Speaking at the third Russia-China media forum in Moscow recently, Sputnik and RT’s Editor in Chief proposed that Russian and Chinese media should work together to tackle “fake news”, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu. She did not go further into detail on how that should be done. But as an example she deployed a reoccurring disinformation theme – that of the White Helmets allegedly manipulating and staging situations in Syria.

As “proof” she referred to the fact that the father of the little boy Omran, whose photo was spread over the world last year, had been on Syrian state controlled TV, pledging support for Assad and against the White Helmets. The New York Times looks into that story in some more detail, including pointing out the limitations to free speech facing Syrians appearing on state TV.

Meanwhile, as reported by the Financial Times, the Chinese microblog service Sina Weibo (similar to Twitter) has blocked any mention of Vladimir Putin on accounts with more than one thousand followers. President Putin is the first foreign leader to enjoy such online protection.

And in Russia, the Duma passed legislation that curbs technologies that make it possible to circumvent online censorship in Russia. The legislation also imposes new restrictions on instant messages, requiring service administrators to establish the identity of all users and restricting the communication of certain individuals, as reported by Meduza.

Training in how to combat pro-Kremlin disinformation is a “top priority” for the 200 Danish soldiers who will be deployed to Estonia as a part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu. This was the message from Denmark’s defence minister, Claus Hjorth Frederiksen, in an interview last week with Denmark’s public broadcaster, DR (also reported by Reuters).

“The aim is to create distrust among ourselves”

“It is a whole new world. The Danish soldiers need to be extremely aware of that. Therefore I have arranged with the armed forces that the soldiers being sent out in January are informed and educated in how to protect themselves”, the defence minister said. He also underlined the difference between Soviet propaganda and the modern pro-Kremlin disinformation Danish soldiers expect to be facing during their deployment: “We used to see a kind of propaganda where the aim was to create a positive view of the Soviet Union or Russia’s actions. Now, it has been turned around so that the aim is to create distrust among ourselves”.

Debunking stories that may have consequences

The decision to educate Danish military personnel about the threat from pro-Kremlin disinformation was positively received by Flemming Splidsboel Hansen, a leading Russia researcher at Denmark’s Institute for International Relations. “We cannot debunk every single disinformation story, so we need to focus on debunking those stories that may have consequences. Therefore, I think it is a good idea to have some form of preparedness. In that way, you have a plan at hand so you do not have to hold crisis meetings when the stories emerge,” the researcher told DR in an interview.

Awareness on the rise 

Awareness of pro-Kremlin disinformation is on the rise in Denmark – a country which has experienced being a target of nuclear threats. Recently, the public television channel DR highlighted examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation and attempts to influence public opinion in Denmark in a current affairs broadcast devoted to this topic. Also other Danish media have  begun to examine the problem, as we reported in May.

Have you tried the fidget spinner? The toy that enjoys a wave of global popularity has now also reached Russia – only to be blamed on national TV for being instrumental in a conspiracy to topple the Kremlin leaders, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

Yes, you read that right. In a news broadcast aired by Russian state TV Rossiya-24, the audience was told that the spinner “has at several occasions been seen in the hands of members of the opposition”. The spinner is in fact closely tied to political activism both in Russia and abroad, if we are to believe Russia’s national broadcaster.

But that is not the end of the story. Russia’s consumer watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, followed up on Rossiya-24’s conspiracy theory by ordering a probe into the spinner’s possible negative effect on children’s health, as reported by CurrentTime TV.

Not the first game that was created by evil Western spies

The accusations against the fidget spinner do not stand alone: Supporters of opposition leader Alexey Navalny were recently accused of having ties to online suicide groups targeting Russian teenagers, and Navalny himself has been called a ”political pedophile” in Russian state media because of his success in mobilising young Russians to participate in protests. Clearly, recent “temnik” guidelines from the Kremlin have demanded that dominating Russian media follow a narrative about the opposition as physically dangerous for young Russians.

Previously, other elements of children’s culture coming from the West have been accused of being part of plots for regime change in Russia: Russian nationwide TV has for example explained that the Pokemon Go game was in fact created by foreign secret services as a tool for global espionage.

“The West is the cause of all problems in the world, whereas Russia is invariably the only source of positive hope”. This is the conclusion of a recent study on the messages from Russian TV channels in Moldova, published by the Association of independent press (API) and like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

In spring 2017, API monitored for one month the newscasts, analytical programmes and talk shows of five Russian TV networks that are directly relayed into Moldovan homes: State channels Pervy Kanal and RTR, the Gazprom-owned station NTV as well as private networks REN TV and STS.

