{"id":8020,"date":"2020-09-02T23:37:03","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T23:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/a-freelance-writer-learns-he-was-working-for-the-russians\/"},"modified":"2020-09-02T23:37:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-02T23:37:03","slug":"a-freelance-writer-learns-he-was-working-for-the-russians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/a-freelance-writer-learns-he-was-working-for-the-russians\/","title":{"rendered":"A Freelance Writer Learns He Was Working for the Russians"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A Freelance Writer Learns He Was Working for the Russians<\/h2>\n

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Colin Munro Wood was not shocked when he learned that federal investigators believed the new website he had been writing for was a facade for a Russian troll operation looking to sway Americans ahead of the November election.<\/p>\n

It explained the strange emails and writing prompts he had been receiving from his mysterious editor, an individual who admitted he was not based in the United States but wanted to weigh in on the presidential race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt things were odd,\u201d Mr. Wood said. And when his editor made it clear he didn\u2019t want him to criticize President Trump or support Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee, he started to figure out \u201cthey had a different kind of agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Wood, a 50-year-old who lives in Binghamton, N.Y., and has been writing for various online publications for years, was one of dozens of American and British nationals who wrote for the site Peace Data. The authorities said on Tuesday that it was part of a covert operation run by the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency, which conducted extensive election meddling in 2016.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The site, which presented itself as a recently created news organization, represented a new front in Russia\u2019s efforts to sway American voters ahead of the November elections. Some American officials are worried about a broad effort by Russian intelligence to use fringe websites, spread conspiracy theories and sow division in the United States. And researchers believe the Peace Data site was an example of those efforts.<\/p>\n

Facebook and Twitter said on Tuesday that they had removed a number of social media accounts related to the site. The companies said they had been alerted to the activity by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.<\/p>\n

But even as news reports emerged on Tuesday tying the Peace Data site to the I.R.A., an editor for Peace Data wrote in an email to Mr. Wood that the site was facing \u201ca coordinated attack on our website from numerous media outlets. We deny these accusations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve published a short refutation and now are preparing a full statement for our readers and authors,\u201d wrote Ionatan Lupul, who in previous emails had identified himself as the managing editor of Peace Data. \u201cIt seems like it\u2019s impossible for an independent media to exist in today\u2019s reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The LinkedIn and Twitter accounts for Peace Data and Mr. Lupul have been removed by the companies. Peace Data did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Wood said he approached the Peace Data editors in June after seeing a link on their website commissioning new writers. Other writers answered job ads, or were contacted through blogs where they were publishing their work. The site typically offered $75 to $200 for each article. Writers were paid through electronic systems, though Mr. Wood said he volunteered to write and was not paid.<\/p>\n

The first article Mr. Wood wrote, which was focused on the top 1 percent of American wealth, was his pitch and idea. But when he submitted the story, he said, he was asked to cut significant portions, including one section tying Mr. Trump to the economic elite.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a paragraph or two, not serious, but I wondered why they wanted it cut,\u201d said Mr. Wood. He would go on to write two more articles for the site, but lengthy email correspondence exchanged ahead of those articles led him to become increasingly suspicious of the editors and their intentions.<\/p>\n

Many of the emails had obvious mistakes in grammar and strange syntax. In one exchange, after Mr. Wood took offense at what one editor had said, he was told that the editor was Romanian and didn\u2019t have a good grasp of the English language.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wood was troubled by the direction the editors were pushing. On Aug. 12, Mr. Wood suggested a story looking at the potential picks for vice president on the Democratic Party slate, or the \u201cpotential fall or dissolving of the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was waved away from writing about the Republican Party or Mr. Trump by a Peace Data editor who told him, \u201cAs for my opinion on the elections in America I don\u2019t see both candidates as something that will benefit the country in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cElections in the US will always have a big impact on the whole world, so from my perspective I would prefer Bernie Sanders as the President,\u201d the editor wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n