A study by the University of Adelaide found that 60% to 80% of the tweets created in favour of Ukraine were fake news.

By Romegas

The true believers of Western media among you will no doubt state that I am a Kremlin apologist – spouting my own propaganda – but I am anything but. From the start, I have undertaken every effort to get an objective picture and convey it to you and what’s more, my objectivity has always proved more prescient and ahead of what the media is telling you.

Not because I am a prophet or more intelligent than most but because I triangulate information and MAKE AN EFFORT to access multiple sources of information. It pains me deeply to see my fellow citizens treated with such contempt and taken as fools. That the whole western narrative around the war in Ukraine – from its genesis (2014) until today is mostly composed of undiluted bullshit, unashamed lies, and utter fake news is not simply my opinion  – it is a proven fact.

Unbeknown to you – failed as you are by a biased media – researchers at the University of Adelaide have published a landmark paper  on the activities of bot accounts on Twitter related to the conflict in Ukraine. These Australian findings are truly staggering – of 5.2 million tweets on the social media network from February 23 to March 8, between 60 to 80% were shared by fake accounts. What’s more, 90% of those posts were pro-Ukraine.

In particular, these accounts pushed the hashtags #IStandWithUkraine, #IStandWithZelenskyy, and #ISupportUkraine, and myths like the ‘Ghost of Kiev’, a fictional Ukrainian fighter pilot who is farcically alleged to have taken down 40 Russian jets within hours of the military operation commencing.

Significant spikes in activity were recorded at key points in the initial stages of the fighting, such as Russia’s capture of Kherson on March 2, and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant on March 4.

The accounts identified were overwhelmingly English language, leading the researchers to conclude these fake users sought to “drive more disruption in English-speaking countries” and “influence a variety of user groups.”  Despite the significant focus on English, Ukrainian bots also employed the Russian language to “cause more disruption” in the country.

It is almost inevitable that the level of pro-Kiev sentiment expressed by users – troll and organic alike – will have increased even further beyond the 90% recorded during this timeframe since then not only have the likes of Twitter, Facebook, et al in support of the Western proxy war in Ukraine been truly weaponized but just as importantly you are being denied of attempting to balance this propaganda to form as objective a picture as you can by accessing Russian media which has been totally censored without your consent. In the minds of your privileged patrons, you must be saved from the difficulty of forming your own informed opinion.

What we have in essence are two parallel wars – one being fought on the ground with real deaths and real consequences and the other being fought in the information space. The war on the ground, all real indicators show is being won by Russia as is that being fought on the economic front – however the West is undisputedly winning the ‘information war’ – and yet this is our greatest peril – because most of our politicians and leaders are prime consumers of western media – it is very likely that they end up believing our very own bullshit and believing bullshit is extremely unlikely to get them to take the right decisions. Indeed by imbibing hubris and misinformation they are most likely to take the wrong ones to our detriment as we can attest day after day.