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Millions of fake posts related to the new coronavirus circulate on social media platforms around the world these days, according to the latest data from the European Commission, as Russia is doing a lot of misinformation against countries in this period. The EU, including Romania. Until now, the European Commission has identified, through a site specialized in the detection of false news, no less than 110 “narratives” (main topics) related to Covid-19, present in more than 2,700 “false news” articles . from places close to Moscow.
The full European Commission report on the crisis caused by the coronavirus can be read in its entirety here.
In some cases, the false information generated violent actions by those who were influenced by them. In the UK, public opinion was shocked when credible British citizens read on the internet that the new 5G technology was responsible for the spread of the coronavirus and set fire to the telecommunications pillars of a large company, and attacked its employees in the Street. . The British government and telecommunications companies have been forced to react to calm things down, assuring the population that there is NO scientific evidence to prove a link between 5G technology and any virus.
British Minister Michael Gove said this theory is widespread among people “it is a dangerous aberration”, and the head of the National Health System described it as “the most stupid and false news of the lowest kind.”
The blast wave of this sudden epidemic of hatred for telecommunications companies fared much better after it was discovered that he spoke Russian on the other end of the thread.
Russia Today, the Kremlin press institution has become a real platform for the spread of 5G conspiracies, even before the coronavirus epidemic. The New York Times has suggested that insisting that the Kremlin news channels support the idea of the “5G apocalypse” is part of a plan by Vladimir Putin, which seeks to delay the spread of this technology in countries more developed than Russia, who is in danger of staying. back, technological and economic.
Romania, “case 191” of the drawer with false news
On the other side of Europe, in Romania, other citizens were convinced that vitamin C is the miracle cure that cures you of Covid-19. Intravenously administered vitamin C would therefore be a kind of super aspirin of the poor, a mega panacea that is easy to find and acquire, but is always embedded in the treacherous and powerful Big Pharma industry.
The history of vitamin C in Romania is listed as “Case 191” on the website euvsdisinfo.eu, an instrument of the European Commission specialized in detecting false news from the East. The “patient zero”, in this case, was the Sputnik site of the Republic of Moldova.
Other similar stories, about miraculous treatments that take the corvid by hand, include drinking silver, garlic, wonderful minerals or drinking water every quarter of an hour.
In Romania, on the recommendation of the Strategic Communication Group, the authorities have already restricted access to a dark site, breackingnews.xyz, which used a Russian platform and cultivated conspiracy theories to discredit the Romanian authorities and the measures taken to combat Covid-19.
“We mentioned that the site in question presents shocking article titles, with false information, which are configured so that when trying to access the articles to read their content, the mandatory option of distributing the material on the Facebook account is displayed. In fact, the information that a user can access / see is only the one mentioned in the articles title, since there is only the deceptive appearance that more false information can be accessed, “explained the authorities in Bucharest in the request. to block the Russian site. “
These days a real war is being waged through the trenches of the Internet and the basements of Facebook infected by trolls. The rumors and the news that come in secret are not relaxed, they spread faster than light and cause another pandemic, called infodemie And that leads to the resistant microbes of chaos and mistrust.
The rain comes from the Russians. False information Moscow denies everything and puts everything in “anti-Russian obsession”
For some time now, STRATCOM, the EU’s European External Action Service, has been increasingly obsessively targeting the Kremlin, an older customer in Western Europe, regarding misinformation and operations involving the production of much smoke and fog.
Humanity is currently facing a pandemic that has caused an unprecedented crisis in the modern era. Logically, in such a situation, people seek to be increasingly informed. With increasing information, misinformation also increases.
“Many state, non-state economic actors benefit from this need for information. It is a very wide spectrum of actors and then the EU, through the Foreign Action service, felt the need to systematize the conspiracy stories that circulate in the Member States, “said Alina Bârgăoanu, affiliate member of the European Center of Excellence for Digi24.ro. Combating hybrid threats and former expert of the European Commission to combat fake news.
“At the EU level, a lot has accumulated since 2014 and we know very clearly how it works”, says political analyst Cristian Parvulescu about the wave of disinformation from the Kremlin.
“After 2014, the Russians say there is no difference between the state of peace and the state of war. Basically it is a permanent war. And then, for them, it is legitimate to resort to those means”, adds Pârvulescu.
“The disinformation on issues of viruses, pandemics, viral problems, is a very long narrative, it is about the Cold War, the Soviet Union.” is the analyst Sorin Ioniţă.
With such a rich history, the “narrative” can be very easily recycled depending on the context, just as the same Lego pieces can be used for various constructions.
