Weekly Digest: Russian Disinformation Network on Facebook, The Times’ New Editor

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, announced taking down two disinformation networks in China and Russia.

The Russian network is “the largest and most complex Russian-origin operation that we’ve disrupted since [Russia’s open invasion of Ukraine]”, the report notes. The disinformation operation impersonated dozens of big media outlets, spreading false narratives in Ukraine and countries of Western Europe like Germany.

According to the report, the operation was based on the network of over 60 websites impersonating real news publications like The Guardian and Bild. The websites would post articles promoting anti-Ukrainian narratives, like criticism of refugees, which would then be promoted on social media and other platforms. On some occasions, Meta’s investigations shows, fake articles would even be promoted by official accounts of Russian embassies. 

The Chinese operation, which Meta says was unrelated to the Russian one, targeted US domestic politics, as well as Czechia, attempting to impact the country’s foreign policy stances on China and Ukraine. 

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Tony Gallagher replaced John Witherow as editor of The Times. Previously, Gallagher was editor of The Daily Telegraph and The Sun, and most recently Witherow’s deputy editor.

The Times is one of the UK’s largest newspapers, founded in the late 18th century and owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK. As Financial Times notes, the outlet “has faced what has sometimes threatened to be a painful transition to the online age”, but “found financial and editorial success” under Withetrow, who led The Times’ newsroom since 2013. 

Witherow will become chair of Times Newspapers, which oversees both The Times and its sister publication The Sunday Times. Witherow was said to plan his departure for some time, The Guardian reports; on the day his departure was announced, “the 70-year-old gathered staff together… and told them it was time for someone with more energy to take over”.

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Substack, while best known as a platform for email newsletters, has bigger ambitions. This week, it announced a new web-based RSS client, which allows users to read both Substack newsletters and external publications. 

As The Verge notes, “Substack’s the latest company trying to resurrect Google Reader from the dead — well, in spirit at least”. Google Reader shut down almost a decade ago, but in the age of social media feeds there’s been some nostalgia for the RSS format of consuming content – something Substack might want to capitalise, trying to increase its user base.

Source of the cover photo: https://depositphotos.com/