Kicking Russian state media RT and Sputnik from social media or banning Donald Trump from Twitter and Facebook is not the solution to disinformation. Trying to silence the big disseminators of false information only gives more ammunition to autocratic politicians, believes political scientist Giuliano Da Empoli, author of the best seller “The Engineers of Chaos”.
“The movements [tecnopopulistas] changed their identity and now sell themselves as defenders of freedom”, he tells sheet. “In their propaganda, progressives are taking away people’s freedom; if we fall into this trap, we will only strengthen the populists’ argument.”
According to the Franco-Italian, the most efficient way to combat the manipulation of public debate is to have a media that quickly confronts and debunks politicians who spread lies, without falling into the traps of digital populists — who use the press to amplify their discourse.
Empoli would give a lecture at Sesc in São Paulo this week and had meetings with parliamentarians, but was unable to board because he was diagnosed with Covid. In April, he publishes in France “The Wizard of the Kremlin: Putin’s Men”, a fiction based on Vladislav Surkov, one of the Russian president’s most influential advisers.
Jair Bolsonaro (PL), former US President Donald Trump and other populists have embraced the defense of freedom of expression as a flag and portray themselves as victims of censorship. How is it possible to respect freedom of expression while fighting disinformation? First, we need to not fall into the mental trap of defining any opinion we don’t agree with as propaganda or disinformation—something we tend to do from time to time. And it’s also good to keep in mind that the truth police only existed in totalitarian regimes.
That said, I don’t think silencing these people is the solution. Of course, Trump can be expelled from Twitter, but this action, in addition to being problematic, will not be able to silence him. There is great responsibility on the part of the media in relation to these populist movements, which even take advantage of certain journalistic obligations to thrive and spread their message.
We’ve already seen that fact checking doesn’t work when it’s done half an hour later or the next day. Nobody pays attention. What is effective is having well-informed journalists who challenge false information immediately, who have the preparation and courage to do so. So we participate in the debate.
It’s tempting to think we’re going to mute some voices, but that doesn’t work. the movements [tecnopopulistas] changed their identity and now sell themselves as defenders of freedom, say they are fighting censorship. In their propaganda, progressives are taking away people’s freedom to eat what they want, to express their opinions, they are stealing even Christmas; if we fall into this trap, we will only strengthen the populists’ argument. This “fight for freedom” now refers to vaccines and restrictions to contain Covid, but soon it will be about the environment.
And it’s hard to argue against fighting for freedom, right? Exactly [risos].
Mr. published “Engineers of Chaos” in 2019. Since then, Trump has lost the election, but Trumpism is still alive. Bolsonaro has dropped in the polls, but is still competitive. What has changed? Over the past two years, Covid has led to an existential crisis, and people have returned to focusing on their lives and betting on more experienced politicians. Of course, there are still exalted minorities, but for the most part, people have lived a kind of return to reality.
These populist movements, to thrive, need to hack the public agenda and stay at the center of everything at all times. When there is a crisis like the pandemic, it is more difficult. They tried, mobilized a minority with conspiracy theories, but overall failed. They were seduced by their anti-establishment, anti-science, anti-media instincts. They became anti-public health, and that left them very much on the sidelines.
These leaders were brought to power with campaigns that resonated in the mainstream — nationalism, against corruption and immigration. But with the coronavirus and vaccines, they have strayed far from the mainstream. When there is no longer Covid as a cleavage and the normal debate returns, nobody knows what will happen with these movements. Nobody found an antidote.
In what sense? The Covid crisis has lowered the temperature. I am convinced that Trump would have won the election if not for the pandemic. In several places we have these reassuring politicians returning: Joe Biden in the US; in Germany, Olaf Scholz is an old-school social democrat, albeit a little younger; old banker Mario Draghi in Italy; Lula may return to power in Brazil.
But these are not antidotes. The fever is going down for a few reasons, but these calmer figures are not the antidote to what we’ve been experiencing in recent years. I don’t see new leaders or new ideas. And even in the digital dimension, we haven’t figured out how to cure what we live either.
There has been pressure on internet platforms and they have been making changes. But what if that’s not enough — if the biggest problem isn’t platforms, but people and leaders mobilizing without bots or trolls against democracy? Regulation is already very difficult, and we are far from having efficient regulation. In Europe, the debate is heading to the right place and there are significant measures, but we are at the beginning. And the problem goes beyond that, it is linked to the idea of ​​shared reality.
When people focus on fake news, they show that they don’t understand the problem. Of course, there are fake news and they are a problem, but you can build and live a parallel reality without fake news, just by selecting the news and information you will consume. We will never go back to that time when the mass media, newspapers and TV determined what was reality for most people, what was newsworthy.
So, how to have a democratic public debate in a context of fragmented reality? That’s why I say we haven’t found the antidote yet. Despite that, I’m not too pessimistic, because people are starting to see the consequences of this kind of disinformation propaganda. For example, what is happening in Ukraine shows that this approach is not just about words and memes — it ultimately leads to violence.
How do you evaluate Russian influence operations during the invasion of Ukraine? Obviously not doing well. The people behind Russia’s relatively subtle and sophisticated campaigns, such as those used in the annexation of Crimea [2014], are down. It is on one of these people that my new book, Vladislav Surkov, is based.
Today, we have a no-frills approach. There are no more attempts to manipulate communication to the West. Putin doesn’t care, he’s not making public relations offensive to the Western public. He has already lost this information war.
There is no way to manipulate reality for a West that is seeing Russia destroy cities and kill civilians. But the Russian government needs to carry out the internal influence campaign, which is taking a much more aggressive line, shutting down media outlets, censoring dissenting voices, arresting people and barring internet platforms. Unfortunately, we have no way of assessing whether this is succeeding because we don’t know how this is received within Russia.
Interesting Mr. say that Putin has already lost the information war in the West. In Brazil, there is a portion of people on the left defending Russian actions and another portion of the ultra-right who support Putin’s “strong man” approach. How do you see it? Putin’s support networks in the West are fragmented. Of course, in Cold War times, communist parties in the West were pro-Soviet Union and later remained pro-Russia. But this support network has diversified in recent years.
Here in France, Putin has support from the extreme right because of traditional, authoritarian values, and from the extreme left, because of anti-Americanism. And he gained influence with money, business deals, board seats.
RT has developed an image of an anti-conformist, with an independent voice, who speaks the truths that the establishment hides. In France and Italy, as well as in Germany and the United Kingdom, the support Putin has had in recent years is impressive. He’s shrinking now, of course, because it’s become harder to justify. But the reasons are still there.
In terms of platform regulation, what do you consider most urgent? The priority is transparency. Before we can design regulation, we need to understand how platforms work, it’s a precondition. And we cannot expect them to regulate themselves — it has to come from political power.
Does the experience of the war in Ukraine show the limits of disinformation campaigns orchestrated by authoritarian leaders? It’s too early to draw conclusions, but the war has shown us that this good side of social networks still exists. It’s a pendulum. We started with full enthusiasm (remember Twitter in the Arab Spring), then it went the other way, and platforms became the biggest enemies of democracy — I still think that’s the case. But in Ukraine, we saw how they can be used in a positive way for democratic mobilization, to denounce violations of rights and violence.
x-ray | Giuliano Da Empoli, 49
Born in Paris in 1973, he trained as a political scientist and runs the Milan-based think tank Volta. He studied at Sciences Po in Paris, was Secretary of Culture in Florence and political adviser to former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (2014-2016). He is the author, among others, of the bestseller “Os Engