Ukraine’s Propaganda Offensive, Led By Ad-Tech Entrepreneurs, Appears To Be Winning

As Ukraine’s cyber army takes the war to Russian banks and government websites, it’s working with Elon Musk to set up satellite internet. Two former ad-tech entrepreneurs are leading the country’s information warfare charge. Are they winning?

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Ukrainian propaganda has included exaggerations and untruths, [Dmitri] Alperovitch said, noting that many of its claims were “doubtful or proven to be false.” For example, [Mykhailo] Fedorov’s claim that the Moscow Exchange, which was offline Monday, was still down the next day thanks to a cyberattack by the IT army, was proven not to be true.

David Betz, professor of war in the modern world at King’s College London, agreed that Ukraine was filling the web with fake information, though Russians were quick to point out fabrications. “What’s been impressive on Telegram is how rapidly the Russians are taking them apart,” he said. Conversely, he said that he believed some Russian information, surprisingly, was being provided with little obvious embellishment. He pointed to a Telegram channel, where figures for destroyed military targets were being published with little fanfare and appeared to be accurate.

“I think that [Ukraine] is winning international opinion, but that’s largely because every Western media organization and government is amplifying and repeating their narrative, despite the fact that [Ukraine’s propaganda is] fake and verifiably fake to anybody that has the gumption to do basic research,” Betz added.

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The Ukrainian IT army’s operations are being done in the open on the social-media app Telegram, where target lists of Russian entities are posted and members have been encouraged to send reports to Google’s YouTube to ban Russian broadcasters, such as Russia24. YouTube, though it has blocked channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe, hasn’t taken action or responded to requests for information on Russia24. “Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action,” a YouTube spokesperson said.

Obviously, I missed this. This link is from the previously posted article. Wanted it to have it’s own post.