This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against R… (2024)

BlackOxford

1,095 reviews69.4k followers

September 6, 2020

By Their Language Ye Shall Know Them

All use of language is intentional. All speech. All conversation. All writing. If it weren’t intentional, speech and writing would have no purpose and therefore they would be not just vain but incomprehensible, less communicative than the twittering of birds or the chattering of the mad. The purpose of all human communication is to convince or endear or to intimidate or any of thousands of other intentions. Sometimes it’s purpose is to deceive. But it is never mere chat; the substance of any communication is indistinguishable from its purpose.

The intention of propaganda is to develop a mass acceptance of some point of view. Propaganda is used by governments, large corporations, news media, and other interest groups by which it may be referred to as public relations, lobbying, advertising, or merely public information. Propaganda usually is employed reactively to counter an existing commonly held idea or defensively to prevent the dissemination of such an idea. Propaganda may or may not involve overt deception; but it will always be tendentious, selecting to communicate only that material favourable to the idea in question.

The problem of distinguishing deceptive or misleading language - intentional and not - from all the other purposes to which language may be put is a persistent one throughout human existence. Philosophers, theologians, scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, biologists, engineers, and criminologists are among those who have tried to crack the problem over the last several millennia but with no notable success. It appears to be impossible to connect what people say or write to what we casually call reality.

This is not to say that we don’t come to conclusions about the veracity of things we hear and read. Judicial juries are required to do so everyday to arrive at unambiguous verdicts. Physical and social scientists pride themselves on their ability to separate the factual wheat from the merely career-promoting chaff. Almost everyone takes what politicians have to say with at least some skepticism. My wife knows that if she reads something in the Daily Telegraph it’s probably correct even if the Guardian denies it. Are these responsible activities?

Most likely they are, but not for the reason we typically give: a comparison between what we are told or read with reality. None of the decisions we come to about the truthfulness about what we hear and read has anything to do with the connection between language and reality. There is no reliable connection between language and that which is not-language. Call this latter category of not-language ‘events’ or ‘reality’ in order to simplify things. But note that even in so doing we can’t escape the universal pull of the black-hole of language. ‘Events’ and ‘reality’ are, of course, nothing but words. Language has us by the throat and it’s not letting go.

What we do when we come to our conclusions is to rely entirely on language and nothing else. Jurors consider documents or other products of language and its derivative technologies (like tape-recording and CCTV footage).* Scientists review alternative ideas and conflicting test results, all presented in appropriate technical jargon. Voters believe a candidate’s pronouncements not because they know what is in the candidate’s heart but because of other things he or other people report. Even my wife occasionally checks up on the Telegraph, usually by reference to the daily Mail. Only language can be used to verify language.

So events and reality are not just elusive ideas, they play no role at all in our decisions about what and who to believe. This situation is not a consequence of new technologies like the internet or surveillance cameras, or rogue government agencies in Moscow, Beijing, or Washington. From the moment the first Neanderthal lied to his mate about sleeping with the woman in the next village, the proof of the truth of any statement, story, or testimony has always been other statements, stories, and testimonies. Reality has nothing to do with it. It’s all inside the bubble of language. The reality of language is the only reality we can discuss. Propaganda is as subject to this ironclad law as much as any other communication.

It takes someone of above average intelligence to recognise this law of the utter dominance of language. Peter Pomerantsev appears to be such a person. I know he is intelligent because the title of his book indicates that he understands the precariousness of his position as an exposer of propagandistic deception. He recognises that his exposé is yet another document within language that references many other such documents but that has no firm footing in anything else. So he makes a joke.

But he is not joking. Pomerantsev starts his story by reminding the reader that it used to be the case that mass deceivers could be identified by the way in which they restricted what was said, or written, heard or read. Any government or other authority that imposed such restrictions was probably guilty of deception in direct proportion to their restrictiveness. The Soviet Union was top of the list, along with most other dictatorial states.

But today, while there are still what might be called restrictive information practices, deception of a different mode has become dominant. This is “the flood of disinformation, ‘fake news’, ‘information war’ and the ‘war on information’.” The flood is produced not just by governments, and organised interest groups, but by technically talented individuals who can ‘make their bones’ in the high-tech establishment by disrupting the world... or who just want to have a little fun.***

Pomerantsev provides a great deal of descriptive material about Russian troll farms; social media mobs, and cyber-militias. But I don’t think this is the core of his book. He successfully avoids what can be called the epistemological trap of trying to prove the falsity of language by reference to what is not-language by two insights which are buried within his narrative. The first of these is fairly obvious but can’t be restated enough: real power is power over language. Those with power and who seek power always do so through language.

The information flood is no different in this respect than restrictions on information. The implication is clear: communication emanating directly or indirectly from power are always suspect. This is so regardless of the nature of the power, that is to say, civil, military, religious, commercial, democratic, monarchical, or dictatorial. The reliability of communication is inversely proportionate to the power which is its source. This seems to me the only remnant of Kantian epistemology that has any relevance in today’s world.

The second insight, which Pomerantsev declines to make explicit, is that the language of propaganda reveals itself for what it is if we allow ourselves to appreciate it. What the language of leaders like Duterte, Mobi, Putin, Trump, Erdogan, Zeman, and Bolsonaro have in common is an intentional coarseness as well as poverty of vocabulary (See also Viktor Klemperer’s analysis of the language of Nazism: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) They use toilet humour and ‘locker-room’ remarks. They are purposely insensitive to physical infirmities and social ‘abnormalities’ of any sort. They use racist, sexist, and violent innuendo to great effect in generating mob feeling. Their vocabulary includes frequent mention of Communist, homosexual (and its variants), fake news, vassal, dupe, whore, traitor, slut.

This recognition is not a trivial criticism of the cultural education or intelligence of these men (it is interesting to note the absence of women among these leaders). Rather it is a significant general conclusion about the nature of their use of language. It quite literally calls attention to the words, not to the grammar and certainly not to the pragmatic results of the words, but to the raw vocabulary. And I think he’s right: the words are the giveaway. The BBC is substantially less propagandistic than Breitbart. But, interestingly, the British Prime Minister’s office is also far less propagandistic than the White House.

So I think Pomerantsev has missed a chance. There is an intentionality within vulgar, imprecise, and a noticeably limited vocabulary. It is the inversion of Periclean rhetoric that is the modern form of propaganda. The banality of the words themselves is the key signal. When these words are produced by power, propaganda is certainly afoot.

*Demeanour, of course, is also part of human language. “Make my day” is a phrase with considerably different import spoken by Dirty Harry or by my boss who is expecting news about a prospective contract.

**All societies are of course subjected to a mix of information suppression and propaganda. The mix itself helps to identify the nature of the society in which it is employed. The one society which has consistently used both to great effect is that of the Christian Church. Pomerantsev claims to derive inspiration from the French philosopher Jacques Ellul who wrote a book entitled Propaganda in 1962 about its coming dangers. It happens, however, that Ellul was also a fundamentalist Christian who despised Islam. Good credentials for one claiming to know about the subject therefore.

