The Mysterious World of Putin’s Superfans: Beware of such profiles on Facebook! – Topky.sk

The big Pro-Putin Facebook groups were analyzed by the BBC in collaboration with researchers from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) in London. They managed to identify ten public Pro-Putin groups, one of which was called, for example, “Vladimir Putin – the leader of the free world”. Altogether, these groups have about 650,000 members and contain pictures and contributions that celebrate Putin. The content is available in several languages, including English, Russian, Persian, Arabic and Khmer. Groups are very popular and new posts appear regularly. Last month, researchers counted 16,500 contributions, to which more than 3.6 million users responded. Generally speaking, these groups portray Putin as a hero who stood up to the West. In the pictures, the Russian leader often “walks confidently, holds the puppies, looks longingly at the camera, salutes the soldiers and rides on a number of wild animals, including bears and lions,” the BBC writes. Photo gallery (6) Vladimir Putin
Source: SITA / Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP Astroturfing Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (February 24), more than 100,000 new members have been added to these analyzed Pro-Putin groups. Examining the most active ones, it turned out that many fans who are listed as group administrators have a second account under the same name. There are more than 100 of them. These accounts usually follow each other and sometimes send friendly messages or emoticons with hearts. The mentioned users manage the Pro-Putin accounts together with the profiles, which are presented as official accounts of the Russian security services or Russian authorities, but are obviously fake. Photo gallery (6) Source: Getty Images Operating duplicate accounts may be a violation of Facebook rules, according to ISD. Leading researcher Mousatafa Ayad explained that in this case it is the so-called “astroturfing”, ie an internet operation involving multiple profiles and aiming to create the impression of wider civic support. The campaign “creates a semblance of broad support for Putin and the Kremlin in the shadow of the invasion and relies on inauthentic testimony to achieve its goal,” the ISD report said. Photo gallery (6) Source: Getty Images Upon closer inspection, some administrators may experience unusual behavior. One of them, who presents himself as “Marine”, claims to be in Syria and uses three different accounts to increase support for Putin through them. All three accounts share Arabic posts at the same time every day. Another administrator, “Victoria” from Cambodia, shares the content in a group where its members communicate in Khmer. Since February 4, her contributions have generated more than 34,000 responses and have been shared more than 4,000 times. Marine and Victoria run a Khmer-language Facebook page together, which is a good example of how some Pro-Putin accounts work together. They do not want to comment on the war Contributions supporting Putin are often shared in various groups, for example, one Facebook account, the owner of which was to be located in Bulgaria, shared the same photo of Putin in the order of several minutes. The BBC’s editors tried to contact some of the group’s administrators, but most were unlucky. “Raj” from Kenya, who is a member of several Pro-Putin groups and has the end of his Facebook name “Putin”, picked up the editor’s phone. In a short interview, he called Putin a “great leader,” but said he did not want to talk about the war. He did not answer other e-mail questions in which the editors asked him about his interest in Russia. “Hasmik”, who is from Armenia and claims to be a journalist, is now helping to manage six Pro-Putin groups. When asked how she got there, she replied that through people who did it before she did. He says he doesn’t get money for group management. It is difficult to find out what motivates people to manage these Facebook accounts. There is no apparent connection to the Russian government and, unlike other well-known Russian disinformation campaigns, the network is not refined. The people who take part in it do not hide their intentions. However, it cannot be ruled out that the network has some ties to Russian authorities or Pro-Putin entities in Russia. At the same time, many people around the world support Putin’s anti-Western stance. Fake Profiles Putin The BBC has been contacted by Facebook, which has stated that it has policies against fake accounts and that, based on information from the report and its own investigation, it has suspended these profiles. “We are continuing vigorous measures to prevent the spread of crisis-related misinformation in Ukraine,” said a spokesman for the parent company Meta. During the analysis of the Pro-Putin site, BBC editors came across other fake profiles posing as Putin himself. The Russian president is one of the few world leaders who does not use social networks and has no official account on Facebook. He doesn’t even own a smartphone. According to his spokesman, Putin simply does not need social networks because they would “not give him anything he would no longer have”. Photo gallery (6) Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his speech in a missile assembly workshop during a visit to the Vostočny cosmodrome near Tsiolkovsky
Source: SITA / Evgeny Biyatov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP One of the sites that pretended to be Putin’s profile had almost three million followers. Because it was a fake profile, it was blocked at the end of February. Much of its followers, more than 700,000, were won by the site during a pandemic of praise for the Russian covid-19 vaccine. Recently, reports spread on the Kremlin’s views on the war in Ukraine, and many commentators seemed to believe that the contributions were the real words of the Russian president. Shortly after the invasion began, a post appeared on the site stating that the goal of the “operation” was peacekeeping aimed only at demilitarizing the neighboring country. This message has been shared and liked more than 200,000 times. The site was also in the habit of tagging other users in its posts about Putin, including those found by researchers to have duplicate accounts. In other words, she communicated with Putin’s superfans. Photo gallery (6) Source: TASR / AP Photo / Efrem Lukatsky The BBC has failed to track down the account. However, according to information in the transparency section of the site, its administrators are in Russia and Latvia. According to Nika Alexeyeva, a researcher at the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) who belongs to the Atlantic Council, the fan site is a breeding ground for strengthening support for the Kremlin abroad. “If they are not abolished by major social networks, they can help build public support for the so-called Russian ‘military operation’ in Ukraine in foreign countries,” she said.