Putin may be playing hardball but experts believe he could be using an old playbook
Each day new lines are drawn in an information war, which is the companion to the horrendous shooting war in Ukraine. And while Zelenskyy has riveted the world with his inspiring social media messages, Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing hardball – signing a new censorship law that threatens prison if you call his invasion “war”Instead of a “special military operation.”
Experts believe that Putin could be using an old strategy, despite his technological superiority.
“We are watching Russia turn into the Soviet Union of the early 1980s when information was impossible to get, and they were trapped inside their own information silo,”Olga Lautman (a Russia analyst living in the United States), told me. “But,”She stated, “in the short term, they may silence people. Long-term, it will not succeed.”
Troy Hunt, a cybersecurity specialist with a base in Australia, agreed. “It’s never going to be like what it was in the Cold War, in terms of being able to chop off information coming from the West,”He was referring to the new law on censorship. “Obviously it has a big impact. But you’ve got so many people that have access to technology that can easily circumvent these controls.”
This week has seen a rapid pace of counter-moves and moves to control information. Facebook and Twitter acted aggressively to remove Russian bots which were causing confusion and misinformation. This is unlike other instances in the past. Russia also banned Facebook from suppressing state-run news.
The BBC suspended operations in Russia because of the censorship threat — as did CNN, ABC, CBS and Bloomberg – but the service also resurrected World War II-era short-wave radio frequencies to broadcast news in Ukraine and Russia. Russia shut down Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.-backed service, early Sunday. TikTok, and Netflix both closed their services in Russia that day.
At the moment, Instagram and WhatsApp continue to be free to use Russia for their business. Data from eMarketer, reported by the Washington PostOnly 7.3% of Russian internet users are on Facebook, as opposed to 51% for Instagram, and 66% for WhatsApp.
It’s this sort of dynamic that is driving a new and entirely unpredictable chapter in the information war that is raging over Ukraine.
“Can you have an Iron Curtain – of the economy and of information – in our interconnected world? I don’t think we know how it all plays out,”Stephen Engelberg is the editor-in-chief of ProPublica and a former New York Times reporter in the Soviet bloc. “An awful lot of people (in Russia) seem to believe there’s a Nazi problem in Ukraine. How many believe it? It’s a good question.”
“It is much harder to do a total lockdown in the tech era,”Susan Chira was the former foreign editor for the New York Times. She is also the editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project. This journalism non-profit focuses on criminal Justice. “They are tech-savvy and are trying to do what the Chinese have done. But people are determined to get the word out, and they are pretty creative.”
Chira spoke with Russian friends this weekend and they confirmed that police had been stopping people on the streets and at airports, asking for their text messages. “It may be a cat and mouse game,”She said that she added: “It’s fierce. It’s really fierce.”
Hunt added: ”We have tens of millions of people with access to technology – that is a great leveler… You’ve got so many people that have access to technology that can easily circumvent controls.”
Lautman also pointed out the wider public’s access to technology and mobile phones. ”The people who are dying in Ukraine have family. The information will be reported via phones,” she pointed out. “During the Soviet Union, there was no technology. Now we’re in the information age. Because of the internet, younger people will figure out the workarounds.”
Lautman stated that the Russian people won’t tolerate the severe restrictions that international sanctions will impose on their daily lives.
“In the 1980s, people were used to standing in bread lines. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. You have some wealthier Russians traveling to France, buying Louis Vuitton. You cannot undo that. Right now every single company is exiting Russia,”She noted that Ikea Moscow had been in an ecstatic frenzy when it announced that it was closing down.
While economic sanctions are not the only thing that Russia has, it is certain that Russia will struggle to obtain accurate information in the near future.
Russia’s independent radio station Echo of Moscow was “liquidated”By its board. The independent television station TV Rain said it had suspended operations and Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper that had been the subject of attacks in recent years, was also close to shutting down, according to Numerous media reports.
Engelberg noted that Ukraine has done an excellent job of controlling information. Zelenskyy is on a 24/7 Twitterstorm offensive, and some potent memes are going viral like the one about 13 brave Ukrainian border guards telling a Russian warship. “go fuck themselves”Before an attack (and who? The assault was not lost on usHowever, they have been taken prisoner of war.
“We’re in some pretty virgin territory,”Engelberg spoke.
