Protests against the Los Angeles immigration attacks caused a flood of theories of falsehood and conspiracy online, and Russia tried to exploit and amplify them, experts say.
The Russian media and the pro-Russian voices have embraced right-wing conspiracy theories about protests. These include those claiming that the Mexican government is encouraging demonstrations against President Donald Trump's immigration policy. Mexico strongly rejected the repeated charges by Trump's Homeland Security Chief, completely false.
This episode shows how foreign enemies harness the true division among Americans. This is a proven strategy in the information warfare, analysts say. Online right-wing American voices push the idea that protests in Los Angeles aren't something they'll feature, but that the secret left-wing cobalt tied to Democratic politicians and billionaire philanthropist George Soros is coordinating their anxiety, experts said.
“We follow a playbook that has continued many times before. We see many of the very same conspiracy theories that are circulating around previous protests,” said Darren Linville, a professor at Clemson University who studies social media non-information. He said there was a response to how falsehood spread during the 2020 protests over black life issues.
“People believe in messages that they tend to believe, just like they tend to do on social media,” Linville said. “And influencers use it and often have content that is false or in some way intentionally misleading.”
Right-wing users posted unfounded claims that Los Angeles Democratic mayor Karen Bass was linking with the CIA and coordinating the protests to oust President Donald Trump. “Base is a political warrior. She uses her expertise to encourage these riots, like trying to defeat Trump and you.”
Moustafa Ayad of the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, an international nonprofit focused on “protection of democracy,” said there are similarities between how social media users responded to previous protests or the hurricanes that hit the Southeast last year.
“I compare it to the aftermath of Milton and Helen last year,” Ayado said. “We are having a crisis or conflict, and there are many stories that are spread online that the government is somehow involved in protests, paying protesters.
From the political left, the online story is said to be prepared for the federal government and military to use deadly force, but Ayado said a right-justified voice banished Trump and warned about the plot that caused chaos in American cities.
“It's like being in a seesaw, just spinning between these two things,” he said. “Sadly, as the protest continues every day, there is this huge reinforcement loop that builds more steam.”
Unfounded claim that Mexico promotes violence
Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem on Tuesday reiterated the unfounded claim online that the Mexican government is encouraging violent protests. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded immediately, rejecting the charge as “absolutely false,” but she said she was confident that “the misunderstanding will be resolved.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to the fact-checking website NewsGuard, the conservative, pro-Russian social media accounts cite an outdated video of the Mexican president as the basis for protests in Los Angeles. The video was filmed from a press conference on May 24, almost two weeks before the launch of the LA protests.
The Mexican president's remarks were out of context. Sinbaum was referring to the proposed taxes by the Trump administration regarding the income earned by Mexican immigrants sent to Mexican families. She criticized the proposal, saying at the time, “We will mobilize if necessary.”
Conservative commentator Benny Johnson posted a clip of Shanebaum on May 24 after the protest began in Los Angeles last week, writing that she is seeking protests in the United States. This post has received 6.7 million views. At a press conference on Monday, Shenbaum revealed that her government is opposed to violence related to the protest. “We disagree with violent actions as a form of protest.”
Russia's Opportunities
Brett Schaefer, a senior fellow at the Alliance to Ensure Democracy in German Marshall Fund think tanks, said Russia's online intelligence services are accepting protest protest portrayals as violent left-wing attacks.
“Russia is effectively rooting for Trump's response, suggesting that it is guaranteed,” Schaefer said. “They certainly speculate that these protests are being staged or funded by the radical left.”
Russian news outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda cited a Russian blogger in Los Angeles, saying the protesters were not immigrants but “extremists” who arrived on the bus. Russian nationalist commentator Alexander Duguin wrote to X that the protest was a rebellion and a “national liberal conspiracy against Trump, not just Trump, but the American people in general.”
Viktor Bout put a lot of attention to protest, calling himself a Russian arms dealer known as “Death Merchant” by US and British authorities, who were released on a prisoner exchange in 2022 after spending 11 years at a US bar. Pravda, a Russian media outlet, cited the match comparing the demonstrations to the 2014 Ukrainian protests and with the then pro-Moscow government.
Pravda also cited Sergei Markov, a former adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and said the US had taken the coastal states along the coastal states in the middle of a “civil war.”
Sputnik reposted a virus image of a brick palette and asked why it was near the protest site. However, the lead story fact checker geolocated the photographs at a construction site about 3,000 miles away in New Jersey.
Beijing blames Washington for hypocrisy
However, China had taken another tack. Instead of relying on Trump's story and repeating right-wing conspiracy theories, Beijing portrayed America as a country of chaos. Chinese media and Chinese voices argued that the response to the US government's protests in Los Angeles was “strong and therefore hypocritical” in light of Washington's criticism of other countries' treatment of objections.
An affiliate of China's Global Television Network reminded viewers that Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the house at the time, praised the protest in Hong Kong in 2019 as a “beautiful sight,” but asked if the US government had seen the protest in LA in the same way. Pro-focused commentator Li Jingjing has denounced what she called interference in the issues of other countries, even if the protesters denounced the protesters in the soil. “Our hypocrisy is the best,” she wrote in the post.
A wide range of online images of supposed brick palettes often appear in the midst of street protests, according to Social Media Lab, a research team at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“It's catnip for right-wing agitators and glyfters,” Lab said in a social media post.
“The fact that these types of fake images are used is no coincidence. Some of the protestive and enduring stories that protest against government policies are somehow ruthless,” he added. This approach “is intended to make these moves seem less legitimate or less valuable to public support.”