Propaganda in the month of May

In the past month, Social Media was once again at the center of stories about influencing. There was also a report on the Lithuanian steps in fighting the propaganda channel Sputnik as well as the counterblow to Johan Bäckman in Finland.

Facebook blocked the activities of right-wing extremists
ERR and Postimees wrote about how the activist group Avaaz revealed a large network of right-wing Facebook accounts and groups. They have already closed groups and accounts with an estimated 6,000,000 followers. In total Avaaz reported over 500 suspicious groups and Facebook pages operating in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Poland and Spain. Many of them spread fake news or used fake accounts and -profiles to artificially increase the visibility of the party or website they supported. This violated Facebook rules.

At the beginning of June, Delfi wrote about the data collected from Social Media environments and the conclusions drawn from them.

Russian military strategies
In May, the Postimees published an article by Edward Lucas on eleven political warfare tactics in Russia.

In the same month, Vladimir Juškin wrote a report in the Postimees on the strategy of active defence of General Gerassimov at the General Assembly of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences.

Lithuania limits Sputnik’s activities
ERR wrote that the Lithuanian authorities detained the chief editor of the local branch of the Russian propaganda channel Sputnik at Vilnius airport and sent him out of the country. Marat Kasem, the editor-in-chief of Sputnik Lithuania, was banned from entering the country for five years.

Singapore passed a law restricting fake news
Helsinki Sanomat wrote about the „fake news law“ adopted in Singapore. According to the news, the law gives officials the opportunity to define materials published on Social Media platforms as fake news and then limit their distribution.

Bäckman’s book was removed from sale to the public
Delfi wrote about how Prisma’s chain of supermarkets in Finland removed Propastop readers well-known Johan Bäckman’s book „the EU’s info war on Russia“ from sale to the public.