently desperate to sow fear about Western vaccines.
Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images
The Russian marketing agency Fazze made a splash with attempts to pay off European influencers to spread fake dirt about Western vaccines in an apparent bid to make Moscow’s COVID-19 jab seem more appealing.
The effort to buy their way into social media popularity in Europe may not have been Fazze’s only gambit, however. The Daily Beast found a similar attempt to seed the same talking points and content to American audiences—part of “a multi-phase operation that employed almost every trick in the book,” according to Jack Stubbs, director of the social media analytics firm Graphika.
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