DISARMframeworks/generated_pages/incidents/I00079.md

# Incident I00079: Three thousand fake tanks

* **Summary:** <I>“How a network of conspiracy sites spread a fake story about US reinforcements in Europe”</i>

* **incident type**: 

* **Year started:** 

* **Countries:**  , 

* **Found via:** 

* **Date added:** 


| Reference | Pub Date | Authors | Org | Archive |
| --------- | -------- | ------- | --- | ------- |
| [https://medium.com/@DFRLab/three-thousand-fake-tanks-575410c4f64d](https://medium.com/@DFRLab/three-thousand-fake-tanks-575410c4f64d) | 2017/01/12 | Ben Nimmo | DFRLab | [https://web.archive.org/web/20240527191455/https://medium.com/@DFRLab/three-thousand-fake-tanks-575410c4f64d](https://web.archive.org/web/20240527191455/https://medium.com/@DFRLab/three-thousand-fake-tanks-575410c4f64d) |

 

| Technique | Description given for this incident |
| --------- | ------------------------- |
| [T0016 Create Clickbait](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0016.md) | IT00000275 <i>“On January 4 [2017], a little-known news site based in Donetsk, Ukraine published an article claiming that the United States was sending 3,600 tanks to Europe as part of “the NATO war preparation against Russia”.<br><br> “Like much fake news, this story started with a grain of truth: the US was about to reinforce its armored units in Europe. However, the article converted literally thousands of other vehicles — including hundreds of Humvees and trailers — into tanks, building the US force into something 20 times more powerful than it actually was.<br><br> “The story caught on online. Within three days it had been repeated by a dozen websites in the United States, Canada and Europe, and shared some 40,000 times. It was translated into Norwegian; quoted, unchallenged, by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti; and spread among Russian-language websites.<br><br> “It was also an obvious fake, as any Google news search would have revealed. Yet despite its evident falsehood, it spread widely, and not just in directly Kremlin-run media. Tracking the spread of this fake therefore shines a light on the wider question of how fake stories are dispersed.”</i><br><br> Russian state news agency RIA Novosti presents themselves as a news outlet (T0097.202: News Outlet Persona). RIO Novosti is a real news outlet (T0143.001: Authentic Persona), but it did not carry out a basic investigation into the veracity of the narrative they published implicitly expected of institutions presenting themselves as news outlets.<br><br> We can’t know how or why this narrative ended up being published by RIA Novosti, but we know that it presented a distorted reality as authentic information (T0023: Distort Facts), claiming that the US was sending 3,600 tanks, instead of 3,600 vehicles which included ~180 tanks. |
| [T0023 Distort Facts](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0023.md) | IT00000272 <i>“On January 4 [2017], a little-known news site based in Donetsk, Ukraine published an article claiming that the United States was sending 3,600 tanks to Europe as part of “the NATO war preparation against Russia”.<br><br> “Like much fake news, this story started with a grain of truth: the US was about to reinforce its armored units in Europe. However, the article converted literally thousands of other vehicles — including hundreds of Humvees and trailers — into tanks, building the US force into something 20 times more powerful than it actually was.<br><br> “The story caught on online. Within three days it had been repeated by a dozen websites in the United States, Canada and Europe, and shared some 40,000 times. It was translated into Norwegian; quoted, unchallenged, by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti; and spread among Russian-language websites.<br><br> “It was also an obvious fake, as any Google news search would have revealed. Yet despite its evident falsehood, it spread widely, and not just in directly Kremlin-run media. Tracking the spread of this fake therefore shines a light on the wider question of how fake stories are dispersed.”</i><br><br> Russian state news agency RIA Novosti presents themselves as a news outlet (T0097.202: News Outlet Persona). RIO Novosti is a real news outlet (T0143.001: Authentic Persona), but it did not carry out a basic investigation into the veracity of the narrative they published implicitly expected of institutions presenting themselves as news outlets.<br><br> We can’t know how or why this narrative ended up being published by RIA Novosti, but we know that it presented a distorted reality as authentic information (T0023: Distort Facts), claiming that the US was sending 3,600 tanks, instead of 3,600 vehicles which included ~180 tanks. |