***Pomerantsev fails to make the point that this technique of ‘information abundance’ has always been the preferred option in democratic societies. It is expected, for example, in all political campaigns. And it has been used routinely by government (cf. 1950’s promotion of Cold War ‘readiness’), by the dominant media of the day (cf. the Hearst newspaper campaign for the Spanish-American War), and by commercial interests that are dependent upon favourable public policy (cf. the National Rifle Association’s successful reinterpretation if the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution over the last 30 years). This article, forwarded to me today by another GR member suggests just how pervasive propaganda is within democratic societies: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...

    criticism epistemology-language slavic

Anna

1,936 reviews902 followers

February 25, 2020

Over the years I've developed a set of rules to choose the books to pack as my Christmas reading. Based on bitter experience, I no longer choose large hardbacks, apocalypses, genocides, or Kafka. However, it is very difficult to avoid reading anything depressing over the festive season, simply because depressing things are often interesting and worth reading about. 'This Is Not Propaganda' is my accidental depressing Christmas reading this year. It's fascinating, but deeply alarming. I enjoyed Pomerantsev's previous book Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, which described Russia's destabilised sense of reality. This is essentially a sequel, describing through specific examples how this instability has been exported around the world. It is structured very neatly around the experience of Pomerantsev's parents leaving the USSR. This enables disquieting contrasts to be drawn between KGB tactics then and now. I found it a more powerful book than Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, and just as readable and thought-provoking.

It is difficult to write clearly about the dissolution of truth and facts in recent years, although we're all living in this weird age. I'd been back for Christmas with my parents for less than 24 hours before my Dad made a completely untrue statement based on something he'd read on facebook. Luckily he's willing to listen when such falsehoods are pointed out. I have less fortunate friends who've fallen out badly with their parents over Brexit or the Hong Kong protests. The insidious manipulation enabled by public life playing out on social media is illustrated particularly well here. Notably, Pomerantsev draws upon examples from all over the world, with a particular focus on Ukraine. America inevitably tends to dominate when such global trends are discussed, in light of Trump, so this makes a nice change. In the first chapter, Pomerantsev recounts the experience of a woman who investigated a Russian troll farm by getting a job there:

No-one who worked at the farm described themselves as trolls. Instead, they talked about their work in the passive voice ("a piece was written", "a comment was made"). Most treated the farm as if it was just another job, doing the minimum required and then clocking off. Many of them seemed pleasant enough young people, with open, pretty faces, and yet they didn't blink when asked to smear, degrade, insult, and humiliate their victims. [...] During the day Lyudmilla would see a fake reality being pumped out by the trolls. In the evening she would come home hoping to put the place behind her, only to hear relatives and acquaintances quote lines churned out by the farm back at her. People who considered themselves hardened enough to withstand the barrage of television still seemed susceptible to social media messages which slithered into and enveloped your most personal online spaces, spun themselves into the texture of your life.

Subsequent chapters consider how increasingly authoritarian states use social media to mimic and undermine the tactics used by protest movements. In practically every example Pomerantsev cites, this leads to serious violence. He also makes some insightful comments on conspiracy theories:

Conspiracy theories have long been used to maintain power: the Soviet leadership saw capitalist and counter-revolutionary conspiracies everywhere; the Nazis, Jewish ones. But those conspiracies were ultimately there to buttress an ideology, whether class warfare for Communists or race for Nazis. With today's regimes, which struggle to formulate a single ideology - indeed, which can't if they want to continue sending different messages to different people - the idea that one lives in a world full of conspiracies becomes the world view itself. Conspiracy does not support ideology; it replaces it. [...] Conspiracy is a way to maintain control. In a world where even the most authoritarian regimes struggle to impose censorship, one has to surround audiences with so much cynicism about anybody's motives, persuade them that behind every seemingly benign motivation is a nefarious, if impossible-to-prove, plot, they lose faith in the possibility of an alternative, a tactic a renowned Russian media analyst called Vasily Gatov calls 'white jamming'.

It is a source of some bitter amusement to me that a single obscure sci-fi novel published in 2000 saw this coming, sort of. The Jazz by Melissa Scott features a main character whose job is to lie on the internet. She's very good at getting information to go viral, including fad diets and exclusive new products. What that novel didn't foresee, as far as I can remember, is that the same skills and methods could be used for political purposes. This is very alarming to read:

Today, bots, trolls, and cyborgs [sockpuppets] could create the simulation of a climate of opinion, of support or hate, which was more insidious, more all-enveloping than the old broadcast media. And this simulation would then become reinforced as people modified their behaviour to fall in line with what they thought was reality. In their analysis of the role of bots, researchers at the University of Oxford called this process 'manufacturing consensus'.

It is not the case that one online account changes someone's mind; it's that en masse they create an ersatz normality.

One thing I deeply dislike on twitter is the culture of instantaneously forming an opinion for or against something. It seems dangerous in a number of ways: normalising an adversarial and binary perspective on the world; precipitating commitment to strongly-held views on the basis of extremely limited evidence; encouraging opinion formation on a reflexively emotional rather than considered basis; building an aggressive defensiveness against people holding a different view; and promoting the habit of consistency with a virtual peer group over research, discussion, and thought. On top of that, social media is designed to monopolise attention, time, and energy. It presents itself as a neutral filter through which to see the world and interact with others, but that is not so.

'This Is Not Propaganda' demonstrates how people are radicalised by alt-right and Islamist material online, including a fascinating account of a former ISIS recruit who now tries to de-radicalise others. The chapter on the battle for Aleppo, Syria is another highlight, albeit a horrifying one. Nonetheless, the most striking narrative concerns Russia and the way it now projects global influence in the ambiguous and confusing form of 'Information War'. Pomerantsev is ambivalent about that term:

There are some things that a few experts can at least occasionally agree on. First, that the Russian approach smudges the borders between war and peace, resulting in a state of permanent conflict that is neither fully on nor fully off. And in this conflict information campaigns play a remarkably important role. Summarising the aims of Russian 'next-generation warfare', Jānis Bērziņš of the Latvian Military Academy describes a shift from direct annihilation of the opponent to its inner decay; from a war with conventional forces to irregular groupings; from direct clash to contactless war; from the physical environment to the human consciousness; from war in a defined period of time to a state of permanent war as the natural condition in national life.

This leaves us with a paradox. On the one hand, it is necessary to recognise and reveal the way the Kremlin, with a military mindset, uses information to confuse, dismay, divide, and delay. On the other, one risks reinforcing the Kremlin's world view in the very act of responding to it. It is in Ukraine where this paradox plays out at its most intense.

