Secret US government surveillance sounds new alarm

Senator, who has repeatedly warned about secret US government surveillance, sounds new alarm over ‘CIA activities’
Zack Whittaker
Feb 6, 2026

A senior Democratic lawmaker with knowledge of some of the U.S. government’s most secretive operations has said he has “deep concerns” about certain activities by the Central Intelligence Agency. 

The two-line letter written by Sen. Ron Wyden, the longest serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, does not disclose the nature of the CIA’s activities or the senator’s specific concerns. But the letter follows a pattern in recent years in which Wyden has publicly hinted at wrongdoing or illegality within the federal government, sometimes referred to as the “Wyden siren.” 

In a statement (via the Wall Street Journal’s Dustin Volz), the CIA said it was “ironic but unsurprising that Senator Wyden is unhappy,” calling it a “badge of honor.”

When reached by TechCrunch, a spokesperson for Wyden’s staff was unable to comment, as the matter was classified. 

Tasked with oversight of the intelligence community, Wyden is one of a few lawmakers who is allowed to read highly classified information about ongoing government surveillance, including cyber and other intelligence operations. But as the programs are highly secretive, Wyden is barred from sharing details of what he knows with anyone else, including most other lawmakers, except for a handful of Senate staff with security clearance.

As such, Wyden, a known privacy hawk, has become one of the few key members of Congress whose rare but outspoken words on intelligence and surveillance matters are closely watched by civil liberties groups.

Over the past few years, Wyden has subtly sounded the alarm on several occasions in which he has construed a secret ruling or intelligence gathering method as unlawful or unconstitutional.

In 2011, Wyden said that the U.S. government was relying on a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act, which he said — without disclosing the nature of his concerns — created a “gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says.” 

Two years later, then-NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was relying on its secret interpretation of the Patriot Act to force U.S. phone companies, including Verizon, to turn over the call records of hundreds of millions of Americans on an ongoing basis.

Since then, Wyden has sounded the alarm on how the U.S. government collects the contents of people’s communications; revealed that the Justice Department barred Apple and Google from disclosing that federal authorities had been secretly demanding the contents of their customers’ push notifications; and said that an unclassified report that CISA has refused to release contains “shocking details” about national security threats facing U.S. phone companies.

As noted by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick, we may not know yet why Wyden sounded the siren about the CIA’s activities, but every time Wyden has warned, he has also been vindicated.

The Blackmail of Billionaire Leon Black and Epstein's Role

Black's downfall — despite paying tens of millions in extortion demands — illustrates how potent and valuable intimate secrets are in Epstein's world of oligarchs and billionaires.

The Epstein Files: The Blackmail of Billionaire Leon Black and Epstein's Role in It

Glenn Greenwald Feb 16 , 2026

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One of the few pictures of Jeffrey Epstein and Leon Black together in 2005. Patrick McMullan / Getty Images

One of the towering questions hovering over the Epstein saga was whether the illicit sexual activities of the world’s most powerful people were used as blackmail by Epstein or by intelligence agencies with whom (or for whom) he worked. The Trump administration now insists that no such blackmail occurred.

Top law enforcement officials in the Trump administration — such as Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino — spent years vehemently denouncing the Biden administration for hiding Epstein’s “client list,” as well as concealing details about Epstein’s global blackmail operations. Yet last June, these exact same officials suddenly announced, in the words of their joint DOJ-FBI statement, that their “exhaustive review” found no “client list” nor any “credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” They also assured the public that they were certain, beyond any doubt, that Epstein killed himself.

There are still many files that remain heavily and inexplicably redacted. But, from the files that have been made public, we know one thing for certain. One of Epstein’s two key benefactors — the hedge fund billionaire Leon Black, who paid Epstein at least $158 million from 2012 through 2017 — was aggressively blackmailed over his sexual conduct. (Epstein’s second most-important benefactor was the billionaire Les Wexner, a major pro-Israel donor who cut off ties in 2008 after Epstein repaid Wexner $100 million for money Wexner alleged Epstein had stolen from him).

