Following the Russian invasion in the territories of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and the launch of full-scale military intervention, a number of disinformation related to the war has been disseminated in the Georgian, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian social and traditional media.
As part of Facebook’s third-party fact-checking program, Myth Detector has joined Meta’s efforts aimed at reducing the spread of false information about the war.
For a period of two months, from February 24 to April 24, Myth Detector monitored Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Georgian social media and uncovered typologies of key messages and false claims disseminated by Russian, Georgian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian sources. In addition to the retrieved data, the report includes 2 disinformation cases, which were identical to the manipulative content spread during the war and were initially disseminated right before the emergence of military intervention on February 24, 2022.
The following report consists of two parts: the first part discusses the amount, themes and typology of viral disinformation and manipulative content; The second part deals with the communication channels of Russian information operations and their tactics.
The report entails data retrieved by Myth Detector in collaboration with Facebook as part of its fact-checking program. The analysis also used the Facebook analytics tool CrowdTangle.
Open Source Investigation (OSINT) software Maltego was used for data visualization.
Authors: Tamar Kintsurashvili, Sandro Gigauri
Fact-checkers: Maiko Ratiani, Mariam Dangadze, Arabela Kordzakhia, Mariam Talakhadze, Dato Robakidze, Keti Khutsishvili, Tina Tvauri, Irakli Iagorashvili
Data Processing and Visualization in Maltego: Mariam Tsutskiridze
Cover: Shutterstock
Design by: Besik Danelia, IBDesign
Link: RUSSIAN INFORMATION WARFARE – 2 MONTHS AFTER THE INVASION IN UKRAINE
