Why the Kremlin Loves Social Media

[Morrison71]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/07/why-the-kremlin-loves-social-media-00177759

– Would you say that the rise of social media has helped Russia's disinformation campaign?

– Of course. Before social media, they had a lot of difficulties penetrating the Western media. It happened, but not so often. So social media has been a useful tool for Russia to spread its propaganda. They were the first ones to actually utilize social media to do these kinds of mass disinformation campaigns and information operations, and they had a really good head start in that sense. It took the Western media and intelligence services years to figure out the whole thing.
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The Internet Research Agency was established in 2013. First, they started in a more domestic environment, so they were defaming the opposition, Alexei Navalny and so on, and of course Ukraine. But after that, when there was no more opposition in Russia, they moved on to the U.S. audiences and U.S. elections in 2016.

It is also worth mentioning that probably they are using AI now and in the future, because it's just automating things. It's so much cheaper and also more effective. You can create huge volume by using AI. So for example, what Russian operatives have done is create fake news sites or blogs, and the content on these blogs is completely generated by AI, but sometimes they inject Russian narratives or propaganda manually. There are hundreds of these blogs. Also, of course, they use the traditional system of bots and trolls to then make these stories seem much bigger. It's kind of this multilevel system, and sometimes one of the superspreader accounts can pick up the story, and then it really goes viral. It's a very sophisticated system that is still not very well understood.
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– What is the ultimate goal of Russia's disinformation campaign? Electing Donald Trump? Or is there a broader objective?

– They want to polarize and divide countries, especially the U.S., which has a two-party system. Whenever a country is focusing on domestic disputes and arguments, its foreign policy becomes much weaker. We saw that with the Ukraine aid that was delayed for months and months and months, and that's basically their goal: to create these internal conflicts, so the foreign policy of various countries becomes much weaker and indecisive.
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– So they want division and also for people to stop paying attention to what Russia does?

– Yes. But the famous thing about Russian disinformation is that it rarely even mentions Russia. So it's usually talking about other issues, for example, the southern border of the U.S. or woke culture or losing traditional values. I think the main narrative that is pushed is that the U.S. shouldn't send any more money to Ukraine, because there are so many domestic problems that should be fixed instead.
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And the reason is that when you start doing an investigation on Russian culture in general, you realize that it's not really that traditional or conservative or anything like that. You see that they have very big problems, and they are actually quite secular. The image that Russia tries to create of themselves, it's not the same as reality. They just decide, OK, let's not talk about Russia at all. Let's talk about other countries and their problems. It's very different from China. China likes talking about China and how great they are. So it's like this complete opposite in that sense.
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I'm quite sure that the owners of Tenet Media, Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, I'm pretty sure they knew what they were getting into. There were a lot of signs that they actually knew that the money was coming from Russia. About the influencers? I'm not sure. I think almost all of them have stated that they didn't know. But I mean, it raises questions, if somebody is willing to pay you $400,000 for four videos a month.

In general, people should be more critical of what they read, especially on social media, and realize that there are people who are willing to spread lies and fake news just for engagement. Always remember that people might be paid to spread these stories like we just witnessed with Tenet Media. So critical thinking as a general rule is a good way to stay vigilant.

 

[SansAgain]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/07/why-the-kremlin-loves-social-media-00177759

How was your nap? What’s the weather like in Encino, man?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Not just the Russians.

 

[Phenomenally Frantastic]

Not just the Russians.

Didn’t the Democrats literally create a Ministry of Truth? Talk about projection.