Despite that $100 million repayment in 2008 to Wexner, Epstein had accumulated so much wealth through his involvement with Wexner that it barely made a dent. He was able to successfully “pilfer” such a mind-boggling amount of money because he had been given virtually unconstrained access to, and power over, every aspect of Wexner’s life. Wexner even gave Epstein power of attorney and had him oversee his children’s trusts. And Epstein, several years later, created a similar role with Leon Black, one of the richest hedge fund billionaires of his generation.

Epstein’s 2008 conviction and imprisonment due to his guilty plea on a charge of “soliciting a minor for prostitution” began mildly hindering his access to the world’s billionaires. It was at this time that he lost Wexner as his font of wealth due to Wexner’s belief that Epstein stole from him.

But Epstein’s world was salvaged, and ultimately thrived more than ever, as a result of the seemingly full-scale dependence that Leon Black developed on Epstein. As he did with Wexner, Epstein insinuated himself into every aspect of the billionaire’s life — financial, political, and personal — and, in doing so, obtained innate, immense power over Black.

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The recently released Epstein files depict the blackmail and extortion schemes to which Black was subjected. One of the most vicious and protracted arose out of a six-year affair he carried on with a young Russian model, who then threatened in 2015 to expose everything to Black’s wife and family, and “ruin his life,” unless he paid her $100 million. But Epstein himself also implicitly, if not overtly, threatened Black in order to extract millions more in payments after Black, in 2016, sought to terminate their relationship.

While the sordid matter of Black’s affair has been previously reported — essentially because the woman, Guzel Ganieva, went public and sued Black, accusing him of “rape and assault,” even after he paid her more than $9 million out of a $21 million deal he made with her to stay silent — the newly released emails provide very vivid and invasive details about how desperately Black worked to avoid public disclosure of his sex life. The broad outlines of these events were laid out in a Bloomberg report on Sunday, but the text of emails provide a crucial look into how these blackmail schemes in Epstein World operated.

Epstein was central to all of this. That is why the emails describing all of this in detail are now publicly available: because they were all sent by Black or his lawyers to Epstein, and are thus now part of the Epstein Files.

Once Ganieva began blackmailing and extorting Black with her demands for $100 million — which she repeatedly said was her final, non-negotiable offer — Black turned to Epstein to tell him how to navigate this. (Black’s other key advisor was Brad Karp, who was forced to resign last week as head of the powerful Paul, Weiss law firm due to his extensive involvement with Epstein).

From the start of Ganieva’s increasingly unhinged threats against Black, Epstein became a vital advisor. In 2015, Epstein drafted a script for what he thought Black should tell his mistress, and emailed that script to himself.

Epstein included an explicit threat that Black would have Russian intelligence — the Federal Security Service (FSB) — murder Ganieva, because, Epstein argued, failure to resolve this matter with an American businessman important to the Russian economy would make her an “enemy of the state” in the eyes of the Russian government. Part of Epstein’s suggested script for Black is as follows (spelling and grammatical errors maintained from the original correspondents):

you should also know that I felt it necessary to contact some friends in FSB, and I though did not give them your name. They explained to me in no uncertain terms that especially now , when Russia is trying to bring in outside investors , as you know the economy sucks, and desperately investment that a person that would attempt to blackmail a us businessman would immeditaly become in the 21 century, what they terms . vrag naroda meant in the 20th they translated it for me as the enemy of the people, and would e dealt with extremely harshly , as it threatened the economies of teh country. So i expect never ever to hear a threat from you again.

In a separate email to Karp, Black’s lawyer, Epstein instructs him to order surveillance on the woman’s whereabouts by using the services of Nardello & Co., a private spy and intelligence agency used by the world’s richest people.

Black’s utter desperation for Ganieva not to reveal their affair is viscerally apparent from the transcripts of multiple lunches he had with her throughout 2015, which he secretly tape-recorded. His law firm, Paul, Weiss, had those recordings transcribed, and those were sent to Epstein.

To describe these negotiations as torturous would be an understatement. But it is worth taking a glimpse to see how easily and casually blackmail and extortion were used in this world...

Shocking Confessions From The Empire Managers

Arnaud Bertrand summarizes:

The man literally laments the outcome of WW2 because it marked the end of the era during which “the West had been expanding”, a “path” he “hopes [the US and Europe] walk together again.”