Thus the book contains the most thorough explanation of the Ukraine conflict, which we're still not calling a war for some reason, that I've yet come across. The approach described above certainly recalls the methods of prior totalitarian regimes, not least the USSR. Now, however, they can be achieved much more quickly, cheaply, and easily, whether the government is ostensibly democratic or not:

War used to be about capturing territory and planting flags, but something different was playing out here. Moscow needed to create a narrative about how pro-democracy revolutions like the Maidan led to chaos and civil war. Kiev needed to show that separatism leads to misery. What actually happened on the ground was almost irrelevant; the two governments just needed enough footage to back their respective stories. Propaganda has always accompanied war, usually as a handmaiden to the actual fighting. But the information age means that this equation has been flipped: military operations are now handmaidens to the more important information effect. It would be like a heavily scripted reality TV show if it weren't for the very real deaths.

The chapter commenting on Brexit, especially the sheer meaninglessness of its slogans ('Take Back Control', 'Brexit Means Brexit', 'Get Brexit Done'), was particularly enraging given the recent election result. The most depressing part, however, was this sadly convincing analysis:

But if the need for facts is predicated on a vision of a concrete future that you are trying to achieve, then when that future disappears, what is the point of facts? Why would you want them if they tell you that your children will be poorer than you? That all versions of the future are unpromising? And why should you trust the purveyors of facts - the media and academics, think tanks, statesmen?

And so the politicians who makes a big show of rejecting facts, who validates the pleasure of spouting nonsense, who indulges in full, anarchic liberation from coherence, from glum reality, becomes attractive. That enough Americans could vote for someone like Donald Trump, a man with so little regard for making sense, whose many contradictory messages never add up to any stable meaning, was partly possible because voters felt they weren't invested in any larger evidence-based future. [...] And it's no coincidence that so many of the new breed of political actors are also nostalgists.

Beyond the extremely short term, this is of course disastrous. Voting against the existence of climate change won't make it go away. I also found this description of populism, a term much bandied around these days, very useful:

This sort of micro-targeting, where one set of voters shouldn't necessarily know about the others, requires some big, empty identity to unite all these different groups, something so broad these voters can project themselves into it - a category like 'the people' or 'the many'. The 'populism' that is thus created is not a sign of 'the people' coming together in a great groundswell of unity, but a consequence of 'the people' being more fractured than ever, of their barely existing as one nation.

Pomerantsev doesn't claim to have any solutions to the problems caused by disinformation and growing political polarisation, but this book is a nuanced and compelling diagnosis. It looks deeper than most into how social media manipulates our need to constantly create our identity and imagine our reality, showing the damaging consequences around the world. Not very festive, but really important.

    nonfiction overseas politics

Mehrsa

2,245 reviews3,624 followers

November 20, 2019

This book is excellent--it is well-written and it does what all the other books about this topic don't do, which is to give an insider account of the rest of the world--especially Russia. My favorite part of this whole book is when these Russian hackers hear facebook talk about Russian hacking and they crack up laughing because Americans are so freaking naive. This is a must-read.

verbava

1,073 reviews138 followers

September 24, 2020

читання цієї книжки – це така суцільна спроба скласти фразу «ще не все пропало» з літер ж, о, п і а: іноді якісь навіть стають на місце, але з нетривким і невтішним результатом.

    on-human-beings

wow_42

91 reviews47 followers

April 8, 2024

вся неоднозначність автора в цій книзі дуже відчувається.
з росії поїхати можна, але воно з тебе не поїде.
враження, наче книга написана з позиції руського опозиціонера «ми за мир, Крим не бутерброд» з настроєм Славенки Дракуліч «руськім матерям теж плохо!» і тому на сьогодні це читати вкрай неприємно.

звичайно, що очікувати від книги проукраїнської позиції — себе обманювати. та це й таке — субʼєктивно.

і от якщо дивитися лише через призму прикладів світових в тексті, то тут теж читача спіткає неприємність: всі історії розказані поверхнево, структури немає, певної методології чи пояснень інструментів пропаганди немає, цілісності в книзі немає, проте навіщось є вставки мемуарів.
дуже багато є питань до Померанцева по тексту і в його слизькості міркувань, висновків.

люди, які навіть не замислюються, що пропаганда існує в дрібничках, в книзі дійсно щось нове і знайдуть (можливо).

поки що, це найновіша книга, написана про пропаганду. хоч написана і кепсько (імхо), але таки написана.

(якщо знаєте інші книги на тему — дайте знати в коментарях).

чесно, я більше зацікавилася книгами та джерелами, які цитує автор. а от інші книги Померанцева читати я не буду.

2.5/5 ★

    book-club my-kindle my-library

David Wineberg

Author2 books818 followers

June 3, 2019

This Is Not Propaganda is an alternate history of the present, a different view of the world. There is some irony in this, because it is all about how nothing is what it seems. The reason is the information revolution, and specifically social media. All sides and all factions make their biggest efforts misinforming others, while calling their own to glory. Some win by simply sowing confusion in general, and no topic is too trivial to abuse. The book is a survey of this disease all over the world, employed by politicians, religions and haters.

The result is so much noise that lying is not just routine but acceptable, and “no amount of proof leads to accountability” says Peter Pomerantsev in his most revealing statement. He cites Donald Trump as the poster child for getting away with absolutely anything, lying continually, backtracking, doubling down and going his own way despite laws, tradition, the Constitution, or morality. But Trump is just the tip of the iceberg in this telling.

Pomerantsev escaped the USSR as a child. His parents were persecuted for reading the wrong publications and fled to the west via a tiny program that allowed some Jewish emigration to boost the USSR’s chances in trade negotiations. He grew up in Germany and England where his father could continue the good fight, legitimately and openly, on BBC overseas radio services.

The bulk of the book reveals the extent of the noise in attempts to manipulate the populous. He cites the stated strategy in Russia towards other nations: “The population doesn’t even feel it is being acted upon. So, the state doesn’t switch on its self-defense mechanisms.” This comes from the actual manual, published in 2011, Information-Psychological War Operations. It is one of the bases of Russia’s massive and ubiquitous intervention machine. It fills the internet with lies in numerous countries, in countless forums, employing thousands to publish drivel continuously. The result is the locals can’t trust anything they see, and lose faith in their institutions, their leaders and their countries. That is precisely the goal.

It’s not just Russia, either. The whole world is onto this game and pushes for everyone to employ it. “On parts of Reddit and 4Chan,” Pomerantsev says, “anonymous administrators provide crash courses in mass persuasion that in the Cold War would have been the provenance of secret services and their civilian psy-ops.” Misinforamtion and disinformation have been democratized to do-it-yourself universality.

On the inside, the process is called advanced meme warfare and Successful Guerrilla PR. While it once applied to launching new products, today it is ideologies that are the leading users. The signal-to-noise ratio has gone negative on a global scale.

Pomerantsev also tackles the problem of people all over the world being converted to Islamic fundamentalism. It is of course a conscious, organized and aggressive campaign. It employs the same tactics: find a topic that resonates because of all the confusion, exploit that weakness to get a foot in the door, and convert the lead to a sale.

There are people on the other side as well. Pomerantsev cites a Muslim school chum who went through the whole process and now tries to salvage lives. He has become a globally respected expert is Islamic teachings and teachers worldwide, and calls a lie a lie when he sees it. And he sees it all the time. He tells converts that “ISIS is to Islam what adultery is to marriage.” Sometimes that works.

