What is the technology “flow of lies”? How is the Kremlin using it? What you need to do in order not to drown in the informational mud – read the material of the site 24 channels.
“A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth”
Author This phrase is often referred to as the main propagandist of Nazi Germany in the 1930-1940s Josef Goebbels. Although historians claim that the French diplomat Francois Rene de Chateaubriand said so at the beginning of the 19th century, and the mouthpiece of the Third Reich used this aphorism as a plan of action. At one time, Hitler's Germany gushed with lies. Now Putin's Russia is doing the same.
What is the flow of lies
Propaganda technology based on the dissemination and repetition of a large number of messages on a specific topic. All possible communication channels are used – traditional media (websites, TV channels, radio, press), as well as social networks, instant messengers, blogs (they employ an army of “trolls”) and even personal conversations. At the same time, the information is preferably fake or manipulated, and it is not of high quality and is not consistent.
In simple words: Russia takes a particular topic and promotes it everywhere in the way it needs. The psyche of a person following the news cannot withstand overload, and this person begins to believe the widespread information coming from different sources, and all at once supposedly “can’t lie.”
Another important point: propagandists can deliberately throw many different versions into the stream of lies, often even contradicting each other. For the main thing in this technology, we recall, is not to tell the truth, but rather to hide or level it and impose your own – the necessary “truth”/lie.
Now we will give illustrative examples of how Russia has used and is using technology ” a stream of lies”.
The case of the downed Boeing as an example of Russia's lies and cynicism
The terrorists tried to hide the truth about the downed Boeing/Photo by Getty Images
July 17, 2014 over The Donbass shot down a Malaysian Boeing flying on flight MH17 Amsterdam – Kuala Lumpur. As a result of the tragedy, all passengers and crew (a total of 298 people) died.
Literally a few minutes after the crash of the liner, the terrorists of the pseudo-republic in Donbass began writing bravura reports on social networks about the “downed bird” – they thought they had hit a Ukrainian plane. The information was picked up by the Russian propaganda media, which replicated the news.
Subsequently, the killers found out that their Buk missile had destroyed a peaceful airbus, and began to urgently delete posts on social networks, and the journalists-minions to delete the news.< /strong>Instead, they jointly launched a stream of lies, producing and spreading a bunch of unlucky versions – allegedly the Boeing was shot down either by a Ukrainian Buk, or by a fighter jet, or that it was a terrorist attack by Western intelligence agencies. Moreover, some completely wild propagandists claimed that there were no living people in the cabin, and dead bodies were loaded there back in the Netherlands …
These fables were overgrown with comments from dubious “witnesses” who repeated learned phrases, and on talk shows were shown on Russian TV, where dozens of “experts” told the “truth” about how Ukraine and the West allegedly shot down a Boeing and shifted the blame to Russia.
And here it is appropriate, after Goebbels, to quote Adolf Hitler himself:
The grander the lie, the easier it is to believe it. Especially if it is repeated over and over again.
The stream of lies of propagandists worked tirelessly. But in the end it didn't help. The international investigation team, which included representatives of 5 countries, completely crushed all invented versions and made public its verdict: the liner was shot down by the Buk air defense system that arrived in Ukraine from Russia, at the time of the shot, he was in the territory controlled by the terrorists, and then he was taken back to Russia.
- On June 19, 2019, the Dutch prosecutor's office, based on the investigation of the International Investigation Team, charged the first four suspected terrorists.
- On July 16, 2019, the High Representative of the Council of Europe, on behalf of the European Union, called on Russia to accept responsibility for the Boeing crash.
- The MH17 criminal trial is ongoing. According to lawyers, it should be completed in 2023-2024. But Russia's war against Ukraine is likely to delay the announcement of the verdict.
The flow of lies is also a weapon of mass destruction
The Russians are intimidating the world with weapons of mass destruction/Photo from the archive of channel 24 Because now the invaders continue to actively use it. At present, weapons of mass destruction, which Ukraine can allegedly use (according to different versions) against Russians, residents of the temporarily occupied Donbass, and even its own civilians, has become a trump card.
Kremlin bosses, Russian military bureaucrats, fake experts and deceitful propagandists literally every day talk about Ukraine's plans to create a “dirty atomic bomb”, poison drinking water, blow up storage facilities with chemicals… Ukraine and the deadly viruses created there. Russia even twice convened the UN Security Council on this occasion – and twice received a rebuff at meetings due to lack of evidence and the absurdity of the accusations.
We will not describe in detail the nonsense that the occupiers spread – read on the 24 channel website the refutation of fakes and the most important materials about chemical and biological weapons. Let us just note that, as in the situation with the downed Boeing, the Russians again came up with many fantastic versions that a person with common sense would not believe, but, unfortunately, for the zombies, this is the “pure truth”. (Remember Hitler's line?)
Let's just remember the story that the Ukrainians allegedly create deadly viruses that will genetically infect … only the Slavs, but will transfer them to the territory of Russia … migratory birds. Then some “wise guy” apparently sobered up and remembered that Ukrainians are also Slavs… Therefore, the wording was urgently changed – “the virus will infect only representatives of the Russian ethnic group.” Why the insidious Ukrainian virologists “pardoned”, for example, the Kadyrovites or the “combat Buryats” is unclear.
Now it is quite obvious that the viral “history”, as well as chemical and nuclear ones, will continue. The flow of lies will continue to flow, especially since this time it performs another function: prepares the basis for provocations – the occupiers can use weapons of mass destruction and blame Ukraine for this. The likelihood of such a scenario has already been reported by the Ukrainian intelligence services and our Western partners (read more in Channel 24 article “False flag operation: what it is and how Russia can use it”).
How to counteract the flow of lies
Stories like “viruses and birds” certainly cause laughter and inspire jokes and memes. But at the same time, it should be recognized that, in general, the “flow of lies” technology works quite effectively – especially among people with weak critical thinking, of whom there are actually a lot – and not only among Russians. p>
How to deal with the flow of lies? Experts from the Center for Combating Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine advise taking the following measures:
- Repeating truthful information. Many, constantly, different channels. Respond faster to events.
- Provide additional information to fill gaps created by the spread of false news.
- Counteract the effects of propaganda, not propaganda itself. The purpose of propaganda may be to change the behavior and/or opinions of the audience. It is necessary to understand the goal and influence it.
- Tell about the methods of propaganda to those to whom it is directed.