And just to ensure you’re clear about what he means: he wants to restore the building of “vast empires extending across the globe” and blames “anti-colonial uprisings” for what they did to “the great Western empires.”

He also says that “we cannot continue” to allow “abstractions of international law” get in the way of US interests.
Basically the man is openly saying that the whole post-colonial order was a mistake and he’s calling on Europe to share the spoils of building a new one.

Some of the dimwits in the room did applaud that revisionist nonsense.

Bertrand cautiones:

What’s the thinking here? That Trump’s America – “America first” – would suddenly become magnanimous and share with Europe just out of sentiment? That’s not how imperialism works: the whole premise of it is that the strong dominate the weak.

When an imperial power is speaking to you of sentiments, of how much they like you and how they want to partner with you – the much weaker party – that’s cause for worry, not applause …

Rubio’s speech was a call up of satraps who are willing to be the proxy forces fo fight for U.S. global hegemony – just as the Europeans already are with regards to Ukraine.

But Rubio is living in the past. A past in which the Europeans, through their supremacy in warfare, could conquer and devastate vast areas of the planet:

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

The West, thankfully, no longer has exclusive access to weaponry. It can no longer raise the forces needed  – the technology, money, people and ideology – to subjugate the planet. Any attempt to do so will only end in disaster.

Europe would thereby be well advised to stay away Rubio’s unhinged nonsense.

More Shockingly Honest Confessions From The Empire Managers
Caitlin Johnstone
Feb 17, 2026 

US empire managers have been making some surprisingly honest admissions in recent days, with Senator Lindsey Graham saying the wars of the future are being planned in Israel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for a return to old-school western colonialism.

During a Monday press conference in Tel Aviv after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Graham said that “I’ve been coming here every two weeks whether I need to or not.”

Why is a South Carolina senator traveling to Israel every two weeks, rain or shine? The bloodthirsty warmonger answers this question in short order.

“The wars of the future are being planned here in Israel,” Graham said. “Because if you’re not one step ahead of the enemy, you suffer. The most clever, creative military forces on the planet are here in Israel.”

Graham salivated about the possibility of a US war with Iran, acknowledging that such a war could absolutely result in American troops in the region being struck by Iranian missiles but saying the US should go to war anyway.

“Could our soldiers be hit in the region? Absolutely, they could. Can Iran respond if we have an all-out attack? Absolutely, they can,” Graham said, arguing that “the risk associated with that is far less than the risk associated with blinking and pulling the plug and not helping the people as you promised.”

During a speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the mask all the way off in an unsettling rant about the need to return to the good old days when western powers dominated the global south without pretense or apology.

“For five centuries, before the end of the second world war, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe,” Rubio said. “But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, it was contracting. Europe was in ruins. Half of it lived behind an Iron Curtain and the rest looked like it would soon follow. The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come.”

Rubio, a notoriously anti-communist gusano, is here admitting that socialism played a leading role in pushing back against the abusive colonialism and empire-building of the western world in recent decades. A normal person would take this as a strong argument in favor of socialism, but Rubio says it like it’s a bad thing.

Rubio urged Europeans to join their white Christian brethren in the United States in re-conquering the brown-skinned communists and heathens who have been insisting upon their own sovereignty and the advancement of their own interests:

    “Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past. And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe.

    “For the United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The man who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.

    “We are part of one civilization — Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”

It takes a special kind of psychopath to look back with fondness upon five centuries of unchecked western colonialism and imperialism and then advocate a return to those horrific days. Mass genocides across entire continents. The African slave trade. The violent subjugation and enslavement of entire populations. That is what Rubio is looking back on and sighing with nostalgia.

And this is of course to say nothing of the savagery his beloved “Western civilization” is perpetrating in the present day. 

This is the civilization of the Gaza holocaust. The civilization that cannot exist without constant war, exploitation and extraction. The civilization that is presently strangling Cuba to death and preparing for war with Iran. The civilization that still to this day violently subjugates and robs the global south. The civilization of ecocide. The civilization of Epstein.

Western civilization is the most depraved and abusive civilization that has ever existed. It doesn’t need a return to its prime, it needs to be stopped in its tracks and made healthy. This is obvious from a glance at the deranged empire managers this civilization has been elevating to positions of leadership.

