{"id":39103,"date":"2020-08-24T16:27:34","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T14:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libmod.de\/russian-soft-power-in-moldova-fake-news-media-propaganda-and-information-warfare-copy\/"},"modified":"2020-08-24T16:51:22","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T14:51:22","slug":"russian-propaganda-leveraging-social-media-and-coronavirus-in-georgia-head-of-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/russian-propaganda-leveraging-social-media-and-coronavirus-in-georgia-head-of-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Propa\u00adganda Lever\u00adaging Social Media and Coron\u00adavirus in Georgia Ahead of Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Fake News Konzept, shutterstock\/\u200bpedrosek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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As part of our project \u201cEastern Part\u00adner\u00adship 2.0\u201d we publish a series of arti\u00adcles about the three EU asso\u00adci\u00ada\u00adtion states. The authors from the region (Mikheil Benidze, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Victor Gotisan) analyze the impact of Russian soft power (fake news, media propa\u00adganda and infor\u00admation warfare) in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova from a civil society perspective.<\/h3>\n

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Over recent years, Russian inter\u00adference in the elections and political processes of other countries has become a major topic of discussion and concern in the West. In Russia\u2019s immediate neigh\u00adbourhood, however, this phenomenon is nothing new. Evidence of the Russian Federation\u2019s hostile attitudes towards its sovereign neigh\u00adbours no longer comes as a surprise to anyone, given the Kremlin\u2019s record of military aggression, starting with its 2008 invasion of Georgia and occupation of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region followed by the 2014 annex\u00adation of Crimea and occupation of the Donbass region in Ukraine. However, along with direct military action, the Kremlin has been engaging in a continuous campaign of infor\u00admation warfare aimed at under\u00admining democracy and desta\u00adbil\u00adising the political situation in these countries. Georgia has been a primary target of Russian influence opera\u00adtions, the Kremlin\u2019s objec\u00adtives there are detering the process of European and NATO integration, thus derailing Georgian foreign policy, and to increase political polar\u00adi\u00adsation domestically.<\/p>\n

As is the case elsewhere, the Russian propa\u00adganda campaign in Georgia seeks to exploit existing vulner\u00ada\u00adbil\u00adities in society. Tradi\u00adtional values, religion and terri\u00adtorial conflicts are some of the issues that provide fertile ground for the manip\u00adu\u00adlation of public senti\u00adments in Georgia. To advance its interests, the Russian government supports various pro-Kremlin actors<\/a>, such as political parties, media outlets, NGOs, and radical extremist groups, which often act as vehicles for spreading anti-Western narra\u00adtives. The country\u2019s most influ\u00adential insti\u00adtution \u2013 the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC), is also subject to signif\u00adicant Russian influence<\/a>, and orthodox clergy often serve as sources or ampli\u00adfiers of pro-Russian and anti-Western narra\u00adtives. Not all of these actors have direct and open links with Russia though, and some may act as natural ampli\u00adfiers or \u201cuseful idiots\u201d, contributing to the overall pro-Kremlin ecosystem of soft power and propa\u00adganda that thrives on conspiracy theories and divisive narratives.<\/p>\n

A Media Devel\u00adopment Foundation (MDF) study of anti-Western propa\u00adganda observed that<\/a> anti-Western narra\u00adtives take a three-tiered approach: sowing fear, instilling despair, and offering alter\u00adnative solutions. According to the MDF\u2019s report, anti-Western propa\u00adganda uses the danger of antag\u00ado\u00adnising Russia, the risk of war and of the loss of terri\u00adtories, as well as threat of a loss of identity to promote fears in Georgian society. The main messages used to instil despair focus on scepticism about the willingness on the part of the EU and NATO to support Georgia and portrayals of liberal decline in the West, as well as aiming to fuel mistrust towards insti\u00adtu\u00adtions and under\u00admining belief in Georgian sover\u00adeignty. Against this backdrop, direct dialogue with Russia and political and military neutrality are offered as a solution for terri\u00adtorial problems and a pro-Russian orien\u00adtation presented as a way to protect Georgian identity and ensure economic stability.<\/p>\n

In its propa\u00adganda ecosystem, Russia has relied heavily on Facebook \u2013 the most popular social network in Georgia. Pro-Kremlin actors have been inten\u00adsively setting up and using social media infra\u00adstructure to spread disin\u00adfor\u00admation and false news. In the context of its social media monitoring, the Inter\u00adna\u00adtional Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) \u2013 a Georgian election and democracy watchdog \u2013uncovered organised networks on Facebook that operated in a coordi\u00adnated manner to artifi\u00adcially amplify and dissem\u00adinate content from the pro-Russian outlets News-Front and Sputnik.<\/p>\n