| [T0084.002 Plagiarise Content](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0084.002.md) | IT00000278 <i>“The sixth [website to repost a confirmed false narrative investigated in this report] is an apparent think tank, the Center for Global Strategic Monitoring. This website describes itself, in English apparently written by a non-native speaker, as a “nonprofit and nonpartisan research and analysis institution dedicated to providing insights of the think tank community publications”. It does, indeed, publish think-tank reports on issues such as Turkey and US-China relations; however, the reports are the work of other think tanks, often unattributed (the two mentioned in this sentence were actually produced by the Brookings Institution, although the website makes no mention of the fact). It also fails to provide an address, or any other contact details other than an email, and its (long) list of experts includes entries apparently copied and pasted from other institutions. Thus, the “think tank” website which shared the fake story appears to be a fake itself.”</i> In this example a website which amplified a false narrative presented itself as a think tank (T0097.204: Think Tank Persona).<br><br> This is an entirely fabricated persona (T0143.002: Fabricated Persona); it republished content from other think tanks without attribution (T0084.002: Plagiarise Content) and fabricated experts (T0097.108: Expert Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona) to make it more believable that they were a real think tank. |
| [T0097.108 Expert Persona](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0097.108.md) | IT00000277 <i>“The sixth [website to repost a confirmed false narrative investigated in this report] is an apparent think tank, the Center for Global Strategic Monitoring. This website describes itself, in English apparently written by a non-native speaker, as a “nonprofit and nonpartisan research and analysis institution dedicated to providing insights of the think tank community publications”. It does, indeed, publish think-tank reports on issues such as Turkey and US-China relations; however, the reports are the work of other think tanks, often unattributed (the two mentioned in this sentence were actually produced by the Brookings Institution, although the website makes no mention of the fact). It also fails to provide an address, or any other contact details other than an email, and its (long) list of experts includes entries apparently copied and pasted from other institutions. Thus, the “think tank” website which shared the fake story appears to be a fake itself.”</i> In this example a website which amplified a false narrative presented itself as a think tank (T0097.204: Think Tank Persona).<br><br> This is an entirely fabricated persona (T0143.002: Fabricated Persona); it republished content from other think tanks without attribution (T0084.002: Plagiarise Content) and fabricated experts (T0097.108: Expert Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona) to make it more believable that they were a real think tank. |
| [T0097.202 News Outlet Persona](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0097.202.md) | IT00000274 <i>“On January 4 [2017], a little-known news site based in Donetsk, Ukraine published an article claiming that the United States was sending 3,600 tanks to Europe as part of “the NATO war preparation against Russia”.<br><br> “Like much fake news, this story started with a grain of truth: the US was about to reinforce its armored units in Europe. However, the article converted literally thousands of other vehicles — including hundreds of Humvees and trailers — into tanks, building the US force into something 20 times more powerful than it actually was.<br><br> “The story caught on online. Within three days it had been repeated by a dozen websites in the United States, Canada and Europe, and shared some 40,000 times. It was translated into Norwegian; quoted, unchallenged, by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti; and spread among Russian-language websites.<br><br> “It was also an obvious fake, as any Google news search would have revealed. Yet despite its evident falsehood, it spread widely, and not just in directly Kremlin-run media. Tracking the spread of this fake therefore shines a light on the wider question of how fake stories are dispersed.”</i><br><br> Russian state news agency RIA Novosti presents themselves as a news outlet (T0097.202: News Outlet Persona). RIO Novosti is a real news outlet (T0143.001: Authentic Persona), but it did not carry out a basic investigation into the veracity of the narrative they published implicitly expected of institutions presenting themselves as news outlets.<br><br> We can’t know how or why this narrative ended up being published by RIA Novosti, but we know that it presented a distorted reality as authentic information (T0023: Distort Facts), claiming that the US was sending 3,600 tanks, instead of 3,600 vehicles which included ~180 tanks. |
