Live from Vienna – Russian bots turned on to break in #JournoSafeOSCE conference

Позначки

informational war, Russia

On June 15-16, 2015, OSCE hosted media conference in Vienna. Delegations of dozens countries, including Ukraine and Russia, were invited to participate. Propaganda became one of the key issues of the conference. Users tweeted with hashtag #journosafeOSCE.

During two days of the conference online discussions were dominated by Ukrainian twitter users, providing live coverage of the event. Their tweets got public attention, thus, were retweeted by hundreds of other users. Among the most active Ukrainian participants were: Nastya Stanko, Maxim Eristavi, Myroslava Gongadze, Maxim Eristavi, Andriy Dihtiarenko and myself

Voices of Russian representatives did not attract public attention. In a response, Russian delegation started blaming organizers for promoting Ukrainian tweets, later – accused Twitter in promoting Ukrainian users. Finally on June 17, Russians used their tradtional power – bots to divert topics of conference discussions. Now hashtag #journosafeOSCE is actively used by dozens of bots, posting spam – quotes from some writers, news from Russia, news about celebrities etc

More details on the issue:
https://storify.com/vitaliymoroz/russian-bots-were-turned-on-to-interfere-journosaf

Previous stories via tweets on the conference:
https://storify.com/vitaliymoroz/examining-propaganda-day-1-at-journosafeosce
https://storify.com/vitaliymoroz/examining-propaganda-day-2-journosafeosce

Research: The ISIS Twitter Census by The Brookings Institute

Позначки

conflicts, ISIS, social media, twitter

Brookings published a special report targeting the issue of ISIS social media presence on March 2015. The authors have identified and described 40,000 ISIS supporters on Twitter. How does it work? What does it mean in the conflicts of 21 century?

The core findings by the researchers are the following:

• In October through November 2014, at least 46,000 Twitter accounts were used by ISIS supporters.
• A sample of 20,000 confirmed ISIS supporters was examined to extract demographics data, with a plurality of users apparently residing in the territories controlled by the Islamic State. The second-most common location for ISIS supporters was Saudi Arabia.
• Nearly one in five ISIS supporting accounts designated English as their primary language. Almost three quarters selected Arabic, and one in 20 selected French.
• Thousands of accounts have been suspended by Twitter since October 2014, measurably degrading ISIS’s ability to project its propaganda to wider audiences

Peter Pomerantsev discribes the role of Russian TV in threatening global security

Позначки

research, Russia, Ukraine

Peter Pomerantsev investigates the role of Russian television in global conflicts, appealing to “nation’s emotional traumas”.

Good television is no longer merely about humanitarian values; it’s now a matter of global security.

Having drawn in the viewers and disabled their critical defenses, Russian television reaches deep into the nation’s emotional traumas. Politicians and presenters feed the audience nonstop reminders of the difficult 1990s, when, they argue, the West cheered at the sight of a weakened Russia and of the tremendous human toll of the two world wars.

“Unplugging Putin TV.” Foreign Affairs. 9 Mar. 2015. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. .

Report Protest in the Age of Social Media targetting Ukraine published

Позначки

research, social media, Ukraine

Carnegie Corporation has recently published a report “Protest in the Age of Social Media.” The authors (Joshua A. Tucker, Megan Metzger, Duncan Penfold-Brown, Richard Bonneau, John Jost, Jonathan Nagler) analyze how Ukrainian opposition leaders and, more noticeably, civic activists used social media to reach audiences and bring the Yanukovych regime down. The authors are looking for implications of social media impact:

If social media is indeed changing the ways in which protests emerge and evolve, then what is learned about the Ukrainian situation will provide important lessons for understanding and anticipating political developments all over the world.

(тексти) Нові варіанти інформаційної війни – Почепцов

Позначки

informational war, infowar, Russia, Ukraine

Георгій Поцепцов – відомий дослідник інформаційного простору, професор, доктор наук. Написав текст для MediaSapiens щодо українсько-російської війни. Радимо:

Главной новинкой этой информационной войны стала работа с виртуальными объектами. Всё, что было самым центральным в ней, на самом деле было виртуальным в плане того, что отношение к реальности там как бы отсутствовало или было абсолютно другим. Нет явной реальности в таких пропагандистских объектах:

– «Новороссия», хотя бы потому, что исторически Донецка и Луганска там никогда не было,

– «вежливые люди», потому, что человек с автоматом в руках с трудом может пониматься как вежливый, поскольку его слушают и без лишних слов,

– «народный мэр», «народный губернатор», которые становились такими на площади, то есть юридически таковыми не были,

– проведение выборов с автоматчиками за спиной вряд ли укладывается в понятие «выборов», кстати, как выяснилось уже постфактум, крымский «Беркут» был вовсе не крымским и не «Беркутом».