West equals terror and fear, Putin equals peace and freedom

The study found that Pervy Kanal, RTR, NTV and REN TV cover international news in a strikingly similar way (no newscasts from STS were part of the monitoring). These outlets portray political events to demonstrate the West’s responsibility “for all negative things happening in the region and worldwide”. At the same time, Russia and its President Vladimir Putin are presented as the “only true fighters for peace and for the self-determination of the peoples in the world, as fighting terrorism, loyal defender of democratic values and Christianity”.

Other main narratives include:

• Ukraine is a failed state governed by corrupt fascists
• Ukraine is responsible for the conflict in its eastern territories
• The EU is morally degrading and about to collapse
• The EU is preparing for war with Russia
• The political leaders of certain EU member states are behaving ridiculously, cannot solve crises and depend on the US
• Marine Le Pen would be best suited for the office of French president
• There is an international conspiracy against Russia
• The Eurasian Economic Union brings real benefits to former Soviet Republics, unlike the European Union
• The USA is an aggressive country that creates conflict in the Middle East, in Syria and with North Korea

At the same time, the authors say that REN TV’s programmes generally “promote Russian lifestyle and culture, glorify the Russian army, and acclaim the President Vladimir Putin”. The study notes that RTR advertised the “greatness of Russia and President Vladimir Putin”, “guarantor of prosperity for the peoples of the former USSR”.

Propaganda gets included in entertainment shows

The propaganda techniques employed also frequently overlap between the stations: As a rule, the study highlights, news broadcasts were one-sided and the right to response and pluralism of opinions were not ensured. News anchors used derogatory terms and showed their opinions. In Pervy Kanal and other networks, caricatures and collages were used to show Ukrainian leaders and the country’s Western partners in a negative light.

Talk shows only “mimicked” debate and guests who are deviating from official lines get “often ridiculed and even verbally abused”. The study notes that talk-show hosts on Pervy Kanal “demonstrate that they realize a well-thought and well-planned scenario seeking to promote messages, most often, denigrating the opponents of the Russian Federation. The hosts do not only moderate the show but also intervene in the guests’ messages, they contradict them, they quarrel when they want to impose certain messages.”

STS was not covered in the news monitoring. As it is an entertainment channel, the API study found numerous examples of sketches subtly mocking the US and conveying “anti-European, anti-German and anti-Ukrainian messages”. For example, an entertainment show at the end of March conveyed the message that young people studying in Europe will change their sexual orientation, a “stereotype widely held within the Russian society”. Other sketches demonstrate that Germany continues to be Russia’s enemy and “Russians could easily defeat them”.

“The chemical attack in Idlib in Syria on 7 April this year was a piece of “fake news” and a staged operation from the side of the rebels, which aimed at discrediting Syria’s government forces”, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu. So was the message in a seven minutes long report broadcast last week in Russia by the TV channel and online outlet Zvezda. In order to assess the relevance of Zvezda’s production as a contribution to throwing light on the Idlib attack, it makes sense to ask what kind of outlet Zvezda is and what interest it would have in making this sensational claim.

Patriotic and tabloid
Zvezda means “The Star” in Russian, hinting at the outlet’s role as successor to the official newspaper of the Soviet armed forces, Krasnaya Zvezda, “Red Star”. Owned by Russia’s Ministry of Defence, Zvezda broadcasts television, produces online stories and radio programmes related to military, but also, more broadly, political and social affairs. Zvezda describes itself as “patriotic”, which in Russia translates as loyal to the government line. Zvezda is also known for a style bordering on tabloid journalism – and for spreading outright disinformation. See at the bottom a list of disinformation examples from Zvezda’s output, collected by the Disinformation Review.

Weaponised and dependent
When experts make the point that Russia’s authorities “weaponise” media, Zvezda is one of the first examples that come to mind: The outlet is used by the military branch of the government for the purpose of spreading its narratives, including disinformation, so Zvezda is about as far as one can get from the notion of independent media. Not only is it dependent by being owned and controlled by the government; it is controlled by the part of the government whose leadership has gone on the record as saying that “false data” and “destabilising propaganda” are legitimate tools and that they view media as “another type of armed forces”.

Drowning out the truth with disinformation
Independent media can be overwhelmingly successful in removing the smokescreens of disinformation and getting the truth out of war zones, as we have for example seen after the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over Eastern Ukraine. But how trustworthy is the dependent outlet of Zvezda as a source of investigative journalism? Given the outlet’s background and track record, it is more reasonable to assume that Zvezda’s new story about alleged “fake news” production in Idlib is a sign that the Kremlin and its armed forces, which support President Assad, feel uncomfortable about the facts on the ground and want to create a smokescreen. The tactic of spreading confusion and sowing doubt by disseminating many different stories about the same event is similar to what pro-Kremlin media have done with regards to Flight MH17. The strategic aim of this kind of information operation is not to make us believe in a particular story, but rather to make us believe that we will never learn the truth, thereby creating a form of noise, which would drown out the findings of independent investigative journalism.

