- Analysis: State TV can damage your health
- Analysis: The fifteenth time
- Response: EU vs Disinformation on Facebook
- Analysis: Quick guide to self-censorship online
- Analysis: NATO summit approaching
- Friday fun: Hysterikus propagandikus mozkoebikus
|
|
State TV can damage your health
Novaya Gazeta correspondent Anna Bessarabova underwent a challenging experiment: she spent two entire days watching Russian state TV. "I was a bit concerned by a story from last year that a college teacher killed his own mother, who used to be a huge fan of a particular TV show. But it will not end like this with me," writes the author.
Bessarabova was examined by media psychologists before and after the experiment. During the weekend, she noted how her feelings changed – how her brain switched on and off and how she starts to shout out swearwords while watching TV.
"Until the beginning of the experiments, all indicators appeared to be normal. After entering into the TV reality, we registered some significant changes. Most of all, the perception of justice in the world has suffered; the belief in the goodness and the beauty of the world sharply decreased; the feeling of meaningless and randomness of events has also risen above the normal level," says one of the psychologists that examined Ms Bessarabova. Similar changes are "characteristic of a traumatised image of the world". Faith in the goodness of people and in the ability to manage one's own life also decreased. Another expert comments: "The media environment is a threat factor to the psychological security of the individual." Read the whole article (in Russian). (Image from Novaya Gazeta)
|
|
For the fifteenth time
RT, previously known as Russia Today, was censured by the British media regulator OfCom this week. This time, it was for lack of impartiality in its coverage of Turkey.
"Among a number of allegations on the programme it said Turkey had been supporting Islamic State while conducting the 'bloodiest genocide in Kurdish history'," writes The Guardian. Although there were numerous allegations against the Turkish government in two programmes broadcast in March, there was just one single comment in them that presented the point of view of the Turkish authorities. According to OfCom, the channel “failed to preserve due impartiality in these matters over a series of programmes taken as a whole”.
This is already the fifteenth time that RT was censured by the British media regulator. The Kremlin-backed channel is criticized not only by British authorities, but also by the expert community. Ben Nimmo, senior fellow at the Institute for Statecraft in London specialised in analysing information warfare and hybrid warfare, showed some time ago that the coverage of pro-Kremlin media outlets like RT or Sputnik was heavily skewed in favour of Brexit. Read the whole OfCom report.
|
|
|
Like us on Facebook! The new EU vs Disinformation page brings you stories, videos and fun facts revealing manipulation and disinformation in pro-Kremlin media. Like the Twitter account @EUvsDisinfo, the Facebook feed be will be both in English and in Russian. Click here to see the new page.
|
|
Quick guide to self-censorship online
Russia has traditionally enjoyed a high degree of internet freedom and for many years, political control targeted almost exclusively TV broadcasts. Now, ahead of the next election cycle, we begin to see the Russian version of a crackdown on free speech online taking shape.
A survey of rulings handed down by Russian courts in the past year (published by the Sova research centre and mentioned in last week’s Disinformation Digest) reached two important conclusions about the new reality: it is mainly the laws banning “calls to extremism”, and “extremism” that are used as the legal framework for cracking down on free speech online; and the number of cases is on the rise (138 cases in 2014 against 194 in 2015 and 3 convictions in 2007).
|
|
|
QUICK GUIDE TO SELF-CENSORSHIP ON THE RUSSIAN INTERNET
- DON’T QUESTION IF CRIMEA BELONGS TO RUSSIA
- DON’T QUESTION THE OFFICIAL WW2 NARRATIVE
- DON’T SHOW IMAGES OF NAZI SYMBOLS IN RUSSIA*
- AVOID USING THE SOCIAL NETWORK VKONTAKTE
- REPOST = ENDORSEMENT
*NOT EVEN ON HISTORICAL PHOTOS FOR ILLUSTRATION PURPOSES!
|
|
|
|
On Tuesday, independent outlet Meduza highlighted that Russian courts make no difference between sharing and writing posts; a number of times, citizens have been convicted for simply pressing the share button. Sergey Smirnov of the human rights NGO MediaZone explains this as an unfortunate “Soviet” tendency, i.e. the practice when the authorities “simply pick these cases to reach a certain statistical result in their work.” Andrei Soldatov, editor of agentura.ru, sees it as part of a tendency: “In contrast to traditional totalitarian systems, Russian authorities have been focused not on how to block access to information, but on how to suppress free discussions;[..] to intimidate them as much as possible so that they will not participate in discussions on important political issues”.
|
|
|
|
Polina Petruseva, also known by her pen name Polina Danilevich, received a fine for this post in VKontakte, showing her native city, Smolensk in western Russia, under the occupation of Nazi Germany during World War 2. The reason was that the swastika was visible on a flag in the photo (Image: RFE/RL)
|
|
|
Second, Meduza finds that, last year, almost all cases occurred on Russia’s largest social network, Vkontakte. This is because Vkontakte has Russian owners, says Sakis Darbinian from the online human rights NGO Roskomsvoboda. “This means that law enforcement authorities can easily obtain any information of interest to the user. VKontakte unconditionally complies with […] the so-called law on bloggers [which] obliges the administrators of a social network to collect and store all logs, all registration data of users within six months. And if Facebook and Twitter aren’t happy about sharing this kind of information, VKontakte passes it to the authorities upon request. Without these data, it is impossible to make a criminal case and to prove guilt in criminal proceedings.”
|
|
NATO summit approaching
Ahead of the NATO summit in Warsaw on 8-9 July, Sputnik pays due attention to the event: Sputnik demonstrates its angle on European security issues quoting German deputies from the Left party, who support Willy Brandt's idea of a "collective security system including Russia". The story reiterates MP Sarah Wagenknecht's lines on the "necessity to focus on easing tensions, peaceful solution of conflicts through dialogue and discussions, the steps contrary to the current Western policy of pressure on Russia, sanctions and exclusion of the country from the G8 group".
Sputnik also covers a possible NATO-Russia Council meeting that could be convened soon after the NATO Summit. According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Meshkov, "the central issue of the meeting will be the decisions of the alliance's Warsaw meeting aimed at strengthening the bloc's eastern flank and its consequences for all the aspects of European security". The message by the Russian delegation to OSCE Parliamentary Assembly is also straightforward: "Russia should be treated as an equitable dialogue partner in the framework of NATO-Russia meetings or they will serve no purpose."
The picture is completed by Sputnik stating that "since 2014, NATO has been building up its military presence in Eastern Europe, using Moscow's alleged interference in Ukraine as a pretext for the move."
|
|
Friday fun: Hysterikus propagandikus mozkoebikus
Popular Russian cartoon Masyanya does not ignore the mental health effects of consuming disinformation. In this episode, protagonist Hryundel visits a friend and receives a strange reception: His friend calls Hryundel by swearwords, believes that everybody wants to kill him, and shouts "pindosy" – a derogatory term for Americans (not unlike "Yanks"). Hryundel brings him to the doctor, where the patient is put into a straitjacket. The doctor diagnoses "hysterikus propagandikus mozkoebikus" and adds that this is not uncommon these days. Watch the clip (in Russian), which has been seen more than 1.6 million times.
|
|
|
|
