Social Media is now the Weapon of Choice in Ukraine War
“The first casualty of war is the truth.” This was first uttered by Aeschylus, a Greek playwright, 2,500 years ago. The notion of this axiom has now entered the digital domain. And social media is the weapon of choice. The BBC has reported that X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Telegram have failed to prevent a massive Kremlin disinformation campaign from assaulting the screens of millions on social media.
It’s getting worse, too.
When Elon Musk bought Twitter, the platform removed most of the safety mechanisms which would have severely limited the ability of the Russian government to propagate material which has been proven to be nonsense.
In April, he stopped all limitations on Kremlin-run Twitter accounts and the rapidly expanding presence of disinformation since then has been telling. His justification was that censorship is counter to the essence of social media, despite other large platforms engaging in it.
Meta’s Facebook is recording the most numbers of posts, but X is undoubtedly the more influential.
How does the Kremlin do it?
It was reported some time ago that the Kremlin has more than 100 X accounts, based all around the world in various guises. The only reason the number matters is the retweet ecosystem this many accounts represents. Everything, from every account, is retweeted. Do the math. Multiple every tweet by (minimum) a hundred. That’s some weapon of choice. That’s some severe cluttering on the X platform. Sure, X has prevented amplification of tweets from state-affiliated accounts. But not their government accounts.
This is an Achilles Heel for X. I doubt they see it that way.
In late August the European Union’s DSA (Digital Services Act) mandated content monitoring with their sights set on the social media platforms. This will take some time to process and implement. Meanwhile, the propaganda is continuing to spread.
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