Social media purge of critical western voices bolsters, not hinders, Kremlin propaganda

Social media purge of critical western voices bolsters, not hinders, Kremlin propaganda

Social Media Purge Article

Social Media Purge Article

 

With no apparent warning, Facebook purged a total of more than 800 pages and accounts last week, targeting western alternative media publications and anti-establishment journalists and activists, particularly in the United States. Unnoticed to some, Twitter followed suit by banning certain journalists and activists caught up in the Facebook purge.

 

Facebook released a detailed statement explaining the purge as a removal of pages and accounts that were blasting out massive amounts of content, including spam or clickbait, in order to drive traffic to websites and profit, largely off of ad revenue. There may be some truth to the allegations, at least in the case of some of the accounts purged. And Facebook has numerous rules — which most of its users do not keep track of — that the big tech company can choose to arbitrarily enforce at any time.

 

Still, the move made by Facebook is clearly a purge of political speech, not of political profiteers. The pages targeted were politically left, right and libertarian. They included prominent libertarian-leaning news publications, a couple of which had follower counts in the millions; police monitoring pages; and activist pages expressing views across the political spectrum.

 

What most of these purged pages appear to have had in common was an anti-establishment bent.  There were no reports of major western media being purged from Facebook for using the social media platform to drive traffic to ad-laden or subscription-based sites.

 

In fact, major western media stand accused of lending support to the ongoing social media purge to eliminate or reduce the reach of some of their competition, at least according to the Ontario Civil Liberties Association (OCLA).

 

“OCLA believes that the purged sites represent a ‘threat of democracy’ rather than a ‘threat to democracy,’ and that the purge is a test for eliminating competitors of the dominant established-controlled media,” the Canadian civil liberties group said in a statement.

 

What Facebook described in its statement is no fantasy. It indeed occurs, even in places such as the Balkans. Back in 2016, teens living in Veles, Macedonia made a splash in the (fake) news business. They used salacious headlines and outright fabricated stories to build up a massive presence on social media and drive traffic to websites they used to collect ad revenue from Google. Due to the money they were making and the living standards in Veles, this scheme left the some of the teens set for life.

 

This fake news phenomenon gained notoriety during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The fake news publishers in Veles, as well as other profiteers wading into online political media, were said to be backing now-President Donald Trump. So, too, accused was the Russian state. Part of the alleged Russian interference campaign in the 2016 election was the alleged use of state media and social media to drive support for Trump.

 

Following the 2016 election, a growing partnership between western governments and big tech companies emerged, as they teamed up to crack down on all things fake news, hate speech and Russian election meddling. The purge has included cracking down on the Macedonian teens, deleting alleged hate speech in Germany and banning controversial U.S. radio host and architect of the Infowars brand, Alex Jones, from numerous social media platforms.

 

Now the 2018 United States election season is in full swing. Facebook made note of the timing of the latest purge, suggesting in a press release that the company’s efforts would help prevent political profiteers from swaying next month’s vote.

 

With hundreds of critical voices having been removed from social media outlets, there is now a large enough sample size to gauge the direction of the purge — big tech companies are going to remove more and more critical voices, while giving a variety of excuses for censoring political discussion on their platforms. One can also begin to see some of the unintended consequences of the purge, one of which relates to Russia.

 

Facebook is giving Russian state media a free “boost”

 

In the case of combatting Russian propaganda, rather than resulting in the suppression of state information campaigns, the social media purge appears to be bolstering them.

 

After Facebook dropped the hammer last week, the purge of 559 pages and 251 accounts instantly became international news. The Washington Post ran the headline, “Facebook purged over 800 U.S. accounts and pages for pushing political spam.” Though the actual story was more balanced, The Washington Post and other major western media were accused of, at least at first, regurgitating Facebook’s press release.

 

Meanwhile, Russian state-controlled RT and Sputnik reported more critically on the news. Sputnik published an “exclusive” that it headlined, “Meet the reporters whose pages were shut down by Facebook.” RT ran similar headlines and aired live interviews with at least a couple of the journalists caught up in the purge, one of whom is actually an RT reporter.

 

The news coverage of the social media purge sheds light on a cozy relationship that exists between western alternative media and Russian state media. Various western alternative media already cite RT as a frequent source in their reporting. For some news aggregators and commentators in the western alternative press — including libertarian-leaning ones — RT is effectively the go-to source for news. Politics indeed makes for strange bedfellows.

 

This seemingly odd relationship was addressed at an “anarchist” conference held earlier this year in Acapulco, Mexico. One speaker commenting on journalistic ethics called out alternative media in the West for repeatedly sourcing their reporting from Russian state news outlets.

 

“In independent media a very popular source is Sputnik, which is a Russian government-funded news organization. And I see it all the time. That’s often a main source for news outlets,” journalist Carey Wedler said at the 2018 Anarchapulco conference. “As anarchists and as people who are skeptical of the state, I just think it would be a good idea if we considered the possibility that their news might be slanted. But that doesn’t seem to be happening. It’s taken at face value.”

 

Coincidentally, Wedler, was, herself, purged last week. Wedler is the editor-in-chief of the Anti-Media, a publication that had more than 2 million followers on its Facebook page. Facebook deleted the Anti-Media’s page. Then shortly later, Twitter banned Wedler’s personal account.

 

Email from Twitter posted online by Carey Wedler
Email from Twitter posted online by Carey Wedler

 

When big tech companies purge journalists who are clearly not engaged in fabricating news and profiting off of spam, it provides opportunity for other media to score points by standing up for free expression. Major western media, though, are appearing increasingly content with their competitors getting silenced by big tech companies.

 

Meanwhile, Russian state media gain sympathy when they provide a platform for the purged journalists and activists to tell their sides of the story. This lends credibility to the likes of RT and Sputnik among some western audiences, and it allows Russian state media to build on their seemingly strange ties with libertarian and anti-government media in the West. Theses ties can be very fruitful for the Kremlin, when on geopolitical matters like Ukraine and Syria, western alternative media with millions of followers source some or even most of their reporting from outlets controlled by the Russian state.

 

By Josh Friedman

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