The story gained additional traction across the political podcasting ecosystem following a March 9 primetime segment of “ Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News that claimed Nuland’s testimony the day before showed Russian claims to be true. Several of the episodes promoting the conspiracy aired just after her remarks. The biological weapons conspiracy theory, which has been refuted by the United States government and through independent reporting, had been circulating in far-right circles for at least a week before Nuland’s Senate testimony. Notably, while many prominent political podcasters on the right embraced the bioweapons conspiracy, at least one did not: The Ben Shapiro Show devoted a segment of an episode to debunking the narrative. As of March 21, 2022, 12 of the 13 shows that gave credence to the conspiracy are in Apple’s Top 100 for the category “News.” Two of these shows are currently in the Top 10. Three episodes aired the narrative without endorsing or refuting it. Of those, 27 episodes supported the bioweapons narrative. government funds biological weapons facilities in Ukraine. Overall, 30 podcast episodes in our data set repeated the false claim that the U.S. (A more detailed overview of the sampling process for these series and our definition of “political podcast” is described here.) By doing so, we can gain a sense of how the most listened-to podcasts are engaging with the conspiracy theory. We also reviewed transcripts for any episodes cross-posted on YouTube. funding of bioweapons, we downloaded episodes that aired between March 8 and 18, transcribed those that referenced bioweapons or biolabs in their episode description, and searched for keywords related to the conspiracy theory. To examine whether these podcasts spread Russian disinformation regarding U.S. Our study drew on a database of political podcast series that were either listed in Apple Podcasts Top 100 Series or were recommended by Apple to users who liked those series. Biological weapons conspiracy theories on popular American podcasts The nature of podcasting makes oversight challenging, but the rapid growth of the medium suggests that this is a set of challenges that requires urgent attention from policymakers considering how to guard against disinformation. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said that the United States had provided funding to Ukrainian labs carrying out research to prevent the diffusion of harmful pathogens (not bioweapons)-13 popular political podcasters devoted segments in 30 episodes to the false theory that the United States had funded biological weapons research in Ukrainian labs.Īs the notion that the United States funded biological weapons development in Ukraine spread from fringe QAnon groups to Fox News, podcasts appear to have played a key role in facilitating its proliferation while at the same time mostly escaping scrutiny. Over a 10-day period beginning March 8-when U.S. Popular podcasters in the United States have repeated and promoted it for their own purposes.Īmid a reckoning over the role of podcasts in disseminating coronavirus-related misinformation, the promotion of this conspiracy theory by prominent American podcasters is the latest example of how podcasting has become a powerful and largely overlooked vector in the spread of mis- and disinformation. This claim, which has no basis in fact, has not been confined to Kremlin propaganda. In recent weeks, Russian officials and state media have seized on a fresh piece of disinformation to justify the invasion of Ukraine: that the United States is funding the development of dangerous biological weapons in Ukraine.
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