The book weaves the present ocean of lies and manipulation with his parents’ voyage of escape from Soviet-controlled Ukraine to careers in the west, speaking to those left behind. These are Peter Pomerantsev’s credentials. He has leveraged them, followed in his parents’ footsteps in the media, and has made himself an expert in global media manipulation, amply demonstrated in this book.

One large weakness in This Is Not Propaganda is the credit. Pomerantsev gives credit to all kinds of claimants. One firm took credit for the Brexit referendum “victory” by claiming to have offered so many vague promises that there was something for everyone. The truth is, only 24% of eligible Britons voted Leave. There are similar claims for one man vaulting Putin to power because the data said Russians wanted a superspy as leader. Corruption played no part in this telling. Then there is Trump and the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal. It is not only inaccurate but silly to say these single efforts turned the tide of history. Correlation does not imply causation, as we keep forgetting. Things aren’t as simple as claiming to have changed millions of minds with Big Data. Were it that straightforward, every company in the world be using it to sell product, since that’s where the theory and the methodology originated.

He even wrongly claims China won minds all over southeast Asia into thinking all those tiny rock islands in the South China Sea have always belonged to China. That the war of ideas is more powerful than the wars of soldiers. That the direct result was that China never had to fire a shot in their takeover. The simple truth is none of the countries involved was willing to declare war on China to get their rock back. In taking over the islands, China turned them into military ports and landing strips, imposing an overwhelming military presence and advantage for itself. It was naked aggression. It changed no hearts and no minds in the process.

Then, the conclusion doesn’t go nearly far enough (It is a tribute to his parents). From his own description, what has happened is that we have all come full circle. Before there was mass communication, knowledge was scarce, and proof even moreso. Today, lies rule. Anyone can say anything and it doesn’t matter, be they world leaders or teenage trolls. The result is the same: we know little and can trust less of what we choose to believe of it all. For all of information technology and the global village, as truth seekers we are no farther ahead.

Welcome back to the Dark Ages, Facebook edition.

David Wineberg

Lada Moskalets

364 reviews55 followers

August 6, 2020

Паливом соцмереж є прості емоції. Наприклад обурення - коли ми на публіку чимось обурюємося, то в нас виділяються гормони щастя, бо ми відчуваємо себе причетними до більшого. Або ненависть - чим більше допис викликає коментарів і сварок, тим популярнішим він буде у фб і його показуватимуть все більшій кількості людей. Або котики.
Я від літа вирішила писати менше в стилі „доколє”, бо не хочу збільшувати потоку ненависті у світі і в своїх спільнотах на радість рекламодавцям. Краще написати статтю чи книжку. Або хоча б почитати статтю чи книжку
Наприклад Померанцева- історію того, як у сучасному світі популістські лідери використовують соцмережі і медіа, не просто пропонуючи свою версію подій, а розмиваючи межі між правдою і неправдою. Росія, якій у цій книжці відведене центральне місце, прагне переконати світ, що всі брешуть, аж поки люди не розчаруються в новинах і можливості знайти правду. Те саме відбувається на Філіпінах, у колишніх югославських державах, у Сирії. При цьому поділи і кліки, які формуються інформаційними потоками викривлюють, що є „правим”, а що „лівим” і аудиторію зомбують ділячи за надуманими принципами. Наприклад, під час Брексіту, прихильники від’єднання шукали любителів тварин і поширювали на ці аудиторії інформацію про те, що ЄС дозволяє бої биків.
Паралельним текстом йде історія його батька-дисидента, який втікав з СРСР і вчився жити заново у новій системі. Щиро кажучи, мені ці дві історії читалися радше як окремі, а не як частина однієї книжки.
Загалом, після прочитання з’являється такий легкий ефект теорії змови - хоча, якщо це змусить серйозніше ставитися до новин, то чудово. Кількість питань, які Померанцев ставить перед читачем у кінці довший, аніж кількість відповідей - і, мені це подобається. Чи можна влаштувати мережі так, щоб ми розуміли чому і як приходить до нас інформація? А можливо варто творити нову „конструктивну журналістику”, яка не лише буде показувати факти, відповідно до чийогось світогляду, але й пропонуватиме рішення.

„Ми виходимо в онлайн, шукаючи емоційного підбадьорювання у лайках і ретвітах. Соціальні мережі є свого роду мінінарцисичним двигуном, який ніколи не можна до кінця задовольнити і який тягне нас до радикальніших позицій для привернення більшої уваги. Насправді не має значення, чи правдиві історії, не кажучи вже про неупередженість: ви не прагнете перемогти в суперечці у публічному просторі перед нейтральною аудиторією, ви просто хочете отримати більше уваги від однодумців. Це болісна пастка: соціальні медіа є рушіями поляризованішої поведінки, яка призводить до попиту на сенсаційніший контент або ж просто брехню”.

Emma Sea

2,206 reviews1,170 followers

December 28, 2019

Brilliant.

    cultural-theory i-own-it media-studies

Darka

488 reviews377 followers

September 29, 2020

Дуже цікава книжка, після прочитання хочеться зробити шапочку з фольги і втікти жити в ліс.

teach_book

401 reviews627 followers

March 28, 2022

3,5 ⭐️

Ten reportaż sprawił, że mam ochotę sięgnąć po kolejne reportaże dotyczące Rosji, USA, czy Chin.

To książka o wojnie informacyjnej. O technikach stosowanych przez ludzi u władzy. Technikach, które niekoniecznie są dobre dla zwykłego szarego obywatela.

Zabrakło mi logicznego ułożenia pewnych tematów. Chaos jest mocno odczuwalny, niestety.

Wick Welker

Author7 books535 followers

March 18, 2022

Scattered

This is a decent book about state sanctioned troll farming with the intent of social and geopolitical destabilization. However I found it to be too meandering and disjointed to keep my attention. I think a little more of a narration and timeline would've given the book more structure and make it more palatable.

Two books that are better that you should read instead:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

    nonfiction politics

Maru Kun

221 reviews527 followers

January 10, 2020

Peter Pomerantsev wrote one of the defining books on propaganda and political manipulation under Putin Nothing is True and Everything is Possible. Fingers crossed this will be as good.

    current-affairs the-past-the-history-of-ideas w-pomerantsev-peter

Mark

44 reviews

September 19, 2019

A book designed to wow dullards.

Wojciech Szot

Author16 books1,272 followers

October 28, 2020

Żyjemy w świecie protestu. Wychodzimy na ulice, wykrzykujemy, że uprzejmie prosimy o zmiany w prawie (czyli ***********). To książka właśnie dla nas.

Od sierpnia mam wrażenie, że wszędzie czai się protest. Idąc na spacer przypadkiem trafiam na szkolenie osób aktywistycznych z metod protestu. Koło squatu w kolorowym marszoproteście mijają mnie trzymające się za ręce muzułmanki. Pod kościołem z tęczową flagą stoi mój sąsiad. Kolejny kupuje wielką flagę i wywiesza w oknie.

