How Russian propaganda seeks to divide and rule
The totalitarian propagandists of the 20th century, from Goebbels to the editors of Pravda, sought to convince as many people of the truth of one narrative which presented their own side as perfectly righteous and their opponents as evil.
All the most successful political campaigners and spin doctors in Western democracies right down to the present day follow a similar if hopefully more honest and nuanced approach in which there is still one narrative which supports their case and they try to get as many people as possible to support it.
The present Russian government, however, does not work like that.
The Putin regime seeks not to convince but to divide, not to persuade people of one truth but to discredit truth itself.
When the Nazi regime wanted to disavow responsibility for something Goebbels would settle on one variation or another of "The Jews did it," "The Freemasons did it," "The Communists did it," or "It didn't happen!" and every Nazi propagandist would stick to that line.
When the Soviet Union shot down a Korean civilian airliner in 1983 at the height of the cold war, the soviets put out a fairly consistent message that the airliner had actually been spying and that the incident was a deliberate provocation by the United States.
There are some similarities between the 1983 and 2014 airline tragedies, but when a BUK missile from Russia's 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade shot down an Malaysian airliner in 2014, the Russian regime put out multiple different and indeed incompatible explanations, some of them absurd. Some of these stories do not appear as though the authors were trying so much to convince anyone so much as make people throw up their hands in disgust and stop believing anything.
Nicholas Grossman has written an excellent article,
"A Voter’s Guide to Russian Shenanigans"
which argues that despite a lagging military and weak economy, Russia remains a modern superpower because they have developed a new form of information warfare against which nobody in the West has yet come up with an effective counter.
As he argues,
"The goal is simple: If Russia can’t scale to the heights of its enemies, the country will bring its enemies down to its level. With propaganda, cyberattacks, and support for divisive political causes, Russia aims to weaken rivals in the West, undermine public confidence in democracy, and incapacitate NATO and the European Union."
"Russia’s information warriors try to heighten divisions, sometimes with exaggerations and lies, but often simply by amplifying divisive voices within their target countries."
"One of Russia’s disinformation campaigns targets the White Helmets, a volunteer organization in Syria that conducts search-and-rescue efforts after bombardments. The White Helmets’ work reveals how much Russian-backed Syrian military operations are killing civilians, and Russia has tried to discredit them as al-Qaeda terrorists.
"Russian accounts helped spread a claim on Twitter by a Swiss doctor who inaccurately claimed a picture of White Helmet workers treating children was fake. It received more than 12,500 retweets and was translated into multiple languages — those posts also got thousands of retweets — and kept spreading even after the doctor admitted he made a mistake.
"With this disinformation, Assad’s supporters get “evidence” to counter and distract from accusations that he’s responsible for the mass murder of civilians. Additionally, it floods the information space, creating enough uncertainty that third parties think, “I don’t know who to believe,” and therefore don’t demand action to stop it."
"Russia’s post-election efforts in the United States have aimed more at pushing on culture war wedges. For example, Russian-linked accounts supported both sides of the NFL kneeling debate, with some supporting the players and sharing Black Lives Matter slogans while others joined the president in denouncing the kneelers as unpatriotic and anti-police. This shows how Russia’s main goal is sowing chaos in its primary adversary, not supporting any particular cause."
An example of Russia sending out social media messages on both sides of an issue which I am personally aware of is that while deluging some people in both Britain and America with attacks on vaccination, often vitriolic ones, Russian trolls and bots have also supported aggressive and divisive pro-vaccination messages.
The article is aimed particularly at US voters in the mid-term elections but is also relevant to those of us in any other Western country. You can read it in full here and I strongly recommend it.
All the most successful political campaigners and spin doctors in Western democracies right down to the present day follow a similar if hopefully more honest and nuanced approach in which there is still one narrative which supports their case and they try to get as many people as possible to support it.
The present Russian government, however, does not work like that.
The Putin regime seeks not to convince but to divide, not to persuade people of one truth but to discredit truth itself.
When the Nazi regime wanted to disavow responsibility for something Goebbels would settle on one variation or another of "The Jews did it," "The Freemasons did it," "The Communists did it," or "It didn't happen!" and every Nazi propagandist would stick to that line.
When the Soviet Union shot down a Korean civilian airliner in 1983 at the height of the cold war, the soviets put out a fairly consistent message that the airliner had actually been spying and that the incident was a deliberate provocation by the United States.
There are some similarities between the 1983 and 2014 airline tragedies, but when a BUK missile from Russia's 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade shot down an Malaysian airliner in 2014, the Russian regime put out multiple different and indeed incompatible explanations, some of them absurd. Some of these stories do not appear as though the authors were trying so much to convince anyone so much as make people throw up their hands in disgust and stop believing anything.
Nicholas Grossman has written an excellent article,
"A Voter’s Guide to Russian Shenanigans"
which argues that despite a lagging military and weak economy, Russia remains a modern superpower because they have developed a new form of information warfare against which nobody in the West has yet come up with an effective counter.
As he argues,
"The goal is simple: If Russia can’t scale to the heights of its enemies, the country will bring its enemies down to its level. With propaganda, cyberattacks, and support for divisive political causes, Russia aims to weaken rivals in the West, undermine public confidence in democracy, and incapacitate NATO and the European Union."
"Russia’s information warriors try to heighten divisions, sometimes with exaggerations and lies, but often simply by amplifying divisive voices within their target countries."
"One of Russia’s disinformation campaigns targets the White Helmets, a volunteer organization in Syria that conducts search-and-rescue efforts after bombardments. The White Helmets’ work reveals how much Russian-backed Syrian military operations are killing civilians, and Russia has tried to discredit them as al-Qaeda terrorists.
"Russian accounts helped spread a claim on Twitter by a Swiss doctor who inaccurately claimed a picture of White Helmet workers treating children was fake. It received more than 12,500 retweets and was translated into multiple languages — those posts also got thousands of retweets — and kept spreading even after the doctor admitted he made a mistake.
"With this disinformation, Assad’s supporters get “evidence” to counter and distract from accusations that he’s responsible for the mass murder of civilians. Additionally, it floods the information space, creating enough uncertainty that third parties think, “I don’t know who to believe,” and therefore don’t demand action to stop it."
"Russia’s post-election efforts in the United States have aimed more at pushing on culture war wedges. For example, Russian-linked accounts supported both sides of the NFL kneeling debate, with some supporting the players and sharing Black Lives Matter slogans while others joined the president in denouncing the kneelers as unpatriotic and anti-police. This shows how Russia’s main goal is sowing chaos in its primary adversary, not supporting any particular cause."
An example of Russia sending out social media messages on both sides of an issue which I am personally aware of is that while deluging some people in both Britain and America with attacks on vaccination, often vitriolic ones, Russian trolls and bots have also supported aggressive and divisive pro-vaccination messages.
The article is aimed particularly at US voters in the mid-term elections but is also relevant to those of us in any other Western country. You can read it in full here and I strongly recommend it.
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