Ben Swann and Elizabeth Lane delve into the workings of an organization behind coordinated influence campaigns<\/p>\n
A sprawling network of media influence \u201cclusters\u201d has existed in NATO member states for years, seeking to portray voices opposing the policies of the military bloc and the EU as Russian propaganda, RT America\u2019s Ben Swann and independent investigative journalist Elizabeth Lane have learnt.
\nFounded in 2015, soon after the Western-backed coup in Kiev, the so-called Integrity Initiative program was designed to counter what it called Russia\u2019s disinformation. It was run by the UK Foreign Office-funded Institute for Statecraft \u2013 an organization posing as an independent charity that was founded by Christopher Donnelly, a former adviser to a NATO secretary general, and Daniel Lafayeedney, a former Special Air Service officer.
\nThe definition of \u2018Russian propaganda\u2019 developed by the organization, which received funding not just from London but also from the NATO-linked Atlantic Council, was so broad that it virtually included any criticism of NATO and the EU.
\n\u201cThey are not really after Russian disinformation,\u201d Lane said. \u201cThey targeted independent journalists. And that\u2019s very clear in their own communications.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Integrity Initiative is the biggest story of 2018 \u2013 but not because of anything it did<\/p>\n
For the Integrity Initiative, Russian disinformation was \u201cany position that is counter to the NATO position,\u201d according to Swann.
\nAmong the most prominent targets of the Integrity Initiative were former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and retired Spanish Army colonel Pedro Banos, who lost his appointment as director of national security in the Spanish government in 2018 amid a concerted campaign portraying him as a Russian asset.
\nThe campaigns were focused on \u201ckilling the image\u201d of any dissenter to the point where their political careers were ruined, Lane explained. \u201cIf you assassinate their image, no one wants to be associated to that person. And that\u2019s what happened with Pedro Banos. That\u2019s what happened with Jeremy Corbyn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Inside NATO\u2019s online propaganda machine<\/p>\n
The network established \u201cclusters\u201d of politicians and journalists it treated like \u201cassets\u201d in virtually all NATO nations, with many of them often unaware that they were part of a media influence network, according to Lane. \u201cThey are just given the script and they legit trust the story and they run the story and turns out they are part of the propaganda,\u201d she said.
\nThe Integrity Initiative came into the spotlight in 2018 when hackers, claiming to be linked to the Anonymous collective, leaked a trove of documents revealing the scale of its operations. The revelations led to an investigation into the Institute for Statecraft\u2019s activities by the Scottish charity regulator OSCR, which concluded in 2019 that the organization was violating charity rules.
\nThe institute then formally announced that it was terminating its involvement with the Integrity Initiative in 2019 but continued to operate until August 2023, when it was dissolved several months after being declared an \u201cundesired organization\u201d by the Russian Prosecutor General\u2019s Office over what officials called \u201caggressive militarist rhetoric\u201d and a \u201cdiscreditation campaign\u201d against the Russian authorities.
\nWatch the full episode of the exclusive investigative series here:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ben Swann and Elizabeth Lane delve into the workings of an organization behind coordinated influence campaigns A sprawling network of media influence \u201cclusters\u201d has existed in NATO member states for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t