Żyjemy w świecie protestu, a Pomerantsev w tej doskonałej książce (tłum. Aleksandra Paszkowska) pokazuje, że nie jesteśmy w tym osamotnione. Są z nami tysiące botów, trolli, aktywistów złych zmian, nienawistny komentariat stworzony przy użyciu procesorów o wysokim taktowaniu. Są z nami miejskie kamery i nasze smartfony. Są też dobre duchy, ale jak rozpoznać kto z nami, a kto przeciw nam? Kim są osoby aktywistyczne XXI wieku? Książka Pomarantseva jest - między innymi - opowieścią o ludziach, którzy mogą być dla nas wzorem. I przestrogą.

Dziś już nie ma wstrząsających książek, tekstów, które musisz przeczytać, a pisanie o książce, że czytało się ją czując ucisk w gardle zdaje się być pretensjonalnością powtarzaną w dziesiątkach rekomendacji. A przecież bywają takie książki. Jak ta.

Pomerantsev w kapitalnym stylu łączącym informacyjną jakość, reporterski dryg z autobiograficznymi wątkami pokazuje nam to, co ukryte za powłoką codziennej egzystencji. Poznaje nas z ludźmi walczącymi z dezinformacją, rewolucjonistów epoki późnego kapitalizmu, z tymi, którzy zrozumieli, że epoka mediów społecznościowych i szybkich obrazków niesie nowe zagrożenia dla demokracji, wolności słowa i swobód obywatelskich. Nowoczesna demokracja poddana manipulacji może stać się skuteczną bronią wymierzoną we wszystkich wierzących właśnie w demokrację. Na czym polega ten zaklęty krąg i czy możemy go przerwać - naprawdę to trzeba przeczytać.

Książkę na okładce polecają Kasparow i Szot. Łączy nas podziw dla pracy Pomerantseva jak i pewność, że królowa jest często używana do podwójnego uderzenia. Uszanowanie dla strajkujących!

Oleska Tys

158 reviews32 followers

May 29, 2021

Це книга зовсім не про пропаганду і як її розпізнавати. Від слова "зовсім".

Пітер Померанцев у своїй книзі "Це не пропаганда" зосередився на набагато важливішому аспекті пропаганди (на мою думку) - як впливає пропаганда на людей, політику та світ загалом. І я думаю, що це чудово 👌.

6 історій з усього світу, які перевернуть ваше бачення впливу та чому поняття" пропаганда - це погано" не є актуальним. Від США та Мексики до України та Естонії, пропаганда керує світом. От тільки ще 30 років тому вона була у руках телебачення та газет, сьогодні ж вона захопила інтернет. Кіперхарасмент, переслідування в мережі, погрози та" вбивчі" коментарі - тепер значно простіше розкрутити з ніщо велику проблему, вкласти в голови людям "кого вони хочуть бачити президентом" та за допомогою одного фото чи фрази розв'язати невеличку війну десь на Сході чи між картелями у Мексиці.

Сучасність легко перемережана з минулим. Пропаганда в СРСР, тоді коли лиш соціалізм - "вершина всього", "враги народа" та дисиденство. Автор не з переказів розповідає не просту правду. Як, що і коли, та чому вчення союзу досі не вмерло.

Цікаво, актуально та отверезливо - саме те, що треба ✔️

Ihor Kolesnyk

507 reviews3 followers

July 19, 2020

Для розуміння ситуації, в якій опинилися мислячі люди усього світу. Можливо допоможе трохи збагнути способи виходу чи подолання симулякру смислів і значень.

    culture-studies social-studies

J.

460 reviews222 followers

November 2, 2019

... I see people I have known my whole life slip away from me on social media, reposting conspiracies from sources I have never heard of, some sort of internet undercurrent pulling whole families apart, as if we never really knew each other , as if the algorithms know more about us than we do, as if we are becoming subsets of our own data, which is rearranging our relations and identities with its own logic, or in the cause of someone else's interests we can't even see ...
The trick with pro-grade "disinformation" seems to be not just creating one reality for each target audience, but the complete disregard with which you create a separate one for another target audience without alerting the first. Until the disinformer has mastered the art, he or she may be concerned with a unified spread of influence, across a broad range of a target population, but the opposite appears to be true. Narrowing and segmenting the target is much more important than any concern with "consistency". Micro-targeting sets specific mousetraps for specific, shortrange goals, undetectable shifts that can be expanded and later congealed as a position. And eventually a position that nobody would have agreed with in the first place. All is deniable, the important thing is outcome. Let them debate fairness, or moving goalposts, in the unflattering glow of defeat.

Soviet-Kiev born Pomerantsev takes a two-part approach to his book (his update, really, since his first book, which was more Russia-centric) --in which the main stream is his tour of world Information specialists, analysts, dissidents and movement people, who narrate their perspective of a world that is finding that truth is more debateable than ever. Against which he mixes in some elements of biography, his childhood with dissident parents, a family who escaped to the West. His parents worked in film and media, and Pomerantsev grew up in the shadows of his father's new employers, both the BBC and Radio Free Europe. Under each category of narrative in the book, the theme is basically the definition of control. Which entities shape history, and how their manipulation of information deceives the participants.

We get the all-too-familiar, with whispering campaigns, scam, smear, and fake news. Alongside of which we get the new developments, which the Russians call active measures--- where capillarity, white-jamming, sockpuppets, cyborgs, trolls and bot-herders all move among us. And which cumulatively are able to force large change in microscopic interest-groups.

The former Cambridge Analytica analyst Christopher Wylie has placed the blame for access squarely in the hands of Facebook: “Imagine we are on a blind date, we’ve never met before and I start telling you how much I love your favourite musicians, how I watch the same TV as you do etc, and you realise the reason I’m so perfect for you is because I spent the last two years going through your photo albums, reading your text messages and talking to your friends. Facebook is that stalker.” In the current climate of untrustworthy influence campaigns, using an algorithm-based, non-randomized platform to obtain your news, your politics, your positions-- is to hand over the keys of the car to an unknown driver.

Pomerantsev's book is a kind of intermediate disinfo reader; it hops all over the map, but it's useful to recall the timeline in the narrative. The key dates in the origin of the Information Plague are these: 1991, fall of the Berlin Wall & Soviet Union; 2000, election of Kgb Officer Putin to Russian Federation; 2007, the Russian hack and cyber-shutdown of Estonia; 2014, the Russian invasion and disinfo war with Ukraine; 2016, Brexit, and the assisted appointment of Donald Trump to the US Presidency.

The soaring use of influence campaigns is mirrored by the rise of unregulated new information platforms, only now imaginable via new technologies. Both the Russians and the West-- from the First World War forward, really--have used propaganda techniques to bias and control the facts and fictions that write history. America has always had a culture & soft-power apparatus operating in tandem with its wartime propaganda campaigns; the Cold War expanded and diffused those boundaries. The Russians seem never to have differentiated the two. The fine print under the Russian campaigns seems to be that Life Is Wartime. And to be fair, if your life was the 2oth Century in Ukraine or East Germany, that may not be far off. But it's important to recognize it and label it, define the components and name them. Pomerantsev, along with others, like Wylie, like Masha Gessen-- are doing just that.

