Why Is 404 Media Included in a Fake Netflix Trailer Made by Russia?

Since October of last year I have been getting strange tips on Twitter and email, imploring me to investigate stories that are easily verifiable as fake, all of which share a pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian themes.

“Please verify this information,” said a subject line to an email on February 20 from Alicia Tyler, who wanted me to verify whether the German cheese company Hochland was actually providing free Cheese to the Russian army (it wasn’t). “Nazism in Ukraine Check,” said another subject line to an email from Laura Simpson, who sent me a fake video with a BBC watermark, curiously with Russian captions, purporting to show a Ukrainian general with a Nazi patch on his shoulder. 

I’ve received over 40 similar emails the last six months with fake videos pretending to be from Bloomberg, The New York Times, PC Mag, Dr. Phil, Euro News, Canal+, local ABC station Denver 7, and others. Some videos also pretended to come from official government organizations, like the CIA and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

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