Повний текст за лінком

Социальные медиа как память о террористах

Позначки

Russia, social media, terrorists

The Insider: “Пока Россия открещивается от своего военного участия в событиях на востоке Украины, ее солдаты продолжают выкладывать доказательства своего присутствия в соцсети и не гнушаются фотографироваться на фоне тел убитых. Правда, потом очень быстро удаляют страницы.” – Детальнее за линком.

Israel and Gaza war seen throught the frames of propaganda

Позначки

gaza, infowar, israal, propaganda, social media

The outbreak of war between Israel and Gaza brought huge attention of the international media and population of many countries, as it often happens, divided in their sympathies – Arab countries blaming Israel cruelty while Western Jewish diaspora libeling Palestinians as terrorists.

Users have actively jumped into the virtual information war against each party using social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter.

The New York-based author Gilad Lotan analyses those informational attacks: “many use content sourced by a number of very popular Facebook pages. These are public pages that typically surface funny memes, or buzzfeed-style attention-grabbing images, highly shareable content perfect for Facebook feed-style interactions.” Read more at Medium.

Russian insurgents identified in Ukraine with help of social media

Позначки

Russia, Ukrainian crisis, VKontakte

“With the power of crowdsourcing, but mostly with the power of social networking and public profiles, the identities of a series of Russian insurgents in Donetsk have been uncovered. Men have been comparing the size of their guns since the invention of gunpowder, and thankfully these few decided to flaunt just that. Publicly. On the internet.”

Details: http://ukrainianpolicy.com/insurgents-identified-the-green-men-of-vkontakte/

Users informing West about Ukraine

Позначки

slideshare, social media, Ukraine

On Jan 23, 2014, a blogger Nazar Bartosik published online a 31 page presentation in English to explain the key facts about ongoing anti-government protests in Ukraine that resulted in the deepest political crisis in modern Ukrainian history. He published his presentations in SlideShare, that allows users to share slides for free. Bartosik’s presentation has captured a global attention – it has been viewed almost 700,000 times during the first week since its publishing. The publication was widely shared in social media, including Twitter and Facebook, the geography of the audience varied from the States to Ukraine. As of April 13, the presentation gathered 721 444 views.

I contacted Bartosik in Facebook to comment on his motivation to publish presentation. Bartosik explained:

I’ve started making the presentation after first news about killed and tortured people during the protests. That was the moment when I understood that situation in Ukraine is not likely to resolve without support from outside and the horror of the events at that time was not represent at all in foreign mass media.Since I was not in Ukraine at that time, the informational support was the only thing I could think of to help people in Ukraine.

Nazar Bartosik is a Ukrainian living in Germany, thus he aimed to raise awareness about events in Ukraine in the West. His efforts were targeting the informational flow of Western media. To some point, it was successful attempt to explain a complicated issue in simple language.

Неефективність російської пропаганди

Позначки

Internet, media, research, twitter

За рупором пропаганди Russia Today стежать 637 000 користувачів Твітера. Це у 43 рази більше аніж кількість фоловерів (14 600) невеликого донецького сайту Новости Донбасса, що веде Oleksiy Matsuka та кілька інших журналістів. На Russia Today працюють сотні журналістів, які, з огляду на показники соцмедіа, просаджують мільйони кремлівських доларів. Чому? Один з показників ефективності соцмедіа – взаємодія з користувачами.

Офіційний екаунт Russia Today впродовж останніх 30 днів має 159 000 взаємодій з користувачами (ті, хто ретвітнули, відповіли, згадали у своїх твітах). У донецького видання – 55 000, усього лиш в три рази менше від росіян. Відповідно вираховує коефіціент корисної дії екаунтів. ККД @rt_com – 0,24, KKД – @novostidnua – 3,74 (кількість взаємодій з розрахунку на 1 фолловера за місяць) Тобто, ефективність поширення інформації від Новости Донбасса в 15,6 разів більша як у Russia Today. Отож, змагатиси в інформаційному просторі набагато краще якісною правдивою інформацією, аніж тупою пропагандою. Користувачі своїми діями доводять.