U.S. childhood vaccine schedule NOT changed !!!

Why the “Reduction to 11” Isn’t a Win — and What This “Reform” Really Preserves

When headlines announced that the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule had been “reduced” from 17 routine vaccines to 11, many people felt relief. After years of rising injuries, declining trust, and unanswered safety questions, it sounded like the system was finally responding. It wasn’t. What changed was not the substance of the program — only its presentation. And what this so-called reform carefully preserves tells us everything about what it was actually designed to do. ⸻ Start With the Reality, Not the Spin Despite celebratory language, here is what did not happen: • No vaccine was removed • No vaccine was banned • No vaccine was paused • No vaccine lost insurance coverage • No mandate was repealed • No penalties for refusal were eliminated • No manufacturer liability was restored Children are still exposed to the same products.  Parents are still coerced through schools, childcare, and insurance systems. Doctors are still bound to CDC-aligned “standards of care.” Calling this a “reduction” is misleading. Nothing was reduced in real life. The products were simply reclassified on paper. ⸻ Reclassification Is Not Reform Several vaccines were moved into a category now described as “shared clinical decision-making.” This language sounds empowering — until you look at what actually changes for families. Parents still face: • school and daycare exclusion • dismissal from pediatric practices • medical record flagging • insurance pressure Doctors still face: • licensing risk • professional discipline • malpractice exposure if they deviate from institutional guidance Consent without the ability to refuse without consequence is not consent. It is compliance dressed up as choice. A coercive system does not become ethical simply because it uses softer words. ⸻ The Most Protected Products Were Left Untouched — Intentionally Notice which vaccines remain recommended for all children: • MMR • DTaP • Polio • Hib • Pneumococcal • HPV • Varicella These are the most politically protected, most litigated, and most financially entrenched products on the entire schedule. If safety were the priority, scrutiny would start here. Instead, these vaccines were deliberately insulated — because questioning them would destabilize the entire program. That decision alone reveals that this reform was never about safety. It was about preserving the structure. ⸻ Admissions Without Action Are Narrative Laundering The announcement openly admits several damning facts: • Long-term safety data are limited • Placebo-controlled trials are rare • The cumulative childhood schedule has never been comprehensively evaluated These are not minor gaps. They are foundational failures. Yet none of these admissions led to: • a pause • a moratorium • a rollback • a suspension of mandates Instead, injections continue uninterrupted while institutions promise to “study it later.” If a product lacked basic safety evaluation in any other area of medicine, use would stop first. Here, exposure continues — and only the narrative changes. ⸻ What Real Reform Would Actually Require Real reform would not involve reclassification or trust-building language. It would require stopping and answering the most basic safety questions before continued use. That would include: • Evaluating the cumulative childhood vaccine schedule as a whole — against a true placebo, not against another vaccine or adjuvant, before continued use. • Testing vaccines for carcinogenic potential, something manufacturers explicitly acknowledge they do not do. Section 13.1 of vaccine package inserts states that vaccines have not been evaluated for carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, or impairment of fertility. These are not radical demands. They are baseline safety standards everywhere else. Yet despite openly acknowledging these gaps, the system continues to mandate use — while shielding manufacturers from liability. That is not science. That is institutional protection. ⸻ So What Did the “Reduction to 11” Actually Accomplish? It accomplished this: • lowered public resistance • gave the appearance of responsiveness • reframed coercion as “choice” • restored institutional credibility • kept enforcement mechanisms intact This was not reform. It was pressure management. ⸻ Why It Matters That Children’s Health Defense Framed This as a Win At this point, it becomes impossible to ignore who presented this change as historic progress. The article celebrating this shift was published by Children’s Health Defense. This does not contradict what’s happening — it confirms it. Controlled opposition is not defined by intent or branding. It is defined by where criticism stops. CHD is allowed to: • criticize transparency • highlight data gaps • discuss declining trust • call for future studies But it stops short of: • demanding a halt • challenging mandates as unethical • calling liability immunity unacceptable • naming systemic harm • calling for dismantling the program The article praises the restructuring, legitimizes the framework, and reassures readers that trust is being rebuilt — all while the same institutions retain authority, the same mandates remain enforceable, and the same dangerous products continue to be injected. That is not opposition. That is containment. Controlled opposition does not silence dissent. It keeps dissent safely inside boundaries that protect the system. ⸻ The Bottom Line Nothing meaningful was reduced. Nothing foundational was challenged. Nothing coercive was removed. The “reduction to 11” preserves the program while calming the public. Real reform would change power. This reform preserves it. Once you see that, the illusion collapses — and it doesn’t come back.