It matters. It's personal, it's life and death.
Manufactured Consent-- is not consent.

    history non-fiction oblique-strategies

Nazarii Zanoz

546 reviews37 followers

December 7, 2020

Те, що потішило - як Померанцеви традиційно популяризують Чернівці та Україну. Вчать відрізняти її від Росії. Так само традиційно добре Пітер показує заплутаність російської пропаганди, складність її і того, що до кінця таки невідомо, як її протистояти. Що це також посилює мітологію цієї пропаганди. Чудово розказано про активістів та до чого може призвести підтримка популістів, навіть, якщо вона ситуативна.
Також цікаво слухати про експерименти радіосвободівських радійників зі звуком. Треба буде більше пошукати ефірів пана Ігора.
Трохи незрозумілим видався розділ про Україну. Здається, пан Пітер намагався настільки бути об'єктивним, що трохи із цим перегнув.
Трохи бракувало якоїсь нової, свіжої ідеї, котра би якісно відрізняла цю книжку Померанцева від попередніх.
Ну і я слухав аудіокнижку, і трохи незручно в ній те, що йде одним файлом, не поділена хоча би на розділи. Це дуже ускладнює пошук якогось потрібного моменту. Але це претензія до видавництва.

Sarah

1,236 reviews35 followers

September 16, 2019

4.5 rounded down

    non-fiction politics

Antonia

274 reviews86 followers

June 24, 2022

“Ако не можеш да ги убедиш, объркай ги” е широко разпространена политическа фраза с донякъде спорно авторство (Хари Труман или Хитлер?), циркулираща регулярно в лекционните курсове по политически науки. След президентските избори в САЩ през 2016 г. като че ли западното общество най-накрая се поразбуди и осъзна силата на това мото и колко по-лесно и трайно е да объркаш масите, отколкото да ги убедиш.

През 1952 г. в Больша́я сове́тская энциклопе́дия е включено определение за термина дезинформация: “фалшива информация с цел заблуда на общественото мнение”, а управленските структури на КГБ отлично внедряват и оползотворяват пълния потенциал на дезинформацията в своята тактическа дейност, наречена активни мероприятия.

Еволюцията на тази безнравствена практика е отлично проследена в книгата на Питър Померанцев “Това не е пропаганда”. Изследването на Померанцев е върху това как интернет, в частност социалните медии, се превръщат в мощно оръжие за манипулиране на общественото мнение, за основно средство в разпространение на хибридната война, за разбиване на репутации, за създаване на фалшиви реалности, конспирации, алтернативни факти и всякакви други реактивни израстъци на дезинформацията. Померанцев представя детайлно и с внимание мащаба на проблема, който не може да бъде подминат, защото крайната цел на атаките срещу фактите е дестабилизация на демокрацията и разцепление в обществото. Ценното в работата на Померанцев е многообхватността на изследването, представено като хронология на онлайн атаки в различни точки на света.

Една от първите жертви, с която ни среща автора е филипинската журналистка Мария Реза. Заради активната си битката срещу фалшивите новини Реза става основна мишена на президента Дутерте и непрекъснато е обект на атаки, арести и грозни обиди. През 2021 г. Мария Реза получи Нобелова награда за мир заедно с главния редактор на руския вестник “Новая газета” Дмитри Муратов.

“Това не е пропаганда” е наситена с примери за крехкостта на истината, нейната уязвимост и целенасочено преиначаване в похватите за покоряване на масите и осъществяване на контрол върху мисловните им нагласи. От тролските ферми в Русия, мрежата от “пеняботс” в Мексико, геймърският канал The Discord Channel като сборен пункт за крайно десни, до медийната среда в Сърбия, Унгария и Турция — книгата може да бъде разглеждана като широка експозиция от примери за фронтовите линии на информационните войни и фрактурите, които те нанасят, особено в неузрелите общества, каквото е и нашето.

Друг индикативен пример за удар, срещу държава този път, е безмилостната кибератака срещу Естония през април 2007 г., когато след серия от сблъсъци между русофили и десни естонци, заради паметника на Бронзовия войник в Талин, Естония усъмва парализирана от нефункциониращи сървъри. Изпълнението на обществени услуги е блокирано. Руските медии екслоадират с преувеличени и фалшиви новини, нагнетявайки още повече напрежението сред рускоезичното население в Естония.

Примерите не се изчерпват с Естония и тя не е единствената жертва на руски кибер- и инфоатаки. Нито една от сателитните на бившия СССР държави не е пощадена, но докато при едни атаките целят разединение и дезинтеграция на обществените нагласи спрямо западния свят и ЕС, то при други дезинформационните кампании са насочени към териториални присвоявания — Абхазия, Южна Осетия, Крим.

Питър Померанцев в роден в Киев, в семейство на интелектуалци, които са принудени да станат дисиденти и да напуснат Украйна, когато той е едва на една година. След почти четирисетгодишно отсъствие Померанцев се връща на родна земя, за да изследва “най-невероятната информационна блицкриг война в историята” — анексирането на Крим и разпаления военен конфликт в Донбас. Следват срещи с журналисти, активисти и свидетели на бруталната руска инвазия. Освен разказите на очевидци, Померанцев проследява и траекторията на руската дезинформационна атака, чието въображение покорява такива абсурдни върхове, че когато изстреляната от руснаците ракета сваля прелитащия над Луганска област самолет на Малайзиските авионилии, руските медии всеки ден кудкудякат нови налудни версии за трагедията — от тази, че е дело на украинците, които мислели, че това е самолета на Путин до онази, в която американците напълнили самолета с трупове на евреи, за да предизвикат руснаците и да ги обвинят пред света след това.
Тази част на книгата, фокусираща се върху Украйна, е особено подробна и интересна и категорично детронира всички про кремълски опорки за Майдана, пожарите в Одеса, и войната в Донбас, които троловете агресивно разпространяваха в първите седмици след 24 февруари. Няма да издавам повече, за да не ви ощетявам от моментите на изумление, което тези редове ще ви донесат.

    non-fiction politics

Kat

902 reviews92 followers

November 22, 2022

Very good and probably even more relevant now than when it was written.

    2022-reads

Natalia

48 reviews18 followers

February 9, 2023

I was an okay read, pretty instructive one, though I can't say I learnt that many new things or that anything was a huge wake-up game-changer moment here. It definitely is useful in understanding the mechanics behind popular and social media and targeted content though - would definitely recommend.

Yulia Kryval

109 reviews8 followers

May 1, 2022

Тисячі зірок! Я цю книжку ковтала з такою жадібністю і вдумливістю, розбирала її на цитати, читала всі вказані референси, паралельно вишукуючи додаткові факти, бо хотілось максимально глибоко зануритись в кожну історію, кожен контекст, кожну постать.