News-Front, an overt and aggressive vehicle of Russian disin\u00adfor\u00admation, was estab\u00adlished in occupied Crimea in 2014 and launched in the Georgian language in October 2019, becoming engaged in infor\u00admation opera\u00adtions on Facebook shortly there\u00adafter. Specif\u00adi\u00adcally, the ISFED\u2019s inves\u00adti\u00adgation found that<\/a> \u201cNews-Front attempted to instigate antag\u00adonism and aggression among Georgian Facebook users, dividing the society, creating political polar\u00adization [...] and employing a range of tactics to spread anti-Western, pro-Russian messages.\u201d As part of its operation, News-Front used fake accounts that shared News-Front content in a covert, organised and targeted manner to at least 31 open Facebook groups with a combined audience of over half a million. Apart from promoting anti-Western and pro-Russian content, this network targeted both pro-government and pro-opposition Facebook groups \u201cwith tailored provocative messages which may have served the purpose of dividing the society into two camps and triggering confrontation\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is probably no coinci\u00addence that News-Front\u2019s Georgian service was launched one year ahead of Georgia\u2019s October 2020 parlia\u00admentary elections. It is highly likely that inauthentic Facebook network was being set up to influence pre-election discourse and further fuel polar\u00adi\u00adsation in Georgia, where political debate is already very charged. However, the start of the coron\u00adavirus pandemic and subse\u00adquent global health crisis provided an opportune moment for News-Front to launch an infor\u00admation offensive in Georgia. News-Front and its Facebook network were quickly mobilised to spread disin\u00adfor\u00admation, conspir\u00adacies and anti-Western messages<\/a> in Georgia. COVID-related Russian disin\u00adfor\u00admation in Georgia attempted to distort reality and promote the view that Georgia should distance itself from the West and covertly attacked state insti\u00adtu\u00adtions and measures taken to contain the virus. Once again, Russian disin\u00adfor\u00admation attempted to discredit the US-supported Richard Lugar Centre for Public Health Research (Lugar Lab) of Georgia\u2019s National Center for Disease Control, accusing it of involvement in the spread of the virus and under\u00admining trust itsef\u00adforts to combat the coron\u00adavirus outbreak. Kremlin has long fuelled conspiracy theories<\/a> relating to Lugar Lab, even accusing it<\/a> of producing biological weapons<\/a>. News-Front also exploited the GOC\u2019s reluc\u00adtance to limit church services and desire to continue the use of a shared spoon in its communion ritual<\/a> despite public fears about the spread of the virus, portraying the COVID-related restric\u00adtions as an attack on the Orthodox Church and Eucharist practice and urged believers to attend church services to receive communion with a shared spoon.<\/p>\n

The ISFED also found that, like News-Front, another Russian media outlet, Sputnik, also used fake Facebook accounts<\/a> to artifi\u00adcially amplify content in Georgia. In this case, however, the content being shared was not political but related to a wide range of general-interest topics such as tabloid news, fashion, cuisine, tourism, horoscopes, gardening, agriculture, emigrant commu\u00adnities, etc. Combined reach of the 11 pages and 41 groups Sputnik used to spread such content was nearly 2 million Facebook users These covert opera\u00adtions may have been aimed at estab\u00adlishing Sputnik as a reliable source of infor\u00admation on various general issues, driving up traffic to its website, and, poten\u00adtially, collecting the personal data of users by asking website visitors permission to allow notifi\u00adca\u00adtions from Sputnik.<\/p>\n

Facebook removed global News-Front infra\u00adstructure<\/a> from its platform in April 2020, banning the organ\u00adi\u00adsation from re-estab\u00adlishing itself on the network. Fake accounts associated with Sputnik found by ISFED were also removed at around the same time. This may have limited some of the capabil\u00adities of the Russian disin\u00adfor\u00admation infra\u00adstructure on Facebook ahead of Georgia\u2019s parlia\u00admentary elections, however these inves\u00adti\u00adga\u00adtions demon\u00adstrate that Russia is and will be exploiting capabil\u00adities of social media to influence public discourse and elections in Georgia. It appears that individuals related to News-Front are already attempting to establish an alter\u00adnative presence on Facebook. However, alongside the outlets that are officially affil\u00adiated with the Kremlin, there are numerous other \u201cinfluence assets\u201d on Facebook that are spreading divisive narra\u00adtives on value-based issues similar to those that Russian propa\u00adganda has exploited elsewhere in Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the 2018 presi\u00addential elections in Georgia, the ISFED\u2019s monitoring found<\/a> 52 Facebook pages that spread nation\u00adal\u00adistic, xenophobic, anti-liberal, homophobic, Islam\u00ado\u00adphobic and anti-Western narra\u00adtives. By 2020, some of those pages had also started operating with complex inauthentic networks \u2013 a self-proclaimed \u201calter\u00adnative news source\u201d, Alt-Info, is pushing anti-Western propa\u00adganda, including the ideas of Kremlin ideol\u00adogist Alexandr Dugin, through a coordi\u00adnated network of Facebook pages and groups<\/a>. The pro-Russian party Alliance of Patriots<\/em> also seems to be running a coordi\u00adnated network<\/a> on Facebook.<\/p>\n

Georgia\u2019s 2020 elections represent a key milestone for the country\u2019s democ\u00adratic devel\u00adopment and are likely to determine how ambitious Georgia will be in pursuing its declared path of democ\u00adratic trans\u00adfor\u00admation and Western integration moving forward. There is no doubt that the Kremlin will use all of its soft power and propa\u00adganda infra\u00adstructure to influence these elections and public discourse. Given the ongoing pandemic, the already polarised political landscape and signif\u00adicant domestic disin\u00adfor\u00admation and discred\u00aditing campaigns that government proxies and some opposition actors are conducting against one another, the infor\u00admation environment will be the key challenge of these elections. Handling this challenge will be a major test for Georgia\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

Mikheil Benidze is current Senior Advisor and former Executive Director at the Inter\u00adna\u00adtional Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED). ISFED is a major election observer and democracy watchdog in Georgia that has operated since 1995. <\/em><\/p>\n

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