Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Jan 14, 2023 12 tweets 5 min read Read on X
In today's #vatnik soup I'll introduce a Chinese ultra-nationalistic tabloid & "China's Fox News", The Global Times (GT). It's a daily newspaper published by CCP's People's Daily. The newspaper has fabricated stories, spread conspiracy theories and published disinformation.

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The Chinese version was established in 1993 and it is one of the most read newspapers in China. Its popularity rose after the paper reported on Western incidents such as the accidental bombing of Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999, 9/11 and the Iraq War.

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After the launch of a propaganda mill Russia Today in 2005, the Chinese government wanted to extend their overseas media reach, too. For this purpose, they launched an English version of the site in 2009, the US edition in 2013 and the South African version in 2014.

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GT launched their "social media monitoring" program with "comprehensive response plans" in 2019. GT's ex-Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin adopted the combative & confrontational "wolf warrior" strategy that loudly denounces criticism towards the CCP & then focuses on counter-attack. 4/12
The term comes from the movie "Wolf Warrior 2" (really!) and can also be referred as the "No you" tactic. With this tactic, China has taken more active role in international debate, often aligning them against the "decadent West". The same tactic is applied by the Russians.

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GT is best-known for its hawkish and insulting editorials and Hu Xijin has said that it shares the sentiments of CCP's politicians - meaning that it says the things that the politicians and diplomats themselves can't. Hu Xijin was fired from his position in 2021.

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The paper has published several articles containing disinformation. In Jan, 2021 they urged Australia not to use the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19, while pushing their own Sinopharm vaccine. They've also spread the fake news that COVID-19 was created by Moderna.

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In 2021, ProPublica and the NYT reported that GT was coordinating a state-wide campaign to deny the Uyghur human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Since then, GT has published several articles blaming the US of disinformation campaigning against China.

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In Jun, 2022, GT tweeted a claim that thousands of angry protesters were marching against NATO's aid for Ukraine in Brussels. The rally had no connection to NATO, but was aimed at inflation and high prices.

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GT is what in disinformation research is called an "information laundering machine". People tend to believe stories when they come from "prestigious" news sources. Propaganda producers have realized this and they've established online propaganda mills that produce biased...
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... news that are then spread on social media platforms via troll farms and state actors such as diplomats and embassies to give them more credibility. These "newspapers" have little to no investigative journalism and they are heavily affected by an agenda,...

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..., often copying rhetoric from fake news blogs and other propaganda mills. They also often publish aggressive editorials and op-eds, steering away the responsibility from state actors such as the CCP.

Troll farms:

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Mar 5
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the Russian shadow fleet: a network of ships that operate in secret, dodge sanctions, smuggle oil, and undermine the security of Europe’s seas while keeping Putin’s war machine running.

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To understand the shadow fleet, let’s rewind to 2022. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the West responded with economic shockwaves. Sanctions were imposed, Russian oil was banned, and a price cap was introduced. For Russia, this was a disaster.

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But Putin is well-familiar with economic warfare. Russia quickly created a “shadow fleet” – an armada of rusting oil tankers with false identities and forged paperwork,and illegal trade routes designed to dodge Western sanctions and keep the rubles flowing.

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Read 16 tweets
Feb 28
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll re-introduce the American-British social media personalities, Tristan and Andrew Tate (@tatethetalisman and @cobratate).

They’re best-known for their social media grifts and allegations of human trafficking and rape.

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The history of the Tate brothers was introduced thoroughly in my original Vatnik Soup thread, but since then so much has happened that this pathetic duo needs another review. The soup will go through a lot of the evidence and videos in which the Tates incriminate themselves.
2/22
The Tates became (relatively) rich through their webcam (pimping?) businesses and self-help courses targeted at young, desperate (incel?) men. At some point, they had up to 75 women working for them, and the brothers later admitted that the business was a “total scam”.

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Read 23 tweets
Feb 24
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce Russia’s main narratives and explain how they are being spread online by Russian operatives and MAGA Republicans. After three years of war, Russia still relies on old narratives, now amplified by the Trump administration.

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Throughout the years – or even decades – Russia’s narratives against the West have remained largely the same. Many of them date back to the Cold War era, when the KGB and CIA were bitter enemies. But since then, the media landscape has drastically changed.

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Russian propaganda and disinformation revolves around four main themes:

1) Russia is the victim,
2) Historical revisionism,
3) The “decadent West” is collapsing,
4) The CIA and/or “evil Anglo-Saxons” are behind every revolution & anti-Kremlin activity.

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Read 26 tweets
Feb 22
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a former Ukrainian politician and president, Viktor Yanukovych. He’s best known for selling his country to Russia, trying to turn it into an authoritarian state, and eventually fleeing to Moscow once his plan failed.

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Now that Russia and the US are planning to replace president Zelenskyy with someone who’s more willing to sell the country to them (most probably Viktor Medvedchuk or one of his cronies), it’s a good time to remind people how Yanukovych and Putin almost took over Ukraine.

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Yanukovych’s first attempt at power came in 2004, when he “won” the Ukrainian presidential election through massive fraud. The rigged vote sparked the Orange Revolution, a wave of protests that forced the election to be re-run. His opponent, pro-Western candidate…

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Read 23 tweets
Feb 20
Russia uses Tucker Carlson as a vessel for its propaganda. Many of the most popular narratives originate from his misinformation-filled show, which is funded by Elon. Some of these lies include:

- Bioweapons labs
- Gonzalo Lira being a "journalist"
-Zelenskyy being a dictator
- The banning of the Russian Orthodox Church
- The banning of Viktor Medvedchuk's pro-Kremlin propaganda network
- Putin's interview and revisionism
- That ridiculous St. Petersburg propaganda piece

Bob Amsterdam, who Tucker has interviewed a few times is paid by a Russian oligarch, Vadym Novynskyi.

We now know from the Tenet Media case that Russian state media wants to spread Tucker's verbal diarrhea everywhere. These fake stories have finally made their way to Trump.Image
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Read 4 tweets
Feb 19
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll take out my crystal ball and predict what the alliance between the US and Russia could mean for Ukraine, Europe and geopolitics in general. These recent changes could be a real risk for the whole of Europe, and need to be addressed quickly.

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Some of us have been reporting on Trump’s pro-Kremlin tendencies for years now. His Moscow connections go back all the way to the late 80s, and the 2016 US presidential elections raised a lot of red flags about the close connections of his associates to Russian operatives.

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The recent Rubio-Lavrov meeting in Saudi Arabia was an eye-opening event for many who were still optimistic about Trump and Ukraine – the outcome was that Putin got absolutely everything he’s ever wanted from the war, and at the same time it seems that the US got nothing.

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Read 24 tweets

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