With an election looming in September, fake news is big news in Germany, like reported by politico.eu.

So concerned is the German government by a growing quantity of false and defamatory information online that it is going further than others in pressuring tech companies to better police their networks. Parliament approved a new law this month under which lawmakers could soon impose fines of up to €50 million on social media firms if they fail to remove criminal content like defamatory and hate-inciting posts quickly enough. 

“Something has changed,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament shortly after fake news played a prominent role in the U.S. election. “Today we have fake sites, bots, trolls … We must confront this phenomenon and if necessary, regulate it.”

It’s one thing to confront fake news and another to find a solution for it. Germany is hardly alone. Policymakers, the media and tech companies on both sides of the Atlantic have struggled for months now to improvise responses.

The company at the center of the fake news battle is Facebook. Since the U.S. election last year, some Western politicians have put part of the responsibility — and the blame — for “fake news” on tech magnate Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, the company he co-founded.

Fringe websites and political blogs that spread false information are boosted on Facebook and other social networks by an army of political supporters, in some cases even “bots” programmed to spread the message.

Eager to show it is tackling the problem, Facebook rolled out a tool in Germany to let journalists spot false news when it is flagged by Facebook users. Since April, Facebook has partnered with investigative journalists to fact-check material shared on the social network.

First in Germany to partner with the Silicon Valley giant is investigative news organization Correctiv, which started a website called Echtjetzt — or, Really now? — to debunk false information during the election campaign. “We check the web for bulls–t,” Karolin Schwarz, one of Correctiv’s new hires, said.

The results of this experiment, so far, are mixed. While Correctiv’s fact-checkers contend that the tool helps, they said they are still in the dark about how the social network compiles the list of posts to be reviewed.

Facebook’s fact-checking tool is “very often not relevant” and doesn’t explain how a story is gaining traction on the social network, said Jacques Pezet, a journalist who worked with the tool for the newspaper Libération during the French elections and recently joined Correctiv’s fact-checking team to cover the German race.

As the tool requires a second team of fact-checkers, independent from Correctiv, Facebook doesn’t remove stories flagged as “fake” by Correctiv. For its part, Correctiv publishes new articles on their own website debunking stories it believes are false.

A Facebook spokesperson said it is “testing and are in close conversations with the ecosystem on how the product is best [deployed],” stressing it hasn’t been fully rolled out yet. The spokesperson said the German version was still just “a test.”

The company didn’t disclose technical details on how it compiles the list of stories, nor how it assesses whether a potentially false story is gaining traction on its social media site. It said a story flagged as false “might show up lower in your feed,” but didn’t provide much more detail.

Race for shares

Facebook first used the tool to allow users to report stories as misleading during the French presidential race.

“We’re working on better ways to hear from our community and work with third parties to identify false news and prevent it from spreading on our platform,” Adam Mosseri, the company’s VP responsible for the news feed, wrote when the initiative was launched in April.

Tucked away on the second floor of a renovated industrial building in the central Mitte area of Berlin, a handful of Correctiv fact-checkers now uses the tool to work through a list of flagged Facebook posts. The Echtjetzt project got a €100,000 grant from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

Among the sites being closely tracked by Correctiv are a couple dozen blogs and alternative media websites that hit on nationalist tones similar to popular movements on the right, including the Pegida movement and, more recently, the Alternative for Germany party. As well as Politically Incorrect News, or PI News, which has for some time published stories on migration and Islam, others under scrutiny include Anonymousnews.ru and New-York-based conservative think tank Gatestone Institute.

If there is one word that gives the signal that a media outlet is clearly pro-Kremlin, it is “Russophobia”.  Outlets such as RT, Sputnik and Russian national state television use the term to explain away almost any foreign criticism of Kremlin policies, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu .

“Russophobia” can pop up all over the place – whether it concerns Syria, the UK, the EU, Ukraine, or basically any place in the world. Last month, the word was even used by President Putin when he compared “Russophobia” in the West to anti-Semitism.

Deflecting criticism

But what is this thing called Russophobia? The term suggests a fundamental dislike of Russia or Russians. By accusing Western societies of “Russophobia”, pro-Kremlin propaganda outlets downgrade criticism of Kremlin policies and actions to being somehow irrational and not worthy of a serious reply. At the same time, the term tries to turn the tables against the West, which in pro-Kremlin media is often depicted as a place where the fight against intolerance has gone too far.

If we accept the Russophobia narrative, it suddenly becomes the West that is intolerant, and not pro-Kremlin media with, for example, their regrettable use of homophobic, sexist, racist and anti-semitic propaganda. As Katri Pynnöniemi of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs puts it: “The attacker becomes the victim and the victim is accused of starting the conflict”.

