McKenzie Sadeghi

Investigation | Talking Points: When chatbots surface Russian state media As chatbots rival search engines as the go-to source for information, their vulnerability to state propaganda poses new risks for information integrity and urgent questions for regulators.

Add the ISD to the growing list of orgs (four now) warning us about AI chatbots repeating Russian disinfo... or Russia intentionally poisoning these things... The other three are the American Sunlight Project, NewsGuard, and Open Measures.

www.isdglobal.org/digital_disp...

-AI chatbot disinformation doubles in a year
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-Hackers breach Gucci parent company
-BreachForums admin resentenced to 3 years

Podcast: risky.biz/RBNEWS479/
Newsletter: news.risky.biz/risky-bullet...

Russia’s Defense Ministry Launches an AI-Generated, Anti-West News Show, Blurring the Line Between Satire and Propaganda Commentary by McKenzie Sadeghi, NewsGuard’s AI and Foreign Influence Editor

PolitUkladchik, a Russian AI-generated satirical news program “demonstrates how the Kremlin is beginning to use AI as a tool for spectacle and as a shield for plausible deniability,” writes @mckenziefsadeghi.bsky.social in a Reality Check Commentary.

www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/russias-de...

Le taux de fausses informations répétées par les chatbots d’IA a presque doublé en un an

Fin du thread. 10/10. Voici le lien vers l’audit de @newsguard.bsky.social
Bravo à @mckenziefsadeghi.bsky.social et à Chine Labbé www.newsguardtech.com/fr/special-r...

Russian Disinformation Campaign Targets Moldova’s Pro-EU President Ahead of Parliamentary Elections By Eva Maitland

As to why they're obsessing over us at @newsguard.bsky.social -- it seems this report from our team (link below) struck a nerve.

www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/russian-di...

Russia is quietly churning out fake content posing as US news A pro-Russian propaganda group is taking advantage of high-profile news events to spread disinformation — and they’re spoofing reputable news outlets to do it.

"According to misinformation tracker NewsGuard, the campaign...takes advantage of high-profile events to pump out fabricated content from various publications, including ABC News, BBC and most recently POLITICO."

www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

“Language that once clarified is now obscuring”: NewsGuard retires the labels “misinformation” and “disinformation” The end of an era? Since its launch in 2018, NewsGuard has been in the business of labels. The company has rated the reliability of online news and information, giving publishers "nutrition labels" t...

Whatever you think of NewsGuard’s approach or the usefulness of its labels, the decision speaks to how the internet, political landscape, and notions of collective truth have polarized beyond recognition since 2018. www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/lang...

Commentary: Why We’re Moving Beyond “Misinformation” and “Disinformation” Welcome to Reality Check, a newsletter that helps you keep track of the false claims and online conspiracy theories that shape our world — and who’s behind them.

Quite a big moment, Newsguard moving away from the terms misinformation and disinformation.

It's been something I've been thinking about for a while. The terms have become almost as weaponised as the likes of "fake news" and can be off-putting.

www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/commentary...

AI and Data Voids: How Propaganda Exploits Gaps in Online Information Chatbots are absorbing and amplifying falsehoods seeded by Russia, China, and Iran, with few safeguards in place.

In the run up to the 2024 election, media outlets, think tanks, and policymakers warned of AI-generated misinformation. Using data compiled by NewsGuard, @mckenziefsadeghi.bsky.social writes that the real threat is AI amplifying existing disinformation in polished and authoritative language.

Pro-Russian influence operation targeting Australia in lead-up to election A pro-Russian influence operation has been targeting Australia in the lead-up to this weekend's federal election, the ABC can reveal, attempting to "poison" AI chatbots with propaganda.

"The Pravda Network appears to be designed and created solely to affect … AI chatbots," said McKenzie Sadeghi, AI and foreign influence editor at disinformation monitor NewsGuard." www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05...

LLM Grooming The Active Measures Newsletter Podcast · Episode

Great conversation with @drmarkjacobson.bsky.social and @jimludes.bsky.social about the Pravda network's effort to infiltrate AI: open.spotify.com/episode/5CTb...

Big far-right podcasts are pushing the false narrative that Ukraine is selling US weapons to cartels.

@mckenziefsadeghi.bsky.social tracks how the propaganda spread from a QAnon influencer to a Russian network of fake news sites, then to Tucker Carlson.
www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/how-the-kr...

NewsGuard Transparent tools to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Learn more about NewsGuard's ratings, access our latest reporting, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Fin du thread. 17/17. Félicitations à Natalie Huet, Chine Labbé et Sadeghi Mckenzie pour ce travail d’enquête et d’analyse aussi remarquable qu’indispensable. Lien vers le rapport : newsguardtech.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?...

Commentary: Russia Used to Deny Interfering. Now it’s Celebrating its Successes. With fewer guardrails and more reach, Moscow openly cheers its disinformation wins.

One insightful comment from @mckenziefsadeghi.bsky.social : Russia Used to Deny Interfering. Now it’s Celebrating its Successes

Commentary: The Truth About Russia’s New ‘Global Fact-Checking Network’ Russia’s initiative is not fact-checking, writes NewsGuard AI and Foreign Influence Editor McKenzie Sadeghi. It’s an effort to defend Russian disinformation.

The Truth About Russia’s New ‘GFCN’ : @mckenziefsadeghi.bsky.social: "As fact-checkers in the U.S. are laid off [...] Russia is seizing the moment — not to debunk falsehoods, but to discredit the very concept of #factchecking. www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/commentary...

Russian propoganda is reportely influencing AI chatbot results Russian propaganda may be influencing certain answers from AI chatbots including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s Meta AI, according to a new report. NewsGuard, a company that develops rating systems for news and information websites, claims to have found…

Russian propoganda is reportely influencing AI chatbot results

Commentary: How Kremlin Propaganda Foreshadowed Trump’s Call for Ukrainian Elections A pattern of projection: Russia’s disinformation claims reveal more about Russia than about its Western targets

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned from tracking Russian disinformation at NewsGuard, it’s that when Moscow makes false claims about the West … it often serves as a foreshadowing of the Kremlin’s own actions,” writes @mckenziefsadeghi.bsky.social

www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/commentary...

AI-generated slop is quietly conquering the internet. Is it a threat to journalism or a problem that will fix itself? Three experts discuss the rise of low-quality content and its implications for the profession, the news industry and the public sphere.

NEW on our website

AI slop can be found on social media and some 'news' websites.
Is it a threat to the information ecosystem?

@marinaadami.bsky.social spoke to @swachter.bsky.social, @mckenziefsadeghi.bsky.social and David Caswell to find out:
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/ai-gene...