War in Ukraine: a telephone campaign to combat Russian disinformation – FRANCE 24

Published on: 03/25/2022 – 13:40 Faced with censorship and disinformation from the Kremlin about the war in Ukraine, a group of Lithuanians launched, on March 8, the #CallRussia information campaign, which consists of to call Russian citizens to alert them to the reality of the conflict. After a difficult start, its organizers now claim to be getting more attention from Russian citizens. Since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24, Russia has imposed strict control over the information conveyed to its citizens about its military operations. In addition to censorship of several independent media and restrictions on access to social networks, Vladimir Putin signed a new law criminalizing “the dissemination of false information about the Russian army”, now punishable by up to 15 years in prison. To counter this excessive propagandist strategy, a group of Lithuanian activists launched a campaign of telephone calls to Russian citizens, entitled #CallRussia. The concept could not be simpler: call as many people as possible to alert them to the reality of Moscow’s “special military operation”. 40 million callsOn March 3, a week after the start of the offensive, Paulius Senuta, from Vilnius, received a phone call from a friend. “He told me that he had downloaded Russian phone books, and I immediately thought that this could be a way to reach citizens of the country who have no idea what is really going on,” explains the young man contacted by France 24. The following days, Paulius Senuta and his friends worked hard on their concept, contacting dozens of technology experts, communication specialists and psychologists to set up the campaign. information #CallRussia.Launched on March 8, the initiative takes the form of a digital platform that allows Russian-speaking volunteers from all over the world to get in touch with the 40 million Russians, whose telephone numbers have been coded and recorded in his database. “One conversation cannot overcome Putin’s evil propaganda, but with millions of conversations, it could be done (…) Putin is only afraid of one thing: the power of pe Russian uple himself. The Russians are the only ones who can stand up to Putin,” the platform’s website reads. “Putin will take care of you!” According to the organization, some 25,000 volunteers in 116 countries have joined the movement in just over two weeks, and almost 100,000 calls were made. Paulius Senuta, for his part, claims to have made around 150 calls, and those in the first days were by far the most difficult. “There were basically two types of interactions. About two-thirds of the people were really really angry and yelled at me for five to seven minutes. The other third of the interlocutors were simply polite, did not speak, but simply listened. People were really afraid to speak.” Faced with the aggressiveness of some Russians, Paulius Senuta admits having experienced difficulties. “Emotionally, it’s hard, you have to be prepared for that before you call”, underlines he, stating that #CallRussia has developed scenarios and guidelines to help its volunteers deal with the many difficulties when calling. who told me she was Putin’s daughter and that she was going to report me to her father. ‘He’ll take care of you,’ she told me,” says Paulius Senuta. that his website has been targeted by numerous cyberattacks. “We get messages like, ‘How much are you paid to do this’ and ‘stop the lies.’ They [les pirates informatiques] have tried to take the site down several times, but we always get it back up and running fairly quickly,” he explains. on the Internet, coupled with the policy of drastic censorship of the media works with the population, especially the older ones. [les personnes interrogées] all repeat pretty much the same thing: this is a very small targeted military operation to denazify Ukraine, that Russia save the Ukrainian people and bring them food and clothes. It looks like a copy-paste of information from Russian state media.” Allowing opponents to speak While he recognizes that the mission of the #CallRussia campaign is far from simple, Paulius Senuta nevertheless considers that the dialogue is progressing. “It feels like the sentiment is changing,” he explains. “People aren’t shouting as much anymore, and we’re seeing better interactions. There are more people speaking up and the conversations are getting longer.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that Russian public opinion has suddenly changed its mind, but it is a very positive signal, he believes. he.According to the activist, the increasing duration of calls is one of the only ways to measure the success of the project. “What we are trying to do is convey the magnitude of the human tragedy so that people take a stance based on humanitarian issues rather than ideological ones, and some of our volunteers are now able to talk to people for quite a long time, sometimes for an hour.” “The more we can talk to people, the more we can tell them what’s really going on, and we think that can have a real impact and change the way they see war,” he said. “We are well aware that we won’t be able to convince the staunchest supporters of the war, but if we manage to neutralize their rhetoric, the opponents of the military operation will feel stronger and could then take to the streets [pour protester].”Article translated from English by David Rich. To read the original, it’s here.