How Voice of America lost control of its website to obscene Russian trolls for eight years

The most disturbing part in all of this is that former agency heads and Voice of America directors received and ignored multiple warnings of threats to national security within their organization. During that time, the VOA Russian service hired a journalist who previously had worked for state media in Belarus and produced anti-American propaganda. Even after former VOA and USAGM executives were made aware of this fact, they kept the person employed until his contract expired.

When Michael Pack, Trump-selected new head of USAGM, finally took over from Obama appointees several weeks ago and started asking questions, he was roundly denounced and accused of fearmongering. But waste, abuse, and mismanagement at the agency were both real and monumental, which may explain why attempts to discredit Pack and question his motives were so aggressive, and his exposures of security breaches at VOA rejected out of hand.

Unbeknownst to former USAGM Obama officials, a hacked VOA blog website, hosted of all places in Vladimir Putin’s Russia since 2008, has been showing since 2012 anti-US propaganda, violence, and pornography under the VOA name and the VOA logo. Voice of America editors and reporters also did not notice this unprecedented breach of security, which only shows how poorly managed and complacent these federal employees have become under the former management team.

For years their abandoned, unsecured, and hijacked VOA website featured a hacker-inserted video showing ritualistic torture, humiliation, and murder by suffocation of a young man who is meant to represent America with “USA” written on his forehead. He is shown as a typical American male. A McDonald’s hamburger is shoved into his mouth.

Such shocking anti-American propaganda, which can also still be seen on YouTube, is part of a music video by RockerJoker, a controversial Russian-singing group from Belarus. They gained negative publicity a few years ago when one of their songs, “Sanya will stay with us,” was used by Belarusian President-for-Life Alexander Lukashenko in his election campaign. Sanya is the dictator’s nickname.

What used to be the official Voice of America Russian Service Live Journal Blog (Русская служба “Голоса Америки”), with the first post by a genuine VOA journalist on Sept. 8, 2008, was suddenly abandoned in April 2012. The official VOA Russian blog, however, was not deleted or secured even though it was hosted in Russia. Since then, various Russian hackers inserted their posts on the blog under the VOA banner without apparently anyone at the Voice of America or the USAGM noticing anything wrong for eight years.

How could anyone trust officials who were formerly in charge of VOA of being able to counter the Kremlin’s anti-American propaganda or Chinese propaganda is the question that U.S. media and the U.S. Congress should have been asking for the last eight years. Also in 2012, the VOA Russian Service was duped into posting a fake interview with Russian dissident politician Alexei Navalny who was recently a target of a suspected poisoning in Russia. The hijacking of the VOA Russian blog and the fake Navalny interview might have been connected, but any such links are almost impossible to trace. Navalny said at the time that the Voice of America Russian Service was “nuts” in accepting the fake interview as being originated by him.

A few months later, the shocking murder video was included at the end of a Dec. 11, 2012, hacker post titled “Не верьте Макфолу. Он все врет.” (“Don’t trust McFaul. He’s lying.”) The hacker was lashing out on the VOA Russian blog at President Obama’s Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and at the visa procedures at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

The music video attached to the anti-U.S. Russian propaganda post on the VOA blog shows a man being subjected to unspeakable humiliations. He has a bit put in his mouth, and his lips smeared with red lipstick. That is not the worst of it. What is meant to look like human waste is poured over his face. The video and the song ends with the “American” being murdered by suffocating him with a plastic bag — all shown on what once was a genuine Voice of America Russian blog.

As of Aug. 24, 2020, the hijacked blog still showed that its “Administrator” is an employee of the VOA Eurasia Division. It also showed eight “Maintainers” who are current and former Voice of America Russian Service journalists, and eleven “Moderators.” Some of the authentic VOA posts which appeared until 2012 include their photos.

Two of the contributors to the Voice of America Russian blog when it was still under the control of VOA are well-known American commentators employed by Washington think tanks. Their reputation, as well as the reputation of VOA journalists, has been tarnished by this link, on a hijacked blog, to vile anti-U.S. propaganda and pornographic content.

I discovered the anti-U.S. Russian propaganda on the VOA Russian Service Live Journal Blog on Sunday. After I informed USAGM CEO Michael Pack on Monday of the hijacked blog’s existence, it was promptly deleted by agency employees under his supervision.

Pack responded quickly and did the right thing. But this action should have been taken by executives and managers who were previously in charge. The U.S. media and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Democratic New York Rep. Eliot Engel, should ask former VOA directors and the former agency CEOs how was it possible that for eight years a website in Russia sanctioned by the Voice of America, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the USAGM showed under their watch a simulated torture, humiliation, and murder of an American man?

Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director.