WASHINGTON: A Russian missile smashed a Ukrainian apartment complex, killing dozens. Pro-Russian propagandists offered a slick counter-narrative that shifted the blame away from Moscow - using pseudo-fact-checking as a tool of disinformation. Since the start of its invasion one year ago, Russia and its sup
WASHINGTON: A Russian missile smashed a Ukrainian apartment complex, killing dozens. Pro-Russian propagandists offered a slick counter-narrative that shifted the blame away from Moscow - using pseudo-fact-checking as a tool of disinformation.
But a website called"War on Fakes" - which disseminates what experts identify as Russian propaganda - claimed in an"exclusive" that the building had been destroyed by a Ukrainian air defense missile. It does not name its writers and it remains unclear who was behind the project, launched last year soon after the invasion, but among its amplifiers are pro-Kremlin actors including Russian ministries and embassies."It works primarily because fact-checking usually serves for readers as an 'authoritative' source to seek 'objective information.'"
Those include killings in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where hundreds of bodies were discovered after the Russian army was driven out last March, and shelling of a maternity hospital in the port city of Mariupol that was captured by Moscow after a long siege. "Fake fact-checks risk undermining trust in credible media and legitimate fact-checking institutions," Madeline Roache, from the watchdog NewsGuard, told AFP.
"War on Fakes" often publishes a series of fact-checks about the same topic, sometimes with multiple and conflicting statements that overwhelm readers.
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