Ця книжка не тільки про пропаганду і те, як нами маніпулюють (і воюють) медіа і політика в різних країнах: вона про ідентичність, про її знаходження і розмивання, про непрості питання і визначення ніби-то звичних слів, типу народ, свобода, демократія.

В теперішньому контексті війни сприймається особливо близько і гостро, часто ловила себе на відчутті мемного Кучми «це ж було вже» або Зеленського «хто я?».

Також хочеться відзначити сторітелінг рівня боженька: обидві лінії (тематичні блоки різних країн і розповідь про (пост)дисидентське життя сім’ї Померанцевих, батьків Пітера (чи можна Петра?)) ведуться і сплітаються без перебільшень майстерно. Тут ідеально балансується фактажне і людське.

Ця книжка про боротьбу, революції і голоси не тільки суспільні, але й внутрішні.

На останок вам залишиться не тільки багата їжа для роздумів, а ше й купа іншої літератури, яку захочеться почитати.

    суспільно-політично-антропологічне

Thomas Edmund

1,036 reviews77 followers

March 23, 2020

An utterly horrible read, by which I mean not a bad book, but rather a horrifying book in content. We've all heard about the Russian bots and such, but this book made me realize just how far reaching this sort of activity was.

I've never actually closed a book and turned my head away from disturbing content - but this book managed it.

After saying or that this is recommended for those interested in the modern landscape of politics and how to understand the garbage that goes on in social media and what passes for news media in 2020. Not really recommended to read during a global pandemic as only so much bad news can be tolerated by one's psyche, but definitely recommended reading at some point...

Yurii Samusenko

32 reviews5 followers

August 3, 2020

Дивовижні висновки робить Померанцев у своії книзі: всі хочуть стати новою Росією за способом пропаганди. Бо вона дієва. І це підкріплюється сумними історіями, тих хто з нею бореться. Чому сумною? Бо боротьба так собі працює.

Захопливий нон-фікшн, якому бракує цілісності. Інтерв’ю Ігоря межують з особистими історіями його батьків і це змушує постійно пригадувати попередні розділи. З моєю пам’яттю це ще той челендж, але в цілому це хороша книга без всіляких конспірологічних теорій.

Blair

1,912 reviews5,491 followers

Shelved as 'did-not-finish'

December 11, 2019

Read up to 43%. This book is about very interesting stuff, but it is not very interesting to read.

Peter Colclasure

295 reviews23 followers

July 2, 2020

I want to live in a future where there is a shared reality, a mutually-agreed-upon set of facts, where there is truth. That future is threatened, thanks in part to internet trolls at the behest of rogue states, ideological noise factories like Fox News, and conspiracy theory nitwits like Alex Jones.

This book focuses more on rogue states than 4Chan, primarily the Philippines, Russia, and China. You learn a little bit (more) about Cambridge Analytica, the war thing happening in Crimea, and various intrepid journalist-activists in places like the Philippines and Mexico who are in an information race with their own governments to win hearts and minds.

The same internet that empowered social justice movements has also empowered their foes. The Arab spring could not have happened without social media. Black Lives Matter could not have happened without social media. But autocrats such as Putin and Duterte are quickly learning how to leverage the internet to discredit and suppress any genuine opposition.

The Internet Research Agency is a giant troll farm in St. Petersburg, a four story building where thousands of people work around the clock, maintaining fake Facebook profiles, writing blogs, and posting comments to YouTube videos, all with the purpose of furthering Putin’s murky political agenda. Other leaders are studying the tactics of protest movements and organizing identical counter-protests. Journalists who ask too many questions of autocratic leaders find themselves the object of targeted harassment campaigns. Here in America, political rancor is stoked by agents of the Kremlin pretending to be right-wing or left-wing extremists who start fights on Facebook.

All of this has the effect of stifling legitimate dissent. It’s Orwellian. Up is down and 2 + 2 = 5.

The upside of reading a book like this is a better understanding of the information wars that define modern life, and the ways in which social media and digital technology are rewriting the rules of power. The downside of reading a book like this is a mounting sense of dread. It’s worrying to watch the world sink into a morass of misinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theories, where telling fact from fiction is an increasingly fraught enterprise. It's worrying to watch friends fall for the nonsense.

Each chapter starts with several pages of italicized font that tell the story of the author's family, growing up in Soviet Ukraine during the Cold War. His father was detained by the KGB for possession and distribution of forbidden materials, including books by William Faulkner, and they fled to Germany and then England when the author was still a toddler. The author tries to thematically link his family's experience of Soviet repression to the weird Orwellian internet zietgiest we're currently experiencing, but honestly these sections felt tangential at best. I thought the story was mildly interesting (though I gotta say the dad's poetry and short stories seemed awful) and the writing style of these sections was different, a sort of literary memoir tone, compared to the straight journalism of the rest of the book.

Here are some quotes I liked:

Conspiracy theories have long been used to maintain power. The Soviet leadership saw capitalist and counterrevolutionary conspiracies everywhere; the Nazis, Jewish ones. Then those conspiracies were used to buttress an ideology, whether class warfare for Communists, or race for Nazis. With today’s regimes, which struggle to formulate a single ideology, the idea that one lives in a world full of conspiracies becomes the worldview itself. Conspiracy theory replaces ideology with a mix of self-pity, paranoia self-importance, and entertainment. Erdogan, Trump, Putin, Orbán, and the rest invoke conspiracies to explain events, often hinting at them without going so far as stating them directly, which only strengthens the sense that what they are establishing is a more general worldview than any single theory.

And as a worldview it grants those who subscribe to it certain rewards: if all the world is a conspiracy, then your failures are no longer all your fault. The fact that you achieved less than you hoped for, that your life is a mess—it’s all the fault of the conspiracy.

More important, conspiracy is a way to maintain control. In a world where even the most authoritarian regimes struggle to impose censorship, one has to surround audiences with so much cynicism about anyone’s motives, persuade them that behind every seemingly benign motivation is a nefarious, if impossible-to-prove plot, so that they lose faith in the possibility of an alternative.

-

During Glasnost, it seemed that the truth would set everybody free. Facts seemed possessed of power, dictators seemed so afraid of facts that they suppressed them. But something has gone drastically wrong: we have access to more information and evidence than ever, but facts seem to have lost their power. There is nothing new about politicians lying, but what seems novel is their acting as if they don’t care whether what they say is true or false.

-

In the Cold War, both sides were engaged in what had begun as a debate about which system—democratic capitalism or communism—would deliver a rosier future for all mankind. The only way to prove you were achieving this future was to provide evidence. Communism, for all its many perversities and cruelties, was meant to be the ultimate, scientific, Enlightenment project. Those who lived under it knew it was a sham, but it was connected to a paradigm of Soviet economic growth based in Marxist-Leninist theory, whose objective laws of historical development supposedly were playing out as the theory maintained. Thus, it was also possible to catch the USSR out by exposing how it lied, by broadcasting accurate information, or by confronting its leaders with facts.

