31. March is dialed in Ukraine a new President. Is overshadowed the election campaign of numerous, mainly by Russian-speaking Fake News. What is the influence of these false messages have on the elections?
In Ukraine election campaign – and he is guided with a part of dirty bandages. Around the on 31. To discredit the March and the upcoming presidential election are circulating in the social networks and media, a series of fictional messages, and reports – mostly with the aim of one of the presidential candidates.
By means of crowd tangle, a Tool that shows how Content spreads on the Internet, took the DW since the beginning of the year for Fake News in social networks under the magnifying glass. In particular, it was checked, which Russian-speaking Fake News generated in connection with the elections, the majority of reactions, such as Likes, Reposts and comments. The most popular Fakes with fictitious statements or stories to appear on Facebook. The relevant Accounts have up to two million subscribers.
The most popular of Fake messages
On 5. In January, shortly after the comedian Volodymyr Selenskyj had announced his candidacy, appeared on the Facebook page of “bbccn.co” a message of the initiated according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, a criminal case against Selenskyj – because of alleged “plans for the overthrow of the constitutional order”. On the Post there were around 20,000 responses – Likes, Reposts, and comments. The page “bbccn.co”, whose name is a mix of “BBC” and “CNN”, citing Lutsenko Facebook page. But the fact is that it has given this criminal case never.
Also, about 20,000 responses to a Facebook Post came from 2. January. The website “from-ua.com claimed,” all Ukrainians are angry about the fact that on new year’s eve the Ukrainian TV channel “1plus1” instead of the traditional new year’s address of the President of Petro Poroshenko a speech of Volodymyr Selenskyj radiated. The page “from-ua.com” refers to “politeka.net” as a source, and this, in turn, on an exclusively negative comments on the website of “1plus1”.
The message about Selenskyjs new year’s address is no longer available. On YouTube, many negative, but also positive User-comments under the Video. The Facebook message widespread wrong is, therefore, an extremely tendentious Interpretation of the facts.
In another Facebook Post “from-ua.com” it means, “EU President,” have not called to vote for Selenskyj, he was called a fool. This on 21. February published a Fake message had more than 4000 reactions, such as Likes, Reposts and comments. But the fact is that there is no “EU President”. The quote about Selenskyj was the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, in the mouth. Tusk had noted in a speech he gave on the occasion of a awarded him an honorary doctorate at the University of Lviv, incidentally, it had become “difficult to distinguish one artist, or even a comedian to a politician.” The candidates for the office of the President of Ukraine, he mentioned.
In this hoax of The EU: “President has not called to vote for Selenskyj: a fool in politics.”
On Facebook, there are many more Fake messages on Selenskyj, but are not quite as popular. There is also a fake Selenskyj website, he announces, supposedly, “to fly to an election victory immediately negotiations with Putin”, to give Russian the Status of an official language in Ukraine and to move the capital from Kiev to Odessa. 4600 Users have subscribed to this page.
Fake reports about other candidates
The DW has advised Facebook on the three most messages over Selenskyj widely used incorrectly. A spokeswoman for the company said they had been checked. The company stressed in its response to the DW request that Facebook have invested in the past two years solid to help protect the integrity of elections. “Our tactics include the Blockade and removal of Fake Accounts, limiting the dissemination of false reports and misinformation, as well as securing an unprecedented transparency of political advertising,” Facebook spokeswoman. In the case of the DW reported false positives was found, however, that you violated the community standards of Facebook.
Invented messages on Facebook over other top candidates. But there are far fewer reactions than the messages about Selenskyj. As was reported in a Post, presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko have hired retirees for participating in a election campaign rally, in retrospect, but not paid. On the Post, there were more than 5400 responses. Documents for the relevant information. The current President, Petro Poroshenko, claimed a further hoax, to have promised the “Jewish Elite four of the regions in the event of an election victory”. Also for this purpose, there is no evidence, however, the Post had over 4500 responses. And a message that US President Donald Trump Poroshenko allegedly have commanded, “voluntarily withdraw”, came to about 4000 reactions.
Influence on the outcome of the election?
Jelena Tschuranowa, expert of the Kiev “Institute of mass media” and the coordinator of the project “stop fake”, points out that the above-mentioned sites, the spread of such fictitious messages that do not correspond to journalistic Standards. But that would not understand all of the User. Therefore, such Posts could exert quite an influence on the voters. According to the expert, one could not speak of a targeted campaign against Selenskyj. “Against every candidate, there are negative news flows. There are many of them in different groups and channels, as many people are, and you can’t always see whether they are all real”, so Tschuranowa.
You agree with your colleague, Jelena Golub. “I think that all of this can have an impact. Many Ukrainians are active on social networks. It is unclear how many of them Fake messages can also be really self-identify as such”, says the expert of the “Institute of mass media”. In your opinion, is there to say but hard to how big is the influence of Fake News actually is. Whether and by whom the campaigns are controlled by the of the DW data collected to find out. However, it should be clear that “the staffs of the candidates are friends in the case of elections just to each other,” says Jelena Golub.
Ben Nimmo, an expert on information security of the US think-tank Atlantic Council stressed that the sites that have published fabrications about Selenskyj, had an impressive number of subscribers. “The likelihood that individual sites like this have a noticeable impact on the electoral process, however, is low, if they are not supported by a much larger infrastructure,” added Nimmo.
A total of about 42 million people, of which about 35 million are in the presidential election vote in Ukraine. According to a study by the Ukrainian communication Agency “PlusOne” today, about 13 million Ukrainians Facebook. Russian networks as “Vkontakte” and “Odnoklassniki” are prohibited in Ukraine since the beginning of 2017. Since then, the number of Ukrainian Facebook users has increased dramatically, so that today it is the most popular social network in the country.