Fake news websites registered in the United Kingdom that look like reliable British media outlets are allegedly spreading disinformation about Western companies operating in Ukraine. This is reported by The Guardian, according to UNN.
Details
The article says that the alleged Russian propaganda operation has prompted calls from parliamentarians to change the law to force news websites registered in the UK to disclose their ownership, as is required in the EU.
Although the websites - londoninsider.co.uk and talk-finance.co.uk - are English-language and registered in the UK, their materials were picked up and distributed in Ukraine, where there is a high level of trust in the British media.
It is noted that the use of the sites was noticed by the American firm Sarn, which operates in Ukraine in the energy and military equipment sectors. Sarn says that articles on the two websites falsely accused the firm of arms trafficking, judicial fraud and embezzlement.
The content appears to have been created by artificial intelligence, and an analysis by a linguist hired by Sarn showed that the original text was created by a native Russian speaker.
The author of the stories was identified as a real British journalist, but he said in a written statement that he knew nothing about the story he allegedly wrote for londoninsider.co.uk.
It is extremely worrisome that the Russian propaganda machine is using London's reputation as a media and financial center to harm Western companies operating in Ukraine,
He added that information on media ownership, which would allow the public to know who controls the media, is more important than ever before, and said that all media outlets, regardless of their size, should publish information on their owners in a national database.
This important step to protect the media from political or economic interference was introduced in the European Union in March, and it is time to introduce it here,
Armen Agas, deputy chairman of Sarnia, said the company categorically rejects “baseless and completely fake news” that he says is being “spread” on websites under the headline: “Guns, money and Sarn: How a Czech-American group robbed Ukraine.
“We believe we were targeted because of our work on economic development in Ukraine during the conflict,” they added.
Sarn said that he had engaged cybersecurity experts and lawyers, and that one of the sites, talk-finance.co.uk, had demanded money in response to a legal letter. The other site continues to publish the article.
A request for comment was sent to the Guardian talk-finance.co.uk, via Hotmail. A quick response came back from an unnamed person who said he was willing to meet in the “tent city” Calais, the name given to the area where asylum seekers and immigrants who plan to cross the channel to the UK live.
A request for comment was also sent to the email address on the website londoninsider.co.uk, where the site is described as “a leading digital magazine covering the latest news in politics, business, sport and showbiz”.
There was a response from an individual named Thomas Hanwell, who said the site publishes “fact-based news” and suggested that Sarn was trying to intimidate him. They insisted that they had published many other stories that were “not positive” for the Russian government.
But they refused to say who owns the site and in a follow-up email described it as a “private enterprise” that operates on advertising revenue. They refused to speak over the phone or via Zoom.
The cases of fake news websites in the UK come amid an explosion of Russian online disinformation campaigns before and after its invasion of Ukraine.
NewsGuard, a company that seeks to counter disinformation by studying and evaluating news websites, found that false narratives about Ukraine and its allies were spreading online even before the February 2022 invasion,
The company said it debunked more than 250 false narratives related to the Russia-Ukraine war and identified 627 sites that spread these myths. False narratives ranged from propaganda claims that reports of massacres by Russian troops in places like Bucha were “staged” to claims that Nazi ideology guides Ukraine's political leadership.
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