THE DIGITAL ABUSE AGAINST ME CONTINUED throughout the winter of 2014–2015. At the same time, my crowdsourcing was going well, as internet users were sending me tips on Russian trolls who were spreading propaganda on multiple platforms.
On Twitter, fake accounts posted brutal YouTube videos that showed Russian-supported militias mistreating captured Ukrainian soldiers. In one video, Russian militia members cut the Ukrainian flag from a bound soldier’s uniform sleeve and forced him to eat it.1 The trolls shared the video widely, celebrating the violence, which was potentially a war crime.
The Russian network RT also used YouTube for propaganda means. Among the videos it published was one in which an RT reporter stood by the side of Russian soldiers firing GRAD missiles on Ukraine.2 As the first rounds were fired, the reporter celebrated.
The pro-Kremlin-YouTube videos that tend to go viral are those that are professionally directed in the style of Western music videos. One of the most horrific of these showed Ukrainian soldiers being sent to their deaths in East Ukraine, and others having their limbs amputated.3 By showing this type of violence, the video aimed to cripple Ukrainians’ will to defend their country.
The video also reinforced the common Russian conspiracy theory that accuses the United States of being the root cause of the war in Ukraine. In this manipulative video, an actor dressed as a high-ranking American officer hands a medal of honor to a badly injured Ukrainian soldier suffering in a hospital bed. Between the cuts, the video flashes short messages framing Ukraine as the “real aggressor.”
Together, these videos gathered millions of views in just a few days, as the troll and bot accounts spread them internationally, with the help of YouTube and Twitter.
The skillfully manufactured videos reminded me of a previous investigation in which I had researched how jihadist terrorists used social media as a propaganda tool. In 2008, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I worked as a foreign affairs correspondent for the biggest daily newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat. With the help of experts, I analyzed al-Qaeda jihadist recruitment materials and agitation techniques from online open sources. Even back then, it was easy for terrorist groups to motivate people into joining their global jihad or a local conflict through social media. All they needed to do was upload an extremist speech or an exciting combat video spiced up with catchy battle songs to YouTube. Anyone with internet access could watch the video, become radicalized, and join the cause.
Analyzing jihadist propaganda and its impact revealed how the makers manipulated the use of symbols, language, music, and illustrations to imprint a permanent psychological mark in people’s minds. The pro-Russian videos spread by Twitter bots use precisely the same technique. Videos also appeal to audiences who may lack reading skills.
Historically, moving images and movies have been an important tool in building and sustaining regimes, for example in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. That’s why Vladimir Putin took over Russian television early in his presidency.
RT, in particular, has long understood the power of viral social media. They were among the first networks to upload their televised content to both Facebook and YouTube. In addition, they skillfully launched brand new social media products, such as In the Now, which produces emotion-inducing popular videos, usually totally unrelated to politics, in order to gain an international audience.
As I browsed through the Russian state’s invasion of the most popular social media platforms, I learned how propaganda conveyed through digital means was a fascinating, cheap, and dangerous weapon. Especially at risk were those audiences who felt let down by society. For them, digital hate communities built by malicious actors provided a place to speak out without censure, and have their anger, disillusionment, and frustration reinforced by others.
Ultimately, as my investigations continued, I could see that jihadists, the Kremlin’s digital propagandists, and neo-Nazis all used the same platforms—namely, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—and had the same goals: to attack and undermine Western democratic systems, spark regime changes and conflicts, endanger civilians, and create wider acceptance of their extremist ideologies. The reason these groups are so successful is because the social media companies don’t regulate their platforms well enough, and the US government doesn’t regulate the social media companies. Some of the most vicious pro-Kremlin YouTube channels are monetized—meaning that their owners earn money from their content. I found various American advertisers promoting their products and brands on troll channels. Facebook, too, profits from extremists by selling them ads and visibility. Google, for its part, doesn’t moderate its search results based on factuality. Trolls can buy ads that serve fake news on the first page of a Google search, for example, about Eastern Ukraine.
Thus, it is easy to see how the social media giants enable the meddling of the Kremlin’s trolls.