RUSSIA: Who is responsible for Russian propaganda?
The war in Ukraine, and the ongoing NATO debate in Finland and Sweden, have activated Russian trolls and propaganda bots. This is especially prevalent in social media. Many users have come across pictures, fake news, strange videos, and publications aimed to influence public opinion in this historic time.
Russia seeks to extend their sphere of influence by using troll factories, such as St Petersburg based "Cyber Front Z". They use methods such as botnets and human troll networks to spread propaganda and perform cyber attacks. They also target social media apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp or TikTok. This is usually called information warfare.
BOTS
You should be aware when surfing on social media and accessing your emails. These are the most common ways to receive propaganda.
Russia uses bots to spread its message and try to make it seem like many people are discussing the same issue. In fact, this is not true. The bots execute what the host computer instructs them to do.
Bots are computers infected by malware that are under the control of a host computer. Botnets are networks of these infected computers. These are instructed to propagate fake messages and spread them to many people. Botnets can include anything from a few computers to tens of thousands acting in the same way at the same time. They work over the internet and use instant messaging apps or direct messages. A 2021 research paper Bot Attacks: Top Threats and Trends, two thirds of internet traffic is made up of bots.
TROLLS
Trolls are real people, government backed or they can be average internet users, who spread fake news. They try to create rifts in society. The way trolls work is simple, they throw a bone out there and try to create chaos and high emotions by generating users to comment and argue online. Once the conversation heats up, the trolls fade to the background and watch how the fight unfolds.
When many people react to the troll's post, their goal is achieved. They are able to spread their fake news and generate traffic and interest in the topic. If their conversation starts to dwindle, they reignite the spark again with a provocative image or a video, or some insensitive comment.
Trolls can be highly efficient. They can leave hundreds of messages per day on social platforms. These messages are targeted to push the Kremlin agenda and to criticise the opposition. Leaked documents show that ''workers'' have very stringent expectation such as maintaining a certain number of accounts on social media, gain a few hundred followers per month, and a certain amount of likes.
WHAT DO THEY SHARE?
They share false news or information, with the intention to get it to spread. We should be very suspicious of news on social media that has an unknown source. You should read the headlines to check if they are cryptic or clickbait. Also, be alert of offers that seem too good to be true in your email or private messages.
If you do click on such content, then you should look at the writing style and the quality of the story writing. Look for typos in the text and how the story progresses. Also look at how professional the article looks like.
This propaganda can potentially be generated by machine learning. This is a method of data analysis that automates analytical process building. It’s important to understand that machine learning has improved dramatically during the past few years. This can be a threat in the future as higher quality scam messages and fake news could be developed and become harder and harder to identify in the future.
You should also check the publication date of the article because often old news is republished as “new news”.
The reader should really try to also check the publication author and the original source of the article. Big followings can be a source of credibility for fake news, but these things can be bought with money. It’s especially important that the author’s credibility is verified.
VIDEOS
Social media users should especially be careful of videos. There are many of these videos out there and they can seem real. Using open-source tools, many ‘’verified videos’’ have been proven to be fake. For example, a video from an airsoft fight can be edited to look like a war zone in Ukraine, Iraq or Afghanistan. Logos and filters can change the atmosphere and context quite much.
A final tip is that you shouldn’t share content unless you are sure that the article is real and verified.
DON’T FALL IN THE TRAP
Experts warn that there will be an increase of exposure for Finnish users of social media and Finnish newspapers and services. It is advisable to keep a cool head and take everything you read with a grain of salt.
Even if you read something that is infuriating and it tempts you, don’t interact with it. The best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them. When there are no participants to the conversation, the bots and the trolls slowly fade away.
ALGORITHMS
One way that content is controlled on social media and search engines is through algorithms. Content is very carefully filtered and curated to what you are wanting to view. The more you interact with the content, the more that you will be exposed to it.
When it comes to social media, places like TikTok and Twitter are full of war media, even things like Discord. Young users, teenagers, are exposed to this kind of propaganda without being fully aware of what they are viewing or interacting with.
THREE GROUPS
We can identify propaganda spreaders in three categories:
- Troll farms and army of bots: These are maintained by the Russian organisations with direct ties to the Kremlin. Troll farms have very systematic and organised operations. The disinformation is generated by the state, then this is spread onwards.
- State actors and individuals that support the Kremlin propaganda: They consistently push the agenda forwards. Most times, they are useful idiots who don't understand what is the information they are pushing. They don't realise that they are spreading false information. We shouldn't give these people too much thought.
- Average users: These are individuals who are not affiliated with any agendas, but fall prey to believing agitating news or posts they find online. These individuals then comment, share and further spread the misinformation to their friends and families. As their sphere of influence is more intimate, there is a greater chance that their friends and family will believe the news. And then, spread it even further.
CONCLUSION
In the past few weeks, in Finland, there has been an increase in news reports that target how to disseminate whether information is false. Also, how to spot troll farms and how their operations work.
It is speculated that Finnish individuals have been approached to participate in Russian troll farms or be hired state actors in spreading fake information. Some prominent Finnish politicians and academics have done it willingly, either with intention or by acting as useful idiots for the Russian state.
I believe that people these days are getting better at spotting fake news and shutting it down quickly. We have seen hybrid warfare now in action in Estonia, Ukraine and moat recently Finland, Romania and other EU states. The most docile of these attacks have been DDoS attacks on government websites, taking them offline momentarily.
Finland is gearing up for a stronger information campaign and further, more destructive cyber attacks in the future. This will be in response to whatever decision for NATO membership that the Finnish government will make. We just have to wait and see!
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