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The 2016 US election was beset by so-called “fake news” – but what’s happening this time around? Four years ago, fictitious and scandalous news articles emanating from Russian backed troll farms went viral. Some even claim it may have changed the course of the election. Now a new disinformation battle is raging, but this time the game has changed. Instead of creating content overseas, a number of campaigns have been discovered enlisting American citizens in creating content designed to destabilise the political landscape. That’s what happened to Colin Wood, a freelance writer from Binghamton, New York. He was delighted to start writing for a new left-wing website called PeaceData. But as he soon learned, the site was being coordinated by people connected with Russia’s Internet Research Agency, the notorious troll farm responsible for much of the disinformation created in 2016. The site’s editors turned out to be completely fictional, their social media profile photos generated by artificial intelligence.