After years of overblown, fact-free charges of diabolical Russian plots to confuse American voters by manipulating their social media, hard evidence has appeared! However, it turns out that it’s the United Kingdom that has been outed, covertly manipulating Russian-language sites — and not just Englishmen vaguely connected with the leadership, but the actual, official Foreign Office, on their own letterhead.
The hacktivist collective called “Anonymous” has made public the internal files of the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). The story, as told by RT, is that the FCDO “sought contractors to covertly infiltrate media and civil society at multiple levels — all under the aegis of schemes to, among other things, improve literacy, promote cultural activities, ensure ‘balance and plurality’ in media reporting, and counteract propaganda.” RT names two private contractors, Zinc Network and Albany, paid by FCDO.
Zinc Network worked to boost the audience and develop the message of two leading Russian-language media outlets, Meduza and MediaZone. The latter one, founded by two members of “Pussy Riot'’ needed major assistance. Zinc is presently producing five TV serials run in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They claim that they are the “daily management” of Russian-speaking social media influencers, which duties include instructing them how to “make and receive international payments without being registered as external sources of funding” and to minimize their “risk of prosecution....”
