The Active Measures Newsletter Podcast

Artificial intelligence is giving foreign influence operations new ways to create, target, and promote deceptive content. Jessica Brandt, a senior fellow for technology and national security at the Council on Foreign Relations and former director of the Foreign Malign Influence Center, discusses how AI can support content generation, translation, fake personas, artificial engagement, audience research, and forged documents. She describes a Russia-linked operation that used ChatGPT to build a think-tank-style website, falsely listed real experts as affiliates, and promoted content praising Russia and denigrating the West. Brandt argues that such tools can make influence operations cheaper and help establish infrastructure for ongoing efforts, while making it harder to distinguish authentic domestic voices from foreign influence. Hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson also discuss the Trump administration’s reorganization of the Pentagon office responsible for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict as well as a report describing efforts by Russia and Iran to exploit and amplify recent French protests.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Large language models can be corrupted by disinformation seeded online, causing them to repeat false claims as fact. But NewsGuard COO Matt Skibinski offers a solution: NewsGuard AI, a news-focused chatbot designed from the ground-up to draw language from sources rated for reliability cross-referenced against a continuously updated database of false claims.  It’s a powerful tool that puts AI to good use, particularly in the context of a mid-term election awash with disinformation from both domestic and international sources. Hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson also discuss the spate of bomb-threats targeting European airlines and initial assessments of foreign malign influence in the mid-term elections.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Russia's influence campaigns aimed at the 2026 U.S. midterms seek, ultimately, to undermine confidence in the vote, not to change votes themselves. In this episode, Darren Linvill, professor of communication and co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University walks through two Russian campaigns: Matryoshka—which makes AI-altered fake news videos for a limited audience—and Storm 1516, a more effective campaign that pays real influencers to spread invented stories of corruption and scandal, mostly about Democratic candidates. Hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson also discuss new evidence about Russia’s role in Brexit and the current reporting about Moscow’s efforts in the 2026 U.S. midterms.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Washington keeps misreading the politics of foreign aid, and that misunderstanding is reshaping U.S. power. Rachel A. George of Stanford University breaks down why Americans are far less hostile to aid than politicians claim, what the Trump-era USAID shutdown actually changed, and why the real fight is over accountability, transparency, and strategy - not whether aid should exist at all.George explains how the collapse of USAID sent shockwaves through the global aid system, why the damage extended well beyond Washington, and how European donors responded by pulling back too. Co-hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson also discuss Russian efforts to intervene in the mid-terms as well as Russian efforts to weaponize history itself.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The gap between imagined and actual threats to elections is vast.  Where the public is focused on hacking electronic voting machines, the actual threat, says Votebeat Editorial Director Jessica Huseman, is unlikely to change actual votes. Still, there are real threats, from the 100 suspicious letters sent to election offices this week to the everyday cybersecurity challenges facing local officials. To complicate things further, the second Trump administration has unwound the tremendous work done in the first Trump administration to create a federal capacity to protect elections. What remains are patriotic, local election workers committed to serving their communities and ensuring democracy works. Hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson also discuss the viral claims about Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centers and the British Prime Minister’s recent remarks about Brexit.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Election interference doesn’t have to change votes to be effective.  The long history of Russian efforts to target specific communities in the United States mirrors domestic efforts to suppress votes.  These measures don’t require AI, social media, or bot-farms—they simply require a decent understanding of one candidate’s voters.  With that, anyone can generate an effective campaign to confuse voters or suppress turn-out with the ultimate goal of undermining confidence in democratic processes and institutions.  Russia has a long history of this tactic, and Mark Jacobson reviews the last decade of Russian campaigns targeting voters in successive American elections.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hostile information activity is no longer just about false claims, but about intimidation, disruption, and shaping the conditions in which politics and policy unfold. In this week’s episode, Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson provide a wide-ranging update on current foreign malign influence efforts, from suspected break-ins at Finnish lawmakers’ homes to Russia’s growing use of cloned media outlets and AI-assisted deception. They also examine how Australia, Britain, and the United States are wrestling with the harder question of how democracies should respond without sliding into censorship.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Foreign election interference aims to weaken trust in democracy more than to change vote counts.  New York Times reporter Dustin Volz takes us inside his recent reporting on U.S. intelligence tracking current foreign efforts to influence America’s election.  The Russians are still sewing chaos; the Chinese are attacking down-ballot races, and the Iranians—locked in an intense fight with the United States—emerge as the wild card as we head into the mid-term elections.  Hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson also look at the remarkable speech by UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham announcing the formation of a new, information defense agency.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AI deepfakes don’t have to be flawless. They have to look believable enough to make you react. We spoke with CNET reporter Katelyn Chedraoui about where deepfakes are now—and what gives them so much potential as vehicles for disinformation. Her point was simple and unsettling: AI image and video tools have gotten very good, very fast—not “seven fingers” good, photorealistic good. That’s especially unsettling because a bad actor doesn’t need to create the perfect fake. They just need something that makes you angry, scared, or confused long enough to cloud your judgment. That can be a video; a robocall; a text about a polling place changing. Sometimes the most effective deception is also the most mundane. And then there’s the bigger problem: AI isn’t only making fake things harder to spot. It’s also making real things easier to doubt. Co-hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson also discuss the recent U.S. indictment of Russian intelligence agents accused of recruiting for active measures—including ‘wet work’ in the United States, and the threat AI may pose to authoritarian regimes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AI chatbots may be quietly reinforcing conspiracy thinking, extremist narratives, and harmful beliefs through private, personalized conversations designed to keep users engaged. Simeon Dukic and Natalie Vela of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue discuss research testing 10 chatbots across anti-Semitism, misogyny, and anti-migrant narratives, revealing how some systems become increasingly agreeable as conversations continue—sometimes shifting from resistance to validation in just a few turns. They explore the risks of sycophancy, hyper-personalization, and companion-style AI; why conspiracy reinforcement may be more common than direct incitement to violence; which models performed best at interrupting escalation; and why current safety frameworks and regulations fail to account for harms that are iterative, cumulative, and conversational. Hosts Jim Ludes and Mark Jacobson also reflect on the 25th anniversary of 9/11.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.