disinformation
What appears to be a nightly newscast is about to begin, only with a very Ukrainian twist: Everything is a lie, from start to finish. “Welcome to ‘StopFake,’ the place where we set the record straight on fakes about Ukraine,” the anchor, Margo Gontar, intones. In other parts of the world, viewers might suspect the evening news is just a bunch of lies, but watching the weekly broadcast of “StopFake News,” they can be certain of it.
At other times, forged documents and fabricated news items consistent with Russia's strategic objectives have first appeared in obscure Swedish media outlets, which were picked up subsequently by Sputnik and "other sources of Russian public diplomacy" and broadcast to an international audience.
Russia's strategy toward Sweden blurs the line between public diplomacy and covert operations.
Back in November 2014, Michael Weiss and Peter Pomerantsev published an insightful report called “The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money.” The main argument was that ‘truth’ no longer matters and the key objective is to deliberately distort the truth and sow confusion. The report earned immediate attention in Brussels—including in NATO circles.
How the "post-truth" trend of misinformation is affecting NATO, and how the organization can fight back.
This new report shares public diplomacy lessons learned over the past eight years and recommendations for the incoming administration.