Kremlin Hijacks Hollywood Stars
PLUS: A misinformation site goes bankrupt; weaponizing a Jan. 6 “grandma”
Welcome to NewsGuard's Reality Check, a report on how misinformation online is undermining trust — and who’s behind it.
Today:
Lights, camera, deception: Pro-Kremlin bots falsely cast Hollywood stars as anti-Ukraine
Back in the meme-light: Jan. 6 “grandma” re-emerges as pro-Trump symbol amid pro-Palestinian campus protests
Money troubles for a misinformation superspreader
And more…
Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster and Eric Effron.
1. Pro-Kremlin Bots Fake-Dub Hollywood Stars as Anti-Ukraine
By Eva Maitland
Hollywood has not turned against Ukraine, despite what a Russian disinformation campaign wants us to think.
What happened: Pro-Kremlin bot accounts flooded social media platforms with fake videos of Hollywood celebrities trashing Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. All the videos show real interviews, but are dubbed into French or German with words the actors never said.
One video posted on X shows comedian Adam Sandler speaking with Brad Pitt in French, saying “Buying [Nazi propaganda minister Joseph] Goebbels’ real estate, and then that of Charles III, shows that Zelensky is a person without principles … It’s clear from his life, especially since he became president, that he cooperates with Nazis.”
The video was shared on April 16, 2024, by @Jessicaann14387, an account with no previous activity and only 10 followers. Yet it was reposted more than 600 times.
The disinformation effort was identified by @antibot4navalny, an anonymous group of volunteers that tracks pro-Russian, inauthentic accounts on X, who shared their findings with NewsGuard analysts, who confirmed the dubbing was fake.
Watch the video below:
In another video posted on X on the same day, Emma Stone describes Ukrainians to Bradley Cooper, in a voice dubbed into French, as “little pigs from the back end of Europe,” repeating a common Russian anti-Ukrainian slur:
Another video shows Vin Diesel stating in German that he is “fed up with Ukraine.”
Actually: There’s no evidence that any of the celebrities depicted in the campaign have criticized Ukraine.
The original video of Sandler is from a November 2019 Variety magazine interview with Pitt, available on YouTube, NewsGuard determined.
The false claims that Zelensky bought a villa in Germany once belonging to Goebbels and an English property belonging to King Charles emerged in December 2023 and April 2024 respectively, years after the Sandler interview took place.
Who’s behind it?: The mastermind behind the campaign is Doppelgänger, a Russian disinformation operation targeting Europe. Named for its tactic of crafting counterfeit versions of reputable media outlets, the campaign specializes in disseminating anti-Ukrainian messaging.
Learn more about "The Death of Truth."
2. Jan. 6 ‘Grandma’ Resurfaces As Pro-Trump Weapon Amid Campus Protests
By Sam Howard
What happened: Amid recent pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the country, conservative commentators are recirculating a debunked pro-Trump meme featuring an elderly woman nicknamed “Capitol Meemaw.” Their aim? To argue that the Jan. 6 rioters faced harsher treatment than the college campus protesters.
In case you’re not steeped in Jan. 6 meme culture, Capitol Meemaw, also known as Aunt Tifa, became a viral sensation after a photograph of her holding an American flag circulated in the aftermath of the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The photo was used by Trump supporters to suggest that the Capitol riot was a peaceful protest, not an insurrection.
However, it turned out that the elderly woman was not even at the Jan. 6 protest and in fact had been participating in a peaceful pro-Trump protest in Kansas that day.
Fast forward to 2024: A widely circulated meme post last week said: “You'll never guess which one is on the FBI domestic terror watchlist.” (It is actually the “terrorist wanted” list.) Pictured were two “choices”: An unidentified pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University and Capitol Meemaw.
The post gained traction after it was shared by the influential conservative X account @EndWokeness, garnering over 6,200 reposts. It was also shared on Instagram by Newsmax (NewsGuard Trust Score: 20/100) host Carl Higbie, and Allegiance to Liberty, an anonymous conservative account that boasts 413,000 followers.
The scam: The meme aimed to contrast law enforcement treatment of people involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and those participating in pro-Palestinian protests, suggesting a double standard in authorities’ responses to the two types of protests.
Actually: There are only 10 people on the FBI’s wanted list for domestic terrorism, and none is Capitol Meemaw — whose real name is Jane Apter, according to Agence France-Presse (Trust Score: 100/100).
Apter is a native of central Kansas who told BuzzFeed News in January 2021 that she was “just there to pray,” referring to a pro-Trump rally in Topeka.
Also, it's highly unlikely that the unidentified Columbia protester is on the FBI's list. Every suspect on the list is wanted in connection with criminal acts that occurred years or even decades before the recent wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
You can check out the FBI’s terrorist watch list by clicking here. No grandmas.
Do you work in Trust and Safety for a technology company, in brand safety for advertising or otherwise counter misinformation as part of your job? Find out about NewsGuard’s weekly Risk Briefings, a more detailed briefing for professionals. Click here.
3. One More Thing: Bankrupted by Baloney: Gateway Pundit Goes Belly Up
By Sam Howard
It might be the end times for a prolific misinformation superspreader.
What happened: Conservative news site The Gateway Pundit (Trust Score: 30/100) announced last week that parent company TGP Communications filed for bankruptcy. The site’s announcement said this was “a result of the progressive liberal lawfare attacks against our media outlet.”
The Gateway Pundit did not elaborate, but the comment appears to refer to a defamation suit the outlet faces from Georgia 2020 election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
A December 2020 Gateway Pundit article baselessly said the two women were caught on video “counting illegal ballots from a suitcase stashed under a table.”
Actually: Those weren’t illegal ballots, and NewsGuard debunked the claim in December 2020. One of Georgia’s top elections officials — a Republican — said the video in fact showed “normal ballot processing” of legitimate votes. These defamed women are the same plaintiffs who recently won a $148 million suit against Rudy Giuliani, who accused them of the same thing.
Here are some other Gateway Pundit whoppers:
COVID-19 vaccines have killed more people than the disease itself.
Democrats laundered billions of dollars in Ukrainian aid through crypto firm FTX.
Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial election was rigged.
Brazil’s 2022 presidential election was stolen.
The anti-parasitic drug ivermectin thwarted a surge of COVID-19 in India.
Nikki Haley is ineligible for the presidency because she’s the daughter of immigrants.
An Internet outage kept South Carolinians from voting in this year’s GOP primary.
Click here to find out more about NewsGuard Trust Scores and our process for rating websites. You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.
Produced by co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.
We launched Reality Check after seeing how much interest there is in our work beyond the business and tech communities that we serve. Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Have feedback? Send us an email: realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.