Ministry of Truth: How the Russian state fights fake news during the COVID-19 pandemic
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2021-7-4-124-150Keywords:
infodemic, covid-19, folklore, fact-checking, fake news, rumorsAbstract
We research how the Russian authorities, using both fact-checking resources and law enforcement measures, have been fighting COVID-rumors and fake news during 2020-2021. To find out what the Russian government considers to be the most dangerous rumors, we built three databases: COVID-rumors in social media (6.2 million reposts from 1 January through 30 April); cases of court prosecutions against spreaders of fake news (240 cases from February, 2020 to August, 2021); and cases of debunking of “fake news” on coronafake.ru (194 cases). The majority of Russian infodemic texts in social media (65%) consists of anti-vaccination narratives and folk medicine for COVID-19. Those rumors are generally claimed to be the most socially dangerous because they can adversely influence human behavior. Meanwhile, of the fake news and rumors which became the subjects of court cases, the majority (84%) concern the possible negative socio-political scenarios of the coronavirus pandemic and express distrust of the actions of government institutions. At the same time, anti-vaccination fake news and false medical advice draw no attention from state agencies. Thus, the policy of the Russian state in the fight against the infodemic turns out to be focused mainly on preserving the legitimacy of government institutions and public confidence in them, and less on public health.Downloads
References
Архипова А. С., Радченко Д. А., Козлова И. В., Пейгин Б. С., Гаврилова М. В., Петров Н. В. Пути российской инфодемии: от WhatsApp до Следственного комитета // Мониторинг общественного мнения: экономические и социальные перемены. 2020. № 6. С. 231-265.
Болтански Л., Тевено Л. Критика и обоснование справедливости: Очерки социологии градов / Пер. с фр. М.: Нов. лит. обозрение, 2013.
Буайе П. Анатомия человеческих сообществ: как сознание определяет наше бытие / Пер. с англ. М.: Альпина нон-фикшн, 2019.
Мюнхенская конференция по безопасности // Всемирная организация здравоохранения. 2020. 15 февр. URL: https://www.who.int/ru/dg/speeches/detail/munich-security-conference.
Селезнев С. Эпидемия фейков: борьба с коронавирусом как угроза свободе слова: Доклад Международной Агоры. 2020. URL: https://www.agora.legal/fs/a_delo2doc/190_file__2.pdf.
Степанцов П., Вилейкис А. Коронавирус и общество. Как россияне реагируют на эпидемию // Нож. 2020. 1 апр. URL: https://knife.media/corona-sociology-1.
Титков А. Ритуалы вины и позора в украинском конфликте 2013-2015 годов // Векторы развития современной России. "Война миров": научное знание / прагматика жизни: Материалы XIV Междунар. науч.-практ. конф. молодых ученых. 17-18 апреля 2015 года / Под общ. ред. М. Г. Пугачевой. М.: Изд. дом "Дело" РАНХиГС, 2016. С. 151-159.
Abello J., Broadwell P., Tangherlini Т. R. Computational folkloristics // Communications of the ACM. Vol. 55. No. 7. 2012. P. 60-70.
Brainard J., Hunter P. R. Misinformation making a disease outbreak worse: Outcomes compared for influenza, monkeypox, and norovirus // Simulation. Vol. 96. No. 4. 2019. P. 365-374.
Cinelli M., Quattrociocchi W., Galeazzi A. et al. The COVID-19 social media info-demic // Scientific Reports. Vol. 10. 2020. 16598. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5.
Freeman D., Waite F., Rosebrock L. et al. Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs, mistrust, and compliance with government guidelines in England // Psychological Medicine. Vol. 21. 2020. P. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291720001890.
Ilyefalvi E. The theoretical, methodological and technical issues of digital folklore databases and computational folkloristics // Acta Ethnographica Hungarica. Vol. 63. No. 1. 2018. P. 209-258.
Imhoff R., Lamberty P. A bioweapon or a hoax? The link between distinct conspiracy beliefs about the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak and pandemic behavior // Social Psychological and Personality Science. Vol. 11. No. 8. 2020. P. 1110-1118.
Islam M. S., Kamal A. H. M., Kabir A. et al. COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: The need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence // PLOS ONE. Vol. 16. No. 5. 2021. e0251605. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251605.
Lazarus J. V., Ratzan S. C., Palayew A. et al. A global survey of potential acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine // Nature Medicine. Vol. 27. No. 2. 2021. P. 225-228.
Rozenblit L., Keil F. The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth // Cognitive Science. Vol. 26. No. 5. 2002. P. 521-562.
Solís Arce J. S., Warren S. S., Meriggi N. F. et al. COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and hesitancy in low- and middle-income countries // Nature Medicine. Vol. 27. No. 8. P. 1385-1394. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01454-y.
Tandoc Jr. E. C., Lim Zh. W., Ling R. Defining "fake news": A typology of scholarly definitions // Digital Journalism. Vol. 6. No. 2. 2018. P. 137-153. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1360143.
Tangherlini T. R., Leonard P. Trawling in the sea of the great unread: Sub-corpus topic modeling and humanities research // Poetics. Vol. 41. No. 6. 2013. P. 725-749.
Thomas Sh. A. Lies, damn lies, and rumors: An analysis of collective efficacy, rumors, and fear in the wake of Katrina // Sociological Spectrum. Vol. 27. No. 6. 2020. P. 679-703.
