Be wary of social media misinformation on Russia-Ukraine conflict, experts say

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This article was published 25/02/2022 (1701 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Social media is emerging as a key battleground in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, say experts who warn that Canadians should be on the lookout for digital deceptions and propaganda.

People around the world are glued to their screens checking for updates as Russia’s full-scale military assault on Ukraine rages on, stoking concerns about how the war will reverberate across the geopolitical order.

But Ukrainian-Canadian journalist and researcher Jane Lytvynenko warns that social media provides a muddled and often misinformed view of how the conflict is unfolding between the challenges of tracking a fast-changing crisis in real time and deliberate efforts to distort the situation.

“There’s a huge amount of confusion and attempts to untangle what is going on on the ground with this escalation,” said Lytvynenko, a senior research fellow at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

“The situation is changing minute by minute, and the information is changing with it.”

Lytvynenko said social media has served as a vital platform for people to share the realities of what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine and rally humanitarian aid, but the warp-speed spread of disinformation is thickening the digital fog of war.

Misleading messages, propagandized headlines, deceptively edited videos and out-of-context photos are circulating across the digital sphere, manipulating millions of people’s perceptions of the war.

U.S. authorities have accused Moscow of mounting a disinformation campaign including a plot to produce a propaganda video showing a fake Ukrainian attack to create a pretext for Russian military action against its neighbour.

Lytvynenko said disinformation efforts date back to the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea, and have continued through clashes between the two countries in the years leading up to the current invasion.

“This escalation means an escalation in disinformation, which is why we see it. But this has been a reality for eight years,” she said. “The difference now is that the world is paying attention. And any time the world is paying attention, there is more confusion.”

Jeffrey Dvorkin, former head of the University of Toronto’s journalism program, says media organizations and the public should apply a critical eye to social media posts about the conflict.

“All conflicts have an element of profit propaganda to them, and this one no less,” said Dvorkin, a senior fellow at Massey College. “People who have been opposed to how we in the West do journalism have become very adept at spreading misinformation and disinformation.”

Tech companies also have a responsibility to shore up their systems to stop misinformation from spreading on their platforms, Dvorkin said.

The head of security policy at Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, tweeted on Thursday that the company has established a special operations centre staffed by experts, including native speakers, to monitor and respond to the conflict.

Twitter Canada spokesman Cam Gordon said in an email that the company is looking out for potential risks related to the crisis, including “identifying and disrupting attempts to amplify false and misleading information and to advance the speed and scale of our enforcement.”

— with files from the Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 25, 2022.