Thread by @Beefeater_Fella

1/13 Disinformation and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine: This thread is about the Informational Warfare Landscape in which #Nafo operates.

#Disinformation is the false, inaccurate, or misleading information deliberately created, presented and disseminated, whereas… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

2/13 The Russian disinformation narratives are often false, or obscure facts with half-truths and “#whataboutisms” (efforts to respond to an issue by comparing it to a different issue that does not engage with the original one).

Russian actors employ a diverse strategy to… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

3/13 Similar tactics have continued and expanded during the war, pointing to the ongoing evolution of disinformation approaches and constant need to adapt and respond. The UK Government, for example, found that TikTok influencers were being paid to amplify pro-Russian narratives.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

4/13 More overtly, the Russian government runs co-ordinated information (and disinformation) campaigns on its own social media accounts. For example, 75 Russian government Twitter accounts, with 7.3 million followers garnering 35.9 million retweets, 29.8 million likes and 4… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

5/13 Roughly 75% of the tweets covered #Ukraine and many furthered disinformation narratives questioning Ukraine’s status as a sovereign state, drawing attention to alleged war crimes by other countries, and spreading #conspiracy theories (Thompson and Graham, 2022).

6/13 For its part, LinkedIn has been blocked in Russia since 2016, as the company has chosen not to meet regulatory requirements stipulating that personal information of Russian citizens must be stored on servers in Russia (BBC News, 2016). Almost a month into Russia’s #war of… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

7/13 Telegram, a messaging service created by the founder of #VKontakte, has also become a means for sharing information among its users, as well as providing a platform for media outlets and journalists to continue their work uncensored. Offering both encrypted and unencrypted… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

8/13 Russian state control and propaganda

Beyond the overt efforts to censor specific content, the Russian legal environment is highly unwelcoming to the free press. Private and public media organisations are either owned or run by government-linked individuals and entities.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

9/13 The outlets that receive these funds, including #RT and #Rossiya Segodnya, which owns and operates #Sputnik and RIA Novosti , are state-linked and state-owned outlets that “serve primarily as conduits for the Kremlin’s talking points”, according to the US State Department… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

10/13 Where audiences previously received information predominantly through Russian state-backed television, the rise of the internet and social media have allowed the Russian government to conduct information operations on a far broader scale at a fraction of the price (Paul and… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

11/13 Another, however, is that an online presence has allowed them to reach audiences abroad easily and cheaply. Indeed, on some platforms, Russian state-backed media has likely made money from spreading propaganda.

Prior to the war, estimates place the value of advertising… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

12/13 As reflected in their budgetary allocations, Sputnik, RT and #TASS are among the most influential government/state funded and operated media outlets for spreading disinformation at home and abroad (Statista, 2022; Cadier et al., 2022).

RT in particular has seen rapid… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

13/13. An abridged analysis from an original report and analysis from the #OECD. Please visit the website for the original publication and more information on the informational warfare space.

oecd.org/ukraine-hub/po…