Stalin would have been proud of the Internet Research Agency. It existed in plain sight and yet was not what it appeared. It was not an intelligence agency, yet it learned some of their skills. It was nothing fancy: a building, filled with young talent willing to spend twelve hours a day peddling pure fiction, some of it aimed at the Russian market, some aimed at Europe. The best talent was assigned to the American desk, stuffed with some of the agency’s highest-paid, most imaginative writers. Fake news didn’t come cheap.
