Modern Day Propaganda

How to avoid being a victim

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, headlines read things like,

“Russia has invaded Ukraine: what we know so far.” (BBC)

”Russia invades Ukraine in largest European attack since WWII” (Fox News),

and,

“Russia attacks Ukraine” (CNN). 

But Russian citizens were seeing something completely different — they lived in a world that was created by their government, not reality. Russian President Vladimir Putin told people that Ukraine wanted Russian help, they were asking for it, and they welcomed the Russian army with open arms. Putin said they needed to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, and that extremists there were committing “multiple bloody crimes against civilians.” 

For months after the invasion, Russians were shown media that emphasized these messages. There was no “war,” just small military action against extremists. No civilians were harmed, no. All was well down in Ukraine.

Obviously, this is disturbingly untrue. Many tens of thousands of people have died, including thousands of civilians and children.

Right after the invasion, Russia passed a law that banned people from reporting any information about the war in Ukraine, unless it was the official propaganda of the Russian government. The "fake news” law pretty much says any negative reporting about Russia’s military activity is illegal. That includes things like describing how many Russian troops have been killed.

In other words, in Russia, the invasion is going great, and if you say otherwise, we’ll send you to prison.

That’s what propaganda is. It is spreading information designed for the express purpose of getting people to believe a certain narrative. Now, I’m not talking about proposing ideas or sharing facts. This isn’t a politician saying, “My tax plan is the best, and here’s why.”

Propaganda often uses lies or half truths — what we might call mis- or dis- information today. It presents only the single biased viewpoint of the propagandist for the purpose of swaying you to believe what they’re peddling. 

And successful propaganda often uses a two-pronged approach: push one (biased or false) narrative while silencing opposition. And once you’ve started believing the propaganda, it becomes increasingly difficult to trust anything outside of the viewpoint you’ve adopted. When you’re presented with conflicting information, often it will just be disbelieved without serious consideration. 

Though we tend to think of Nazi Germany or Russia when we think of propaganda, it is also deeply entrenched in US history — it just looked like Walt Disney animating Donald Duck for the war effort or the US government creating censorship departments to make sure people never found out about things like 1,000 Japanese balloon bombs that were floated over the Pacific and landed on the West Coast during WWII.

But today, propaganda looks quite different. It’s less animated animals and more bot farms and state-run media. Nearly three years into the invasion, a majority of Russians still support the war in Ukraine, believing Ukraine wants them there, and the army is fighting “extremists,” despite the fact that in May, 1,000 Russian soldiers died each day in Ukraine.

And if they don’t support the war, it’s still illegal for them to say otherwise. 

And now Russia’s propaganda, thanks to the internet, can reach the United States as well. There’s evidence that Russia is already trying to influence presidential and congressional races to get candidates elected that will limit the US’s military support of Ukraine. 

In July of this year, the US disrupted a Russian bot farm (a network of automated programs that create fake social media profiles that post disinformation) that was spreading pro-Russian propaganda in the US and abroad, including posts justifying Russia’s actions in Ukraine. 

And don’t think that the US is immune from propaganda just because we aren’t ruled by an authoritarian dictator. Private citizens can engage in propaganda too. 

Take, for example, Alex Jones. A wealthy conspiracy theorist who pumped out propaganda that school shootings like Sandy Hook were staged so the government could enact gun control measures. He said grieving parents were “crisis actors.” Parents began to suffer death threats and other serious harm as the result of his propaganda.

(Eventually, parent groups sued and were awarded $1.5 billion in compensation for his propaganda and the damage he caused.) 

To keep from falling victim to propaganda, it’s important to read widely from a variety of sources. No single news source deserves your unscrutinized trust. And we have to be extra vigilant about what we reshare. If we don’t have the time or inclination to verify with reliable sources, we shouldn’t reshare information on the internet. 

It’s OK to have strong beliefs. But we should hold those beliefs with an open hand, and realize that if we value being right, the best way to do that is to stop being wrong faster. And that might mean changing your mind when presented with new and better information. 

So let’s not fall prey to someone’s propaganda scheme, and let’s not unwittingly contribute to it, lest we land on the wrong side of history. 

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