At first glanceâwith headlines such as âSleepy Joe Set Politics Back 180 Years,â âBLM Body Count,â and âTrump Paid Zero Taxes? Good for Himââit doesnât look much different from hundreds of other Trumpist news sites that rage against Democrats and the elitist mainstream media.
But the clunkily titled âNewsroom for American and European Based Citizens,â or NAEBC, was on Thursday exposed as a Russian front reportedly linked to the Internet Research Agencyâthe Kremlin-backed troll farm behind much of the interference in the 2016 U.S. election. There were some warning signs: NAEBC appears to be a pun on a Russian word meaning to âscrew over,â and its slogan tells readers: âDonât get yourself fooled.â
The veil was lifted on NAEBC by the Reuters news agency, which reported the FBI has been investigating the pretend pro-Trump media outlet. Itâs only been a month since the FBI exposed the fake left-wing news organization, Peacedata, as another project run by Putinâs internet troll army. The two sites are the latest evidence that the Kremlin isnât just backing one horse in the U.S. electionâitâs pushing for as much chaos as possible.
Unlike Peacedata, which mainly targeted overseas readers, NAEBC focuses almost entirely on U.S. politics and current events with a clear slant toward President Donald Trump and Republicans. According to Reuters, the fake outlet was set up in June and pays real U.S. freelancers to write about politically charged issues, and then a network of fake accounts pushes that content to online spaces used by right-wing Trump supporters.
For example, take the siteâs latest lead article on the Tuesday nightâs presidential debate. While even Trumpâs most starry-eyed supporters found themselves let down by his performance, NAEBC ran the audacious headline: âThe Five Strategic Goals Trump Masterfully Achieved in the First Presidential Debate.â The badly written article, apparently reproduced from a separate blog, reads: âPresident Trump had a war strategy, and he achieved all of his strategic goals.â
Another recent article praises the ingenuity of Trump for managing to pay pitiful amounts of income taxes over the past decade, as was reported last Sunday by The New York Times. Again, the NAEBC article seems to be lifted from a different blog, and it reads: âEven if the account is true, the only appropriate response is: good for him, on several counts.â
Aside from deifying Trump, the site is fond of denigrating the Black Lives Matter movement, referring to civil-rights protesters as âriotersâ and falsely claiming that demonstrations have led to a ârecord number of mass shootingsâ in America. An August headline from the site asks and answers the question: âWas the Copâs Knee on George Floydâs Neck âRacismâ? No!â
Reutersâ Jack Stubbs reports that, while the site had a presence on Twitter and LinkedInâwhere fake accounts tried to whip up support and outrage for the articlesâNAEBC failed to attract much attention on the most popular social media sites. However, on Gab and Parlerâtwo platforms enjoyed by right-wing usersâthe site gained more traction.
Following the Reuters report, the fake site has been locked out of the top social networksâLinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebookâbut Parler said the company didnât know what NAEBC was, and Gab hasnât commented. The website itself is still accessible as of Thursday morning.
An unnamed U.S. security official told Reuters that NAEBC is the latest example of âunwitting Americansâ being recruited to help the Kremlin sow its chaos before Election Day. Ben Nimmo, head of investigations at social-media analytics firm Graphika, which reviewed the site for Reuters, said itâs the latest piece of evidence that Russian interference in U.S. elections has evolved to become even more insidious than it was in 2016.
However, Nimmo explained: âThe overall strategy looks unchanged: Energize Trump supporters, depress support for Biden, and target both sides with divisive and polarizing messages.â