Hot Type: Russian Interference by Numbers

In an exclusive report for Byline Supplement, Heidi Siegmund Cuda urges the world to wake up to the influence operations threatening to turn the US election on its head

A fine tactic in oligarch-owned media is to downplay the efficacy of Russia’s attacks on the West. Always lurking beneath the fold is the Great Minimizing Moment, a sentence or clause that says the reach born of the lie factories was limited. 

In other words, ‘move along, nothing to see here’.

But when elections in the US come down to just a few thousand votes in a handful of states, then any infiltration by foreign enemy states into our infosphere matters. A lot.

Let’s just take a look at one simple example: last week, on the national debate stage stood two candidates. They played so nice, but only one platforms Nazis. Literal Nazis.