Epstein files mentions Musk, Gates and Trump

The cache includes more than 3 million pages, 180,000 images, and 2,000 videos related to the late sex offender

Final batch of Epstein files mentions Musk, Gates and Trump

30 Jan, 2026 

The US Justice Department has published the final massive trove of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a release mandated by Congress that reveals new details about the financier’s associations but contains no criminal allegations against the prominent individuals named.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Friday the release of over 3 million pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images, though he noted “extensive” redactions to protect victim identities and ongoing investigations.

The cache of records, which comes over a month past a congressional deadline, concludes the Trump administration’s obligation under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

High-profile names surface

The new documents, drawn from FBI investigations and Epstein’s own records, include emails that show Tesla CEO Elon Musk discussing plans to visit Epstein’s private island. In late 2013, Musk emailed Epstein saying he would be in St. Barts and asked about “a good time to visit,” with Epstein offering to send his helicopter. The visit did not materialize, and Musk has publicly stated that he never traveled to the island.

In a separate 2013 email, Epstein sent himself a document formatted as a resignation letter from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, making the sensational and unverified claim that Gates had sought help getting drugs “in order to deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls.” A spokesperson for Gates dismissed the claims as “absolutely absurd and completely false.”

The files also indicate continued contact between Epstein and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick through 2018, contrary to Lutnick’s prior claims that he cut ties in 2005. Flight manifests and schedules also name Prince Andrew, as well as other figures such as tech mogul Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon, a former adviser to US President Donald Trump.

Uncorroborated tips against Trump

A portion of the cache includes summaries of tips sent to the FBI’s public tip line, containing uncorroborated allegations of wrongdoing by Trump in connection with Epstein. The Justice Department prefaced the release with a statement that some documents “contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump,” which it labeled “unfounded and false.”

Blanche stressed that a review of Epstein’s personal emails revealed no suggestion from Epstein that Trump “had done anything criminal or had any inappropriate contact with any of his victims.” The emails instead show Epstein frequently disparaging Trump, calling him “stupid” and questioning his mental fitness.

DOJ dismisses cover-up claims

At a press conference, Blanche defended the delayed release, citing the monumental task of reviewing millions of pages. He forcefully denied allegations of a cover-up.

“There’s not some tranche of super-secret documents that we’re withholding,” he stated, adding that the White House had “no oversight” over the review process.

The release also includes new materials related to Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving a 20-year sentence, including her mugshot and naturalization certificate listing her occupation as Epstein’s “manager.”

This follows a recent court filing by Maxwell claiming 29 of Epstein’s alleged accomplices avoided prosecution, mostly through secret settlements – a claim Blanche said he was unaware of.

The final document release has failed to settle the intense speculation surrounding Epstein’s network, with lawmakers and the public sifting through the heavily redacted files for new clues about the scope of his crimes and the powerful circles in which he moved.

Deepfake threat is reshaping global politics

Russia and other states are tightening regulation of deepfakes as they become a national security issue rather than a technological curiosity

The deepfake threat is reshaping global politics

By Anna Sytnik, Associate Professor at St. Petersburg State University and CEO of the non-profit organization Colaboratory

27 Jan, 2026 

For most of modern history, “big politics” operated in conditions of information scarcity and an excess of interpretation. The digital age has flipped that equation. Today we face a scarcity of authenticity and an excess of content. Deepfakes – fabricated videos and images, often with audio, generated by artificial intelligence – are cheap and capable of undermining the most basic foundation of social interaction: trust in public speech and visual evidence.