“There is a pattern, a pattern that fits the specificity of the culture of each community. At the state level, they have already achieved a very good knowledge that they can transmit certain types of information to a certain type of public. gets the maximum influence ”, says Pârvulescu.
“When you feel that there is sensitivity in the population, one more thing is launched. Now, when the pandemic has taken hold of us and the people have become anxious and emotional, it is a very good place to invest in this type of propaganda” ., adds Ionita.
Russian Presidency spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the European Commission’s accusations and said that these accusations are unfounded and pointless, noting that the relevant internal document does not contain any specific example and is not linked to a particular press body. .
“And we are talking about unfounded accusations, which in the current situation are probably the result of the anti-Russian obsession,” concluded Peskov.
In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was the target of external attacks launched by enemies that transmit false news about the coronavirus to generate panic among the Russian population.
What is the manufacturing recipe? Who are the “pastry chefs”
“The recipe that has also been working for a long time in Romania is the polarization of very controversial issues, which provoke heated discussions and passions. Example: binary discourse of the type «we vs. them, “says Bârgăoanu.
The erroneous information expert gives as an example the conclusions of the Muller report, on Russia’s interference in the US elections, which can be taken as a reference manual on the Kremlin’s preferred policy of dividing a society and inducing insecurity and mistrust.
“First, the elements with potential polarization are identified. What are the issues that can divide a society?
Once identified, it continues to identify the public that is for or against, ”explains Bârgăoanu.
According to Pârvulescu, the “pastry chefs” who prepare the ingredients of these specific recipes for propaganda are specialists who know their profession well.
“There are mixed teams of sociologists, psychologists, and secret agents working on these ingredients, tailored to local specifics.”
And in Romania, as in the free world, people display their personal data. Facebook has become an ideal spy tool. Efficient and manageable.
“People put all their data there. And I put it on casually, which makes them easily identifiable. The preferences, the age, the places where they were allowed to classify them in a certain type and the distribution of a certain type of information,” he says. Pârvulescu.
What is the ultimate purpose of misinformation and fake news?
“What is being done? The human rights system, the basis of democracy, is under attack,” says Pârvulescu.
Therefore, the main idea is that this crisis caused by the pandemic is the failure of democracy. The solution: a strong hand is needed, one that is softer with rights and freedoms.
“It is a slogan that reproduces, that of the incapacity of democracies in the fight against the coronavirus. We have, on the one hand, the exemplary mobilization of China, which has managed to reduce the number of victims. All those who have not heard in Romania To give an example, here is China! ”says the political analyst.
“What matters is the weakening of Western democratic institutions, the weakening of confidence in European structures,” adds Ionita.
What is the basis of democracy? Human rights, explains Pârvulescu.
“In this case, it is about the inefficiency of human rights, in the fight to protect the citizen. The idea: the citizen is better protected in hand force regimes. This is a good demonstration, individual rights become contrary to collective law ”.
And Facebook and Google algorithms have become the best drivers of misinformation in the East these days.
Sorin Ionita is of the opinion that, at present, the Russian disinformation system is no longer pyramidal, it operates strictly, from top to bottom, on the order of some KGB generals. “It is a fairly decentralized system. It also has numerous state actors, like the entire state average, with numerous channels, from televisions to Sputnik radio stations.”.
In this way, the true beneficiaries become extremely difficult to find and test.
“Also, there are parastatal actors, non-state actors, like the Internet Research Agency, that firm in St. Petersburg, farm car. That is not a public organization, it is a private company of a type in the category of oligarchs very directly associated with Putin. But things are done in private. You don’t make money from the budget, you make money from the oligarch who has diverted them from public resources anyway. The goal: to be more opaque, more difficult to achieve.“Explains Ionita.
The financing mechanism for propaganda and fake news made in Russia is extremely sophisticated.
“From the Kremlin there is practically no order. It is like this, from time to time, the great leadership, through a speech. Then all the agents and actors are activated. Sometimes, even competing with each other, they step on their feet. It is a lot ferment, creativity, inventiveness “
How can we detect the ingredients of false information and conspiracy theories?
Alina Bârgăoanu identified three specific types of misinformation and notes that the boundaries between them are difficult to trace.
“There are three main manifestations on the spectrum of information disorder: missinformation, disinformation and the third, the most damaging, malformationin English And in the Romanian language we must prepare to introduce this term, “misinform”, after the example of “mistreat”, “considers the Romanian specialist in false news and erroneous information.
Regarding the main topics of debate, Bârgăoanu identified three main “narratives”
A first issue concerns the manufactured nature of the virus.
