--- title: "Top Chatbots are Parroting Russian Propaganda, Report Finds" description: "Reading Up Been reading any good Russian propaganda lately? According to a new report from the misinformation watchdog NewsGuard, top chatbots certainly have. A NewsGuard audit of ten top chatbots — a list including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, xAI's Grok, Anthropic's Claude, and the Perplexity search chatbot — found that the popular AI tools are […]" date: "2024-06-19" modified: "2024-06-19" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatbots-parroting-russian-propaganda" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "misinformation" - "Russia" - "the digest" --- # Top Chatbots are Parroting Russian Propaganda, Report Finds ![Been reading any good Russian propaganda lately? According to the misinformation watchdog NewsGuard, top AI chatbots certainly have.]() *\Image: Sefa Karacan / Anadolu via Getty / Futurism\* ## Reading Up Been reading any good Russian propaganda lately? According [to a new report]() from the misinformation watchdog NewsGuard, top chatbots certainly have. A NewsGuard audit of ten top chatbots — a list including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, xAI's Grok, Anthropic's Claude, and the Perplexity search chatbot — found that the popular AI tools are often parroting false narratives with direct links to a Russian state-tied disinformation network of fake news sites made to look like credible American outlets. NewsGuard tested the ten chatbots on their knowledge of 19 specific fake narratives pushed by a network of websites recently linked to one John Mark Dougan, a former Floridian sheriff's deputy currently living under asylum in Moscow (yes, seriously.) As [a recent *New York Times* report revealed](), Dougan operates an [extensive, largely AI-powered]() constellation of [fake news sites]() with mundane-sounding titles — among them titles like *New York News Daily*, *The Houston Post*, and *The Chicago* *Chronicle*, to name a few *—* where he publishes droves of content that promote false narratives. And now, it seems that Dougan's fake news has worked its way into popular AI tools. NewsGuard's audit caught all ten chatbots it tested "convincingly" repeating "fabricated narratives" pushed by Dougan and his state-affiliated fake news network, and importantly, these weren't one-offs: the AIs parroted talking points in a staggering one-third of total responses examined, in many cases even referencing Dougan's websites as sources. "Russian disinformation narratives have infiltrated generative AI," declares the report, published Tuesday. ## Metabolizing Misinformation Among the demonstrably false claims parroted by the chatbots, according to NewsGuard, include conspiracies regarding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's alleged corruption, as well as the fabricated murder of an Egyptian journalist allegedly plotted by Russian dissident Alexei Navalny's widow. NewsGuard tested 570 inputs in total, prompting each chatbot 57 times. Throughout testing, chatbots responded with disinformation in cases when NewsGuard researchers and reporters asked *about* a given conspiracy — or, in other words, as if someone was using a chatbot as a search engine or research tool — as well as in cases when a bot was specifically asked to write an article about a false, Russia-pushed narrative. The watchdog group didn't note which chatbots were better at worse at parsing misinformation. Even so, these errors in AI information-gathering aren't exactly your standard AI hallucinations, and NewsGuard's findings represent AI's concerning new role in the misinformation cycle — and anyone using AI chatbots as a means of interacting with news and information might want to think twice. Or, maybe, just reach for actual news websites for now. "What's really alarming is that hoaxes and propaganda these chatbots repeated so frequently were hardly obscure, nor is the person behind them," NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill [told *Axios*](). "For now," Brill added, "don't trust answers provided by most of these chatbots to issues related to news, especially controversial issues." **More on AI misinformation:** [*Even Google’s Own Researchers Admit AI Is Top Source of Misinformation Online*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()