| [T0097.204 Think Tank Persona](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0097.204.md) | IT00000276 <i>“The sixth [website to repost a confirmed false narrative investigated in this report] is an apparent think tank, the Center for Global Strategic Monitoring. This website describes itself, in English apparently written by a non-native speaker, as a “nonprofit and nonpartisan research and analysis institution dedicated to providing insights of the think tank community publications”. It does, indeed, publish think-tank reports on issues such as Turkey and US-China relations; however, the reports are the work of other think tanks, often unattributed (the two mentioned in this sentence were actually produced by the Brookings Institution, although the website makes no mention of the fact). It also fails to provide an address, or any other contact details other than an email, and its (long) list of experts includes entries apparently copied and pasted from other institutions. Thus, the “think tank” website which shared the fake story appears to be a fake itself.”</i> In this example a website which amplified a false narrative presented itself as a think tank (T0097.204: Think Tank Persona).<br><br> This is an entirely fabricated persona (T0143.002: Fabricated Persona); it republished content from other think tanks without attribution (T0084.002: Plagiarise Content) and fabricated experts (T0097.108: Expert Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona) to make it more believable that they were a real think tank. |
| [T0143.001 Authentic Persona](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0143.001.md) | IT00000273 <i>“On January 4 [2017], a little-known news site based in Donetsk, Ukraine published an article claiming that the United States was sending 3,600 tanks to Europe as part of “the NATO war preparation against Russia”.<br><br> “Like much fake news, this story started with a grain of truth: the US was about to reinforce its armored units in Europe. However, the article converted literally thousands of other vehicles — including hundreds of Humvees and trailers — into tanks, building the US force into something 20 times more powerful than it actually was.<br><br> “The story caught on online. Within three days it had been repeated by a dozen websites in the United States, Canada and Europe, and shared some 40,000 times. It was translated into Norwegian; quoted, unchallenged, by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti; and spread among Russian-language websites.<br><br> “It was also an obvious fake, as any Google news search would have revealed. Yet despite its evident falsehood, it spread widely, and not just in directly Kremlin-run media. Tracking the spread of this fake therefore shines a light on the wider question of how fake stories are dispersed.”</i><br><br> Russian state news agency RIA Novosti presents themselves as a news outlet (T0097.202: News Outlet Persona). RIO Novosti is a real news outlet (T0143.001: Authentic Persona), but it did not carry out a basic investigation into the veracity of the narrative they published implicitly expected of institutions presenting themselves as news outlets.<br><br> We can’t know how or why this narrative ended up being published by RIA Novosti, but we know that it presented a distorted reality as authentic information (T0023: Distort Facts), claiming that the US was sending 3,600 tanks, instead of 3,600 vehicles which included ~180 tanks. |
| [T0143.002 Fabricated Persona](../../generated_pages/techniques/T0143.002.md) | IT00000279 <i>“The sixth [website to repost a confirmed false narrative investigated in this report] is an apparent think tank, the Center for Global Strategic Monitoring. This website describes itself, in English apparently written by a non-native speaker, as a “nonprofit and nonpartisan research and analysis institution dedicated to providing insights of the think tank community publications”. It does, indeed, publish think-tank reports on issues such as Turkey and US-China relations; however, the reports are the work of other think tanks, often unattributed (the two mentioned in this sentence were actually produced by the Brookings Institution, although the website makes no mention of the fact). It also fails to provide an address, or any other contact details other than an email, and its (long) list of experts includes entries apparently copied and pasted from other institutions. Thus, the “think tank” website which shared the fake story appears to be a fake itself.”</i> In this example a website which amplified a false narrative presented itself as a think tank (T0097.204: Think Tank Persona).<br><br> This is an entirely fabricated persona (T0143.002: Fabricated Persona); it republished content from other think tanks without attribution (T0084.002: Plagiarise Content) and fabricated experts (T0097.108: Expert Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona) to make it more believable that they were a real think tank. |


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