WaPo's Russian propaganda story has dubious sources, little evidence, and too general claims that describe how any news is usually shared on social media
On Thanksgiving, the Washington Post dropped … Carrie Mihalcik / CNET : Russian propaganda may have fueled fake election news fiasco AOL : Report claims Russian propaganda campaign bolstered ‘fake’ U.S. election news Adam Taylor / Washington Post : Before ‘fake news,’ there was Soviet ‘disinformation’ Alex Pfeiffer / The Daily Caller : Group Cited By Washington Post Defines Sanders And Trump As Russian Propagandists Rhett Jones / Gizmodo : Report: Research Suggests That Russia Played a Major Role in Spreading Fake News Chris Mills / BGR : Russian propaganda duped millions of Americans with fake election news, report claims Associated Press : A new report suggests a “sophisticated” Russian propaganda … Tweets: The Intercept / @theintercept : Any conspiracy theory or McCarthyite attack is permitted in U.S. discourse as long as it involves Russia and Putin. https://interc.pt/2gMgNHy Lee Fang / @lhfang : Not just Macedonian teens http://twitter.com/... David Reaboi / @davereaboi : As someone who very concerned re FSB info ops, WaPo's carelessness hurts the cause. It's simply designed for DNC use http://fortune.com/... Mike Signorile / @msignorile : Lots of critiques of WaPo story on Russia & fake news. Read them. http://new.fortune.com/... http://medium.com/... Michael Tracey / @mtracey : Before worrying about Russian “fake news,” let's get rid of fake pundits — that should be the first step http://fortune.com/... Adam H. Johnson / @adamjohnsonnyc : WaPo uncritically publishes blacklist from @propornot that pop ups out of nowhere, doesnt bother to ask whos behind it. Simply “researchers"pic.twitter.com/ cafEN2MvbX Eliot Higgins / @eliothiggins : .@ggreenwald No-one I've spoken to listed as “allies” on their site had even heard of them before the WP piece. Eliot Higgins / @eliothiggins : Just want to note I hadn't heard of Propornot before the WP piece and never gave permission to them to call Bellingcat “allies” https://twitter.com/... Mathew Ingram / @mathewi : It may very well be a real problem, but neither of those reports makes a convincing casehttps://twitter.com/levitd/status/ 802241335621287938 ... Trevor Timm / @trevortimm : @mathewi Yes. ProporNot's “methodology” page is absolutely ridiculous: http://www.propornot.com/... https://twitter.com/... Martin Bryant / @martinsfp : I was wary of this story too. http://twitter.com/... Mathew Ingram / @mathewi : Also worth noting that this narrative plays right into the hands of old Cold War types like the FPRIhttp://for.tn/2goQL93?xid=for_tw_ sh ... Doug Henwood / @doughenwood : That Washington Post article about fake news coming from those dastardly Russians looks to be Grade A bulls**t http://fortune.com/... Mathew Ingram / @mathewi : Note: This describes every website on the Internet, including mainstream media outlets: http://fortune.com/... http://twitter.com/... Mathew Ingram / @mathewi : In sum, I don't think it's helpful to make everyone who shared a fake news story part of a vast Russian conspiracy http://fortune.com/... Trevor Timm / @trevortimm : Apparently Drudge Report is Russian propaganda! Maybe that's how ProporNot got to this absurd #, which we have no clue how they calculated http://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The Washington Post's report on a Russian troll-and-botnet campaign behind fake election news rested heavily on an anonymous group, PropOrNot, whose blacklist reportedly swept in outlets as disparate as the Drudge Report-style right and left-wing sites alike. Within days, Fortune and others flagged the story's circular sourcing and claims so broad they describe ordinary social sharing.
The pushback is sharpened by Bellingcat's Eliot Higgins denying any consent to or alliance with PropOrNot's characterization after his outfit appeared on its list — a named researcher rejecting the very dossier a major daily leaned on.
First-order effects
- The Washington Post's credibility takes the immediate hit: a flagship national-security scoop now hinges on an unverified blacklist, forcing editors to defend sourcing that critics say would flag any outlet's normal social distribution as propaganda.
- PropOrNot loses the anonymity advantage — with Sanders- and Trump-aligned sites both listed and Bellingcat publicly disputing its inclusion, the group's methodology is now the story rather than Russia's operation.
Second-order effects
- Outlets that amplified the original report face pressure to append caveats or walk it back, while rival coverage of the same beat shifts from 'what the report found' to 'who vetted it' — raising the evidentiary bar for every future disinformation exclusive.
- Platforms like Facebook gain breathing room and burden at once: weak third-party dossiers make moderation demands harder to justify, even as the later release of sampled Russian Facebook ads shows real evidence was available through official channels instead.
Third-order effects
- If anonymous research groups keep supplying blacklists to mainstream outlets, expect a structural split in disinformation coverage between platform-sourced data (ads, ad buys) and advocacy-sourced lists — with newsrooms increasingly requiring the former before naming names.
- Overreach by self-appointed arbiters risks delegitimizing genuine attribution work, pushing the long-term fight over influence operations toward regulators and platform disclosures rather than independent watchdogs.
The trend: Disinformation reporting is moving from anonymous watchdog blacklists toward verifiable platform and government data, as the cost of bad attribution lands on the outlets that publish it.