Russia’s Social Media Propaganda Campaign Is Backfiring, So It’s Banning Facebook In Russia
Over the last five to six years, The NarrativeTM has been that Russia has built up such powerful propaganda and social media disinformation peddlers that it could effectively drive its own narrative and convince entire populations to go along with its preferred version of reality (i.e., not reality). There have always been reasons to question just how accurate a story that is, but it has been widely believed. That's why it's been kind of interesting to see how the narrative on the internet over the past few weeks of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine... has been pretty universally against Russia. Indeed, there's at least some evidence that Russia is flabbergasted that its own social media propaganda efforts have been a complete and total flop.
Its failed attempt at building support on Twitter is the latest illustration of a Russian propaganda war that's fallen flat in the West. Since the invasion, the Kremlin has struggled to penetrate new barriers imposed on digital platforms and advance an anti-Ukraine narrative. On newer platforms, such as TikTok, pro-Ukraine content has dominated.
Ah well.
It appears that Russia's response to all of this is... to freak out about actual information getting into Russia that debunks the Putin-driven narrative of what's happening. There had been earlier demands made on social media companies to block fake news" (i.e., accurate reporting) and now that that's failing, Russia is going to just block Facebook entirely.
Russia's media regulator said Friday it will block access to Meta-owned Facebook in the country as it escalates pressure on media outlets and tech platforms amid its invasion of Ukraine.
The regulator said Facebook violated federal law by restricting access to accounts of several state-affiliated media outlets, according to a translated version of a statement. The move marks an escalation from earlier limits Russia placed on Facebook.
Last week, the agency placed partial restrictions on Facebook for the alleged violation.
I'm sure that will work.
It appears Russia is trying to block other sites as well, threatening to block Wikipedia, for example. The Wikimedia Foundation responded to that threat appropriately, telling Putin to pound sand.
In all, it kinda looks like Putin himself believed the false narrative that Russian trolls and disinfo peddlers really could control the public sentiment around the world, and is now completely baffled by its failures.