How Russian AI targets news organisations

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Networks of bots - automated social media accounts - have been found to be targeting European elections including, in the last year, those in Moldova, Poland and Germany. But could their real intention be to tie up news organisations with fact-checking? Damien Sharkov from BBC Monitoring has been looking at how they operate.

Earlier this year, news reports circulated online that a Vietnamese-American scientist called Anh Duong had a hand in creating the bombs used by America in its June airstrikes on Iran. Those reports turned out to be untrue, but Thuong Le from BBC Vietnamese has the real story of the chemical engineer known as 'the Bomb Lady.'

In India, pigeons are a much-loved part of city life for many, but a health risk for some.Sumedha Pal has the story.

Presenter: Faranak Amidi Producers: Laura Thomas and Caroline Ferguson

Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:06.0	Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:13.9	You're listening The Fifth Floor.
0:18.2	The Fifth Floor, do you know us, we're listening.
0:20.2	You're here, the fifth floor, Farnak Amidi, sobert.
0:26.8	This is the fifth floor at the heart of global storytelling
0:31.3	with BBC journalists from all around the world.
0:35.1	I'm your host, Faranak Amidi.
0:50.2	Sifting news for what is real and what is fake has always been a part of journalists' work.
1:03.2	But what if certain AI and disinformation campaigns exist with the precise purpose of ensnaring journalists and news organizations and a maze of fact-checking?
1:13.6	Damien Sharcoe from BBC Monitoring is with me to talk about recent Russian interference in elections in Europe and what its ultimate aim might be. Damien, welcome to the fifth floor. It's great to have you. Thank you for having me.
1:18.2	So Damien, there have been stories circulating online about celebrity trips to Ukraine and violence in the elections in Moldova.
1:31.2	What do these kind of stories have in common?
1:34.8	Well, we've noticed in Russian independent media reporting that a lot of these are being circulated by bots.
1:42.7	A bot on social media usually refers to an account
1:45.8	that is not genuine, doesn't represent a genuine entity or person. Typical ways to spot them
1:52.5	would be a digitally generated profile picture, a lack of credible description as to who this
2:00.6	represents. Oftentimes, it means that
2:03.1	the account follows very few, if any, people and isn't followed by anyone either. And the times
2:10.0	at which it's active coincide with burst in activity from other similar accounts. In the last year alone, they've been active around
2:19.1	the German parliamentary election, the Polish presidential election, and the U.S. presidential
2:26.1	election just over a year ago now. So let's unpack these stories a little. Can you give us some
	...

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