Everyone says that something must be done. The Kremlin disinformacija is an industry that goes full speed, a false and tendentious news factory in full Cold War style. But so far Western countries responses have been weak and uncoordinated.
The last example comes from Germany. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Angela Merkel has instructed the German intelligence services to verify whether there is the Russian action to destabilize the country by spreading on their media false information. The question is relates in particular to the way in which the Russian news media have treated the New Year’s assaults in Cologne. And indeed, as spectators, it was not difficult to notice that, for the Russian TV, Germany is a nation in the grip of Islamist gangs, against which the weak rulers have a submissive position. As if to say, here is what happens when the country is not guided by a strong leader who defends the values of Christianity.
We may reassure the German secret service, telling them to enjoy a few hours of RT or read Sputnik news, to find that the information from the Russian war machine does not target Germany, but entire Europe and the whole Western world.
STRATCOM Task Force
Really. Just turn on the TV and watch a bit of RT, the Kremlin’s English-language channel. The news selection follows a clear line: shootings and police violence in the US, the European defeat in facing migrants crisis, the Islamization of Europe, Western leaders dominated by the LGBT minority, people terrorized by thugs and rapists with the Koran in a hand.
The technique is simple, take a happening sometimes as small as a snowball and let it roll continuously on the news landslide until it becomes an avalanche. At least in their show schedules. It plays the game of the xenophobic and anti-European far right movements, the same that are against the sanctions on Moscow and have Putin as a model to follow even outside Russia.
Europe is already aware of it. UK is setting on a “Facebook warriors” team to fight the Russian army of trolls. While last May the European leaders asked the High Representative for Foreign Policy Francesca Mogherini to prepare an action plan on “strategic communication to counter the current Russian disinformation campaign.” That’s why was created the STRATCOM Task Force within the EU External Action, the European “Ministry of Foreign Affairs”.
So far, however, no one have noticed any result.
Spitting
You read STRATCOM Task Force and you imagine anything but ten employees without a budget that fill Word tables with Russian media fake news.
On the other side of the frontline, there is a news machine broadcasting worldwide in four languages, with a $ 300 million budget (almost like the BBC) and more subscribers on YouTube than CNN, Al-Jazeera and the BBC put together. And we’re just talking about RT, not counting Ria Novosti, Sputnik, RBTH and the army of trolls. And that’s not all, if you think that Russia has a foothold in EuroNews, the pan-European channel also funded by the EU. After the main public broadcaster RTR, which has 7.5% of stakes, the Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash– linked to former President Yanukovych and Russia – has bought a share. The acquisition had been opposed by other public partners, such as the French and Italian TV, but it was possible after the Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has paid $ 35 million, obtaining 53% of the shares.
Let’s say that fighting Russian infowar with resources deployed by the EU is like putting out a forest fire spitting.
@daniloeliatweet
Everyone says that something must be done. The Kremlin disinformacija is an industry that goes full speed, a false and tendentious news factory in full Cold War style. But so far Western countries responses have been weak and uncoordinated.