-

But . . . if there is no future that your facts are there to prove you are achieving, then what is the appeal of facts? Why would you want facts if they tell you that your children would be poorer then you? That all versions of the future were unpromising? And why should you trust the purveyors of facts, the media and academics, think tanks statesmen?

So the politician who makes a big show of rejecting facts, who validates the pleasure of spouting nonsense, who indulges in a full, anarchic liberation from coherence, from glum reality, becomes attractive. That enough Americans could elect someone like Donald Trump with so little regard for making sense, whose many contradictory messages never add up to any stable meaning, was partly possible because enough voters felt they weren’t invested in any larger evidence-based future. Indeed, in his very incoherence lies the pleasure. All the madness you feel, you can now let it out and it’s okay. The joy of Trump is to validate the pleasure of spouting shit, the joy of pure emotion, often anger, without any sense.

Dan Connors

353 reviews35 followers

November 16, 2019

Lies, especially lies meant to change public opinion, have always been with us. In the old days before the internet, authoritarian governments took over newspapers, radio, and television stations to broadcast their version of reality. Sometimes a simple paper flyer was left at people's doorsteps in a vain hope that they would be read and believed. There has always been a huge market for lies in the service of politicians and their parties.

Today, with 24/7 access to news feeds and information networks all over the world, the propaganda game has gone into overdrive and the stakes couldn't be any larger. Shadowy groups are now trolling internet message feeds and discussions, planting whatever stories they want to make their side look good and the other side look bad. It doesn't seem to matter anymore whether the claims are true, just that they grab eyeballs and are remotely believable.

Peter Pomerantsev is a television producer and writer who spent time in both Moscow and London, and he delivers a first-hand and very personal look into the business of fake news and persuasion. The author contacted and visited some of the people on the front lines in the information war, and it makes me wonder if the US should spend more of its $600 billion defense budget here than on the latest fighter jets.

The book starts with Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and how he went from an anti-war drug campaign to become an authoritarian president comfortable with wielding troll power over his enemies. Maria Ressa, just featured on 60 minutes this month, is the voice of this chapter as a crusading journalist who has been threatened with death by bot accounts and harassed and arrested because of her stories on Duterte. Somehow the Philippines became linked with troll farms in Russia, and the book details a fascinating behind the scenes story of one of them from a person who worked there and then went to the press about what happened there.

Pomerantsev interviews pro-democracy activists in Serbia and Mexico, skinheads in Germany, and old colleagues in London to present this familiar and depressing story of manipulation and deception. His chapter, "The Greatest Information Blitzkrieg in History" details the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, and how much of the war was fought online using stories and video that masked and distorted what was actually happening. The story of Aleppo, a city in Syria that was bombed with hundreds of thousands of casualties, is detailed in sad detail. Even with compelling video of the atrocities there, no one was able to intervene, partially because of disinformation campaigns. The book finishes in China, where the government controls most information getting into the country, and how dissidents are still being treated terribly while their treatment is invisible.

There are so many parallels between what this book details and what we've noticed here in the US. There is a new belief in politics today of radical relativism. Facts don't matter today, partially because many have lost hope and facing the unpleasantness of that reality is too much. So they gleefully deny reality in the hopes that some savior can rescue them from what is. Conspiracies replace ideology, thoughts of the future turn backwards instead to nostalgia about the past, and media is now used to confuse, dismay, divide and delay rational thought so that in the middle of the chaos strong leaders can emerge and claim virtual godhood.

Pomerantsev doesn't go there, but a lot of this could be fixed by the big tech companies like Facebook, You Tube, and Twitter. Fake accounts make up a significant portion of profiles today, and most of them churn out garbage. These companies make money by keeping us engaged on their platforms, even if we do it gobbling up destructive lies. I'm no tech genius, but there has to be an easier way to catch these creeps before they amass millions of fans. The public needs to put more pressure on them. And based on what this book says, we need to be constantly on guard for the agendas of those who want to spread chaos and mischief so that they get what they want from us- money, power, and obedience.

    2019-books

Jolanta (knygupė)

1,066 reviews222 followers

April 1, 2024

3.5*

    history non-fiction politic

Laura Gembolis

542 reviews56 followers

March 27, 2021

In a prior life (back in 2006 or 2007), I was talking with early childhood education advocates. They were very excited by James Heckman’s work (The Heckman Equation) because they believed it had the power to break through the noise and convince Americans to fund early childhood education. At the time, I said: I don’t think facts are going to change the conversation. They responded by saying facts were absolutely necessary to building a political coalition. I said: We need stories. They responded that we need both. While I share the belief that facts matter, unfortunately, facts have become something we can agree to disagree on. It’s an incredibly uncomfortable place to be. And the failure of facts to act as a guidepost has only grown. As Peter Pomerantsev points out, facts can be downers.

When telling the story of a video-activist from Aleppo, Pomerantsev says: “Facts didn't save Aleppo. And now he thinks telling stories is more powerful.” The world had facts about events in Syria. The facts were ignored.

Early in the book, Pomerantsev quotes his father: “And it was books - only books that never betrayed me. I see all genuine literature as anti-soviet. I feel any good book, which acknowledges the human being, individuality, uniqueness, is also anti-soviet because the state dictatorship is directed against the human being as an individual.”

When I read a sentence like this, I almost immediately rewrote it to say: “And it was books - only books that never betrayed me. I see all genuine literature as anti-capitalist. I feel any good book, which acknowledges the human being, individuality, uniqueness, is also anti-capitalist because marketing and the appetite for continuous consumerism is directed against the human being as an individual.”

This world without facts relies on a storytelling that distorts. A storytelling that emphasizes what Pomerantsev calls Restorative Nostalgia, which he defines as an unhealthy rebuilding of an old homeland that relinquishes facts for emotions. Stories, genuine literature, can save us. Along with facts. We need to find ways to talk about things. To talk about truths. It will be messy. We will not understand each other.

In the book Pomerantsev says: personal identity politics have replaced the traditional spectrum from liberal to conservative. I’ve heard this idea before. Often. Okay - what does that mean? In any situation rights are competing with each other. I think even within a single person.

At one point in the book, Pomerantsev interviews a person who suggests that giving people what they want is best for democracy. Pomerantsev then talks about how giving people what they want creates artificial consensus that doesn’t hold. He explains how diverse groups were separately convinced that Brexit met their interests. But in its vagueness, Brexit met no one’s interests. It’s my concern moving into the upcoming US election. So much focus is on beating Trump. Do you use these new tactics so that everyone perceives they are getting what they want (and the coalition will immediately dissolve) or do you talk in facts that no one wants to deal with? For a long time, I’ve been focused on protections that have been rolled back. As an example, I don’t know how anything can be righted until we confront the idea that corporations are not people. Corporations should not have the rights of people. But to get democracy working in again, it will involve facts and stories that look forward and do not rely on Restorative Nostalgia.

2nd reading 3/27/2021

    nonfiction russia usa
This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against R… (2024)
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