Lisa Kaplan and Sophie Lawton on Clickbait Craft Videos and Influence Campaigns
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2020
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Lawfare’s Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Alina Polyakova and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Lisa Kaplan and Sophie Lawton of Alethea Group, an organization that works to detect and mitigate disinformation on social media. Lisa recently published a piece on Lawfare about a massive network of companies run by TheSoul Publishing—founded in Russia by a company called AdMe. The companies publish bizarre craft videos on Youtube and Facebook, along with a handful of videos about history and politics with an overtly pro-Russian slant. So what is actually going on here? They talked about what red flags Lisa and Sophie look for in hunting down disinformation, their experiences tackling disinformation while working for Senator Angus King’s reelection campaign in 2018, and how political campaigns need to tackle online influence efforts in 2020.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:34.2 | On the campaign and what I think other campaigns need to be aware of is it's not targeting |
| 0:39.8 | candidates, it's targeting voters. |
| 0:43.2 | And I think that's an important mindset to have because it's trying to reach your voters |
| 0:48.4 | and make them think things that aren't true and it's targeting two decision points. |
| 0:52.8 | Whether or not to vote and then for whom to cast your ballot. |
| 0:57.0 | Sometimes it has nothing to do with elections. |
| 1:00.0 | It's these groups that will build tremendous momentum and engagement and then after that |
| 1:06.7 | they will slowly start to become political. |
| 1:12.1 | I'm Quintet Jurassic and this is the LawFair podcast March 5, 2020. |
| 1:19.2 | This week on LawFair's Arbiter's of Truth series on disinformation, Alina Poliokova and |
| 1:24.0 | I spoke with Lisa Kaplan and Sophie Lawden of Alithia Group, an organization that works |
| 1:29.3 | to detect and mitigate disinformation on social media. |
| 1:33.4 | We wanted to talk to the two of them about a piece Lisa recently published on LawFair |
| 1:37.9 | but a massive network of companies run by the soul publishing and found it in Russia |
| 1:43.4 | by a company called AdMe. |
| 1:45.9 | The company's published bizarre craft videos on YouTube and Facebook. |
| 1:50.2 | Along with a handful of videos about history and politics with an overtly pro-Russian slant. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