The internet is now saturated with such material. Surveys suggest that roughly 60% of people have encountered a deepfake video in the past year. Some of these creations are harmless or absurd, like exaggerated AI images of nine-story snowdrifts in Kamchatka that even circulated in the United States. But the technology is increasingly feeding serious political tension.

The Indo-Pakistani crisis in May 2025 illustrated this danger. A single fabricated video purporting to show the loss of two fighter jets spread online within hours, inflaming public sentiment, fueling military rhetoric and accelerating escalation faster than official denials could contain it. Deepfakes have thus moved from the realm of entertainment into that of national security.

It is no coincidence that late 2025 and early 2026 saw a wave of new regulations. States are beginning to treat AI fakes not as a novelty, but as a destabilizing factor. The global trend is toward control, enforcement, and coercive measures.

In countries often described as part of the “global majority,” the emphasis is on swift law enforcement. On January 10, Indonesia temporarily blocked access to Grok after the platform was used to create sexualized and unauthorized deepfakes. Jakarta’s response showed a readiness to cut off distribution channels immediately in cases of mass abuse, rather than waiting for lengthy standard-setting processes.

Vietnam offers an even clearer example of a criminal-law approach. At the end of 2025, authorities issued arrest warrants and conducted a trial in absentia against two citizens accused of systematically distributing “anti-state” materials, including AI-generated images and videos. Hanoi did not treat the cross-border nature of the publications as immunity. Instead, it framed deepfakes as an issue of digital sovereignty. In this view, the digital sphere is no longer a space where evidence can be fabricated and institutions discredited from abroad without consequence. The state has signaled its willingness to extend criminal law into the global digital environment.

Deepfake use is also shifting in character. Increasingly, AI manipulation is used for rapid, localized attacks on trust rather than complex special operations. On January 19, Indian police opened an investigation into a viral AI-generated image designed to discredit a local administration and provoke unrest. The aim was not strategic deception, but immediate social destabilization.

The European Union has already institutionalized its response. On December 17, the European Commission published the first draft of a Code of Practice on the labelling and identification of AI-generated content. This document translates the AI Act’s transparency principles into enforceable procedures: machine-readable labels, disclosure of AI generation, and formalized platform responsibilities. Deepfakes are increasingly framed as a form of “digital violence.” On January 9, Germany’s Justice Ministry announced measures against malicious AI image manipulation, moving the issue from ethical debate into criminal law and personal protection.

The United States has focused on platform responsibility. In 2025, the Take It Down Act, signed by President Donald Trump, required platforms to quickly remove unauthorized intimate images and their AI-generated equivalents. In January, the Senate passed the DEFIANCE Act, granting victims the right to sue creators or distributors of deepfakes. Congress continues to debate the No Fakes Act, which would establish federal rights over the use of a person’s visual or voice likeness. Yet the American model remains fragmented, shaped by constitutional constraints and federalism, with many rules emerging at state level.

Russia is developing its own path. On January 20, Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev created a working group to combat illegal deepfake use, bringing together ministry officials and parliamentarians to draft legislative proposals and strengthen accountability. Earlier, in November 2025, a bill was introduced to amend the law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection,” requiring mandatory labelling of video materials created or modified using AI. A related draft law proposes administrative penalties for missing or inaccurate labels. The State Duma’s IT committee plans a first reading in March 2026.

At the international level, outside Western “club” formats, two pragmatic channels remain. One is the development of technological standards for verifying content origin, such as C2PA (Content Credentials), an open industry ecosystem already adopted by major IT firms to label and verify media sources. The other lies in universal multilateral platforms like the International Telecommunication Union, where discussions on AI transparency continue. Only such neutral formats have a chance of producing inclusive standards that do not turn deepfake regulation into another instrument of geopolitical pressure or digital fragmentation.

The world is approaching a moment when systematic verification of authenticity in public communication will become routine in politics. Governments increasingly view synthetic content as a threat to elections and social stability. Not to mention trust in institutions. At the same time, divergent legal regimes and different views on freedom of expression will generate conflicts of jurisdiction.

For states pursuing digital sovereignty, the regulation of deepfakes is becoming a test of their ability to adapt quickly and thoughtfully to a new information environment. The struggle is no longer simply about technology. It is about preserving the possibility of “genuine politics” in an age when seeing is no longer believing.