“Russians are taught to hate and fear the world around them”

Last week, the claim that Russophobia is a serious global problem was questioned in an op-ed published by RBC, one of Russia’s leading independent news outlets. Vladislav Inozemtsev, a prominent commentator and opposition politician, criticised pro-Kremlin media and Russian government communicators for the use of this term under the headline “’Russophobia’ on the rise: How Russia’s authorities got carried away by a fake notion”. According to Mr. Inozemtsev, the main problem with this word is that it draws an equation between the state and the people.

In addition, Mr. Inozemtsev sees the phenomenon as a sign of an important difference between modern Kremlin propaganda and Soviet propaganda: “Today, the Russian authorities are appealing to the lowest, nationalistic feelings of their own citizens,” he writes. “They are trying to prove that the West does not stand up against Russia politically and ideologically, but almost revives the ‘hatred towards Slavs’ that was a part of the Third Reich. [Soviet propaganda] relied on the opposition of honest and hardworking citizens of Western countries to the capitalist elite, to corrupt politicians and the military-industrial complex. Now these differences are gone: The West is described as a spiritless society that is losing its moral foundations […] Russians are taught to hate and fear the world around them, and that is why politicians in Moscow tell these tales about the surrounding world disliking Russians.”

No “Russophobes” on the streets of Brussels

Last year we went out into the streets of Brussels and interviewed people about their attitudes towards Russia and Russians. Our attempt to challenge the Russophobia myth revealed not only that EU citizens speak positively about Russia and Russians, but thatthey also clearly distinguish between Russia and the Russian people on the one hand, and political disagreements between governments on the other. The video enjoyed popularity among Russian speaking Facebook users with more than 100,000 views, and was shared by many Russian-speaking users living in the EU.

What are pro-Kremlin caricatures like? One good example is the work of Vitaly Podvitsky, whose drawings appear as illustrations for news stories published by RIA Novosti – the state-owned news agency where Dmitry Kiselev, currently under EU sanctions, is the CEO, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

Ukraine and the EU are among the most frequent targets in these caricatures, which often invoke well-established propaganda messages – such as the image above.

On this picture, Ukrainian President Poroshenko is travelling to the EU after his country has achieved visa free access to the Schengen zone. However, his body guards nervously comment that “We’re in Europe now, so we’ll have to stay alert!”

The image illustrates a news story about Russian President Putin’s statement that Ukrainian visa-free travellers could meet people “wearing light-blue uniforms” in the EU. As “light-blue” is a Russian expression for homosexuality, and with President Poroshenko wearing a light-blue suit, the body guards’ concern refers to the fear that the President could attract the attention of gay men in the EU – who are a very serious problem for societies in the European Union, if one is to believe pro-Kremlin disinformation.

The greatest challenges to government-sponsored disinformation campaigns are strong independent media and critical debates among members of civil society, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

This is the conclusion that can be drawn from observing how Russian authorities crack down not only on independent media, but also on internet resources that can be used for discussing politics, such as social media platforms and online communication tools. Over the past week, two new initiatives surfaced in Russia, both of which put online free speech in Russia under additional pressure.

As reported by Moscow Times, Russia’s Parliament is now drafting new laws, which will substantially limit use of VPN services and other kinds of anonymising software and put an end to the opportunity of not revealing one’s identity when signing up for messenger services. Interestingly, if the laws are approved, Russia’s media and internet watchdog, Roskomnadzor, will have to change its views on these kinds of resources. A year and a half ago, Roskomnadzor director Alexander Zharov was quoted as saying that “it is technically possible to start blocking anonymizers, but I consider it absolutely pointless. New ones will pop up to replace the ones we block.” Experts quoted by Moscow Times side with Roskomnadzor’s previous line, calling the new legislative initiatives “incompetent, unimplementable laws”

These new initiatives against anonymising services coincide with last week’s standoff between Roskomnadzor and the encrypted communication tool Telegram. Telegram’s management has ignored requests from Russian authorities to get access to keys that will give them access to surveillance of Telegram users’ communication. This Monday, Russian authorities heightened the stakes when, FSB, the national security service, published a statement saying that Telegram was used by the terrorists behind the bomb attack in St. Petersburg’s metro in April.

While these latest developments make the corridor of alternatives to state-backed propaganda and disinformation in Russia even narrower, they can come as no surprise to the readers of the Disinformation Review. As we underlined in January and in December, this policy rhymes well with Russia’s “Information Security Doctrine”, which stipulates a wish to have Russia’s information space respected as a part of the country’s sovereignty, on a par with a country’s right to have its territorial integrity respected.