Comments on today’s (Aug. 12, 2022) Washington Post print edition article “Russia finds loopholes in Big Tech efforts to quash online propaganda” page A13.
At first, I tried to decide if the authors of this story, while intelligent and articulate are naïve, or just willing cogs in the massive US/EU/NATO propaganda machine. Upon reflection I think the authors and many if not most fellow Americans are so immersed in a single sided world view that they are unaware of their surroundings just like most times we are unaware of gravity or the air we breathe.
When the Russians disputed the cause of an explosion that destroyed part of a prison they managed which killed a number of Ukrainian POWs the authors were perfectly fine with the idea that the major social media platforms hid or removed the Russians side of the story. Was the Russian version correct or just a coverup? Who knows? But the public will not be given an opportunity to decide. The publics’ view has been curated for them by the invisible powers of someone. Was it possible that the Ukrainians had concocted a story to hide their own involvement in the disaster and to blacken the reputation of their foe? We’ll never know because we have been denied the opportunity for formulate our own opinion.
The authors have no problem with social and mainstream media blocking Russian propaganda but is it just possible that we are receiving mega doses of propaganda from the Ukrainian side? Where lies truth? Who remembers “The Ghost of Kiev”? Shot down six Russian fighters in the opening days of the war. Then the number jumped to almost 40! The story was spread in the MSM and social media without a shred of fact checking or simply resorting to common sense. When later the story turned out to be a total fabrication no one appeared to be chagrined for being taken as a fool. The narrative simply switched to what a great piece of information ops this was. If it gave the Ukrainians a bit of hope and pride that was a good thing in the eyes of the Mainstream Media. At the same time however, the incident destroyed whatever small bit of credibility their reporting still had (at least among sentient readers). Abstract truth was irrelevant. But that means we really don’t have any idea what is really happening.
I could not help but chuckle at the remarks of Twitter’s chief censor that the company does “not amplify or recommend government accounts of states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict”. Did she block US government accounts when the US was involved in “interstate conflict” with Iraq, Syria, Yemen? Afghanistan? (To name a few). The actions of the press and social media to block or shadow ban all dissenting views on the war and other major stories of interest, e.g., vaccinations, abortion, or Hunter Biden’s laptop for example dispenses with the “limit access to free information” part of her criteria. YouTube brags that it has blocked millions of Russian state funded videos. Was it because they were 100 percent false or was it because they differed from the accepted US/EU/NATO narrative? Were these banned videos (etc.) fact checked? Are the videos produced by the Western allies fact checked? (Refer above to Grey Ghost).
The article refers to research done by something called “Advanced Democracy”, described as nonpartisan. I suggest the reader try and find who funds this organization. Its’ website is literally blank. No “about” section, no facts about its origin or history. In the old days the CIA went through a great deal of trouble to hide its participation in front organizations like the Asia Foundation. I am sure many of its employees didn’t know it was a front organization. With Advance Democracy our boys are either too lazy or know that no one cares to bother hiding their tracks. BTW the use of the descriptor “nonpartisan” is interesting. The authors protest too much. The whole censorship issue was never partisan when it came to the war with Russia. Both left and right are enthusiastic supporters of the war.
The article has highlighted the social media platform Telegram as a serious crack in the otherwise highly successful blockade of information from the Russian side. It is one of the few platforms not controlled by the tech giants. The authors undercut their view of Telegram as a threat to total information control by stating that collectively these noncontrolled Telegram channels “have more than 50,000 subscribers”. This is a laughingly small number. Twitter alone has 360 million users who send 500 million Tweets per day. Know also that many of the Russian Telegram sites are in Cyrillic and thus unavailable or unusable to the vast number of potential readers. The reality is that one must be a highly motivated and skilled user of social media to get around the blockade of news from the other side.
The article quotes extensively from a Katie Harbath CEO of a small “civic tech consulting firm”. Katie is also a Republican Party functionary and an affiliate of the Atlantic Council, both of which are strongly pro-Ukrainian. Give her credit. While she is fine with a total blockade of Russian information, she is at least aware that “content moderation” can be taken too far. Such thinking is a start.