The main idea is the criminal hand that gave birth to the coward. “From here, the differences begin: the virus is manufactured in the United States, China or Israel. Then there are different purposes for which it escaped: it was launched with good intentions to impose a new world order or to delay the process of aging. There is a common thread, but the international ones differ “, says the specialist consulted by Digi24.ro.
The second major narrative group concerns miracles.
Therefore, in Romania, in addition to vitamin C, I took baking soda mixed with lemon, vinegar and salt water. “There are narratives that have circulated on televisions and WhatsApp or Facebook messages. As a parenthesis, here we have the vaccines discovered or stolen from Romania, or the cheap medicines stored, to fill the Big Pharma accounts,” says Alina Bârgăoanu.
The third narrative is based on the idea that everything is a conspiracy.
Basically everything is part of the agenda of imposing compulsory vaccination, a united idea, according to Bârgăoanu, with previous movements against vaccination and the idea that everything is a conspiracy against the traditional family and conservative values.
“I identified them, but the themes evolve and adapt to the way things evolve in real life. Now I calculate that the theme of the destruction of the traditional family will be amplified in the context of the decision to keep churches closed for the Easter period, “says the specialist.
Also, any misinformation or fake news (regardless of its source) has a specific robot portrait.
First, identify if it fits into a conspiracy theme that is part of the three main narratives. This is the first alarm signal ”, declares Bârgăoanu.
“A second red flag is the so-called rhetorical markers. Messages like ‘clarify yourself’ or ‘The truth no one has told you so far.’ I think these viralization mechanisms should warn us that we are dealing with messages that are based on the fact that that, especially now, when we are isolated in our own homes, we cannot have face-to-face discussions, “warns Bârgăoanu.
“Most of the issues are complex, they surpass even the best specialists, when these messages appear, they should alert us,” adds the disinformation specialist.
Beware of trolls and useful idiots. Which can be found on both sides of the barricade
“What happened in the United States is that the trolls associated with the car factory in St. Petersburg invested in these issues in both positions. They invested in trolls that would attack the issue from a certain point of view and also invested in trolls that were according to the respective topic ”, considers the Romanian expert in false news.
“The analysis error that I think we often make in Romania is believing that such steps are associated with a certain part of the public space, with a certain segment.” We need to identify issues with potential for polarization. The recipe for the car factory in St. Petersburg deals with the same issues, no matter what the position, for or against, ”adds Alina Bârgăoanu.
“Above all, we are caught in this category, when we amplify certain messages, inadvertently. It is very easy to fall into the syndrome of superconfidence.
In addition to trolls, we also have the huge category of useful idiots.
“Useful idiots are also sincere,” says Sorin Ioniţă. “They believe in a message from the wrong information sources and spread it out of conviction. That is one category. But there are those who are interested in spreading it. There are two categories: pragmatic and useful idiots. And the balance between them is shifting. Pragmatic immediately reaches where they feel the wind of power, “says Ionita.
Possible explanation of the reasons why Russian propaganda targeted vitamin C towards Romania
As Pârvulescu affirms, the authors of propaganda and disinformation are in charge of sculpting each myth or false news in a specific country. What is the link between vitamin C, the wonderful cure against Covid-19, and the specific Romanian in this case?
“Why is vitamin C related? It connects with a whole world. It binds with citrus fruits. For a whole generation, citrus fruits were banned. They are the forbidden fruit of the Communist period. Under these circumstances, it may have been speculated on this address. There may also be a deficiency of vitamin C, which may exist in Romania. It is something Vitamin C seems innocent. It is easy to get. It is available to anyone. Why do we need a vaccine, medications, prescriptions to wait months , when we already have vitamin C? In this way, you sow mistrust “, concludes the political analyst.
This type of information war will continue. In some offices with upholstered doors, or simply blocking apartments, generals, trolls, pragmatists or simple idiots, they will continue to report victories, sending orders or harsh words, in case of failure. The souls huddled between the walls of the car farms will continue to wait for signs of nowhere, to be awakened after a deep sleep. People trapped between apartment walls by pandemic traffic restrictions will simply laugh or roar after reading the latest information in the field.
Paradoxical as it may seem, in the information services, information is, in fact, the most useless, as the British writer John Le Carre affirms.
The information, however reserved it may be, is perennial. Therefore, the most important value for services is people. It is a cliche that has become so banal that we can hear it at any job interview.
And fixed information services do this: instead of information, they prefer to collect people. A collection of people. A fountain farm. Or trolls. Of useful idiots or generals full of importance.
