Study Finds Russian Sites Are Spreading Misinformed Anti-GMO Clickbait Articles

Turns out that Russia may be trying to influence more than our politics. They want a piece of our agriculture, too, and they’re trying to get it through a massive negative media campaign on GMOs.

A new study coming out from Iowa State University calls out RT and Sputnik for “misinformation attacks” that cast GMOs in an “overwhelmingly” negative perspective. According to Gizmodo, researchers found that the two Russian sites produced more GMO articles than Fox News, CNN, Huffington Post, Breitbart, and MSNBC combined. 34% of anti-GMO articles scraped came from RT, leading all of the aforementioned sites in related content.

Why would Russia want to inundate the internet with anti-GMO messages? The country has banned GMOs outright in its agricultural practices, and the Des Moines Register reports that their ag industry is now the second-largest in the country. Taking the fight to GMOs, which are prevalent in corn and soy in the United States, could help Russia steal some of their market share.

Of course, this all banks on RT and Sputnik using their propaganda to convince the entire world that GMOs are bad and that US crops, therefore, should not be purchased. Bill Gates just made a strong statement in favor of GMOs, so that should help spread awareness. Hopefully, though, we’ve become educated enough on GMOs to see through the thin veil Russia’s trying to pull over our eyes.