Russia’s Dilemma – How The Open Internet Challenges Governmental Control

 

We often hear about China’s ability to censor the Internet and in effect put up the “Great Digital Wall” around the country. But what about Russia? Surely they are wont to close their information borders to shield their autocratic government from criticism.

 

The NY Times February 21, 2021 ran the same article with two different titles. The online version which you can see at http://nyti.ms/37QjyRc and is a photo source ran “China Censors the Internet. So Why Doesn’t Russia?” and the print version had “Russia Fears But Can’t Quit Open Internet”.

 

Russia has set the stage for the internet challenge by providing “cheap high-speed internet access reaching into the remote corners of the vast country while angering a populace that has fallen in love with Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok” according to the article.

 

Mr. Putin’s leading adversary, Alexi Navalny, has been particularly adept at employ YouTube, Instagram and Twitter as vehicles to express his opinions.

 

State media and media regulators find themselves increasingly challenged. In the words of Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the Russian English language television news network RT “To quit using these platforms while everyone else is using them is to capitulate to the adversary,” she said in a statement to The New York Times. “To ban them for everyone is to vanquish said adversary.”

 

it’s not like the Russian government doesn’t have new laws to control the internet. According to Reuters (see: http://reut.rs/3bHUEEr, which is another photo source) “laws enables Russia to block or restrict access to sites that “discriminate” against its media, part of a campaign under Putin to increase Russia’s internet “sovereignty” that has fueled fears of creeping China-style controls.” Another law authorizes fines of up to 20% of the Russia-based revenue from sites that repeatedly fail to remove banned content. Russian lawmakers have repeatedly accused YouTube and FaceBook of these practices. While a third prohibits the disclosure of personal data of Russian security officials which leads me to another NY Times article.

 

The next day, February 21, 2021, The NY Times published a print article “Investigative Journalism Is Flourishing in Russia” while the online version touted “How Investigative Journalism Flourished in Hostile Russia” (see: http://nyti.ms/3aX2U4r, another photo source).

 

While conjuring up visions of Lubyanka Prison, Russia cyber practices are actually more porous. For example, anyone can by call records, cellphone geolocation or air travel records of other citizens for a couple of dollars through the social media app Telegram on a dark web marketplace. The Russians call int “Probiv” meaning to pierce. Here are a couple of tidbits that have been revealed:

 

• ·       The investigative nonprofit outlet Proekt identified Mr. Putin’s “secret family,” and found that the woman it linked to the president had acquired some $100 million in wealth from sources tied to the Russian state.
• ·       IStories used a trove of hacked emails to document how Mr. Putin’s former son-in-law built a huge fortune out of state connections.
• ·       Bellingcat, which was founded in London, and the Russia-based Insider identified, by name and photograph, the Russian agents who poisoned the defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in 2018.

If you’re interested in Russian independent journalism take a look at Proekt Media - http://bit.ly/3utMVlY, another photo source.

 

The bottom line is that Russia is likely to be dealing with the two-edged sword known as the internet for quite some time. Psyopers and influencers of all stripes need to be aware of the environment so that they can mine it and employ it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Russian Covid Vaccine in Latin America: Disinformation or Aggressive Marketing?

 

The Russians have been aggressive in their promotional tactics for their new Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine. On February 5, 2021, the NY Times reported “Russian Vaccine Promotions Undercut U.S.-Made Shots” (see: http://nyti.ms/3cSg6sBm, which is also a photo source).

 

According to the Times, the Russians are harnessing Spanish-language social media and the official Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in Mexico City to mount a campaign targeting Latin America. It must be working because Mexico “which this week signed a deal to acquire millions of doses of the Russian vaccine, and Argentina, which last month began vaccinating its citizens with it.”

 

It’s no secret that market leaders Pfizer, Oxford-Astra Zeneca, Moderna and newcomer Johnson & Johnson are in for the money. Big Pharma is not a nonprofit do-gooder organization and are much more likely to focus on markets that can afford to pay the best prices for their vaccines. You can learn more from this CNN article at: http://cnn.it/3q5pRHF.

 

 

Is it illegal to tout your product? There is a legal expression called “seller’s puff”. According to Cornell Law School this is “The practice of exaggerating the value of a product, a business, or property for promotional purposes. Sellers are not generally held liable for exaggerations that are considered puffing. But they can be liable for misrepresenting the facts of a product.”

 

The Times quotes Bret Schafer from Alliance for Security Democracy (hyperlinked for your convenience),  which describes itself as “a nonpartisan initiative housed at the German Marshall Fund of the United States” as saying “Almost everything they are promoting about the vaccine is manipulated and put out without context,” and “Every negative story or issue that has come out about a U.S.-made vaccine is amplified, while they flood the zone with any positive report about the Russian vaccine.”

 

Another of their sources, Jamie Longoria of First Draft (hyperlinked for your convenience and a photo source) who concluded ““Russia steadily seeded a narrative that has grown and been, to some degree, accepted.” Longoria continued “They have cultivated a large audience and regularly rank in the top 10 of the most-shared stories or links,” “The new approach was particularly effective because the Spanish-language Twitter and Facebook accounts of Russia Today and Sputnik, because two state-controlled media outlets, regularly rank among the most influential in Latin America”

 

 

If we take these two sources comments and analyze them, are they very much different than many of the advertising claims we hear every day?

 

So - what takes their efforts over the line?

 

The campaign also goes out of its way to promote false claims about the dangers of US vaccines while touting their own and quoting other sources such as a Chinese report that falsely claimed, “that falsely claimed the U.S. media had remained silent on deaths related to Pfizer’s vaccine.”

 

One of my favorite allegations, as reported in the Times of London (see: http://bit.ly/3aKq2BF, which is also a photo source) “is that the Astrazenca vaccine could turn people into monkeys because it uses a chimpanzee virus as a vector”

 

The Chinese are not to be outdone in the influence world. On January 29, 2021 the NY Times published a major article “Inside a pro-Huawei Influence Campaign” about “a covert online push to sway telecommunications policy in favor of the Chinese company”. (see: http://nyti.ms/2YZZqr3)

 

Our adversaries are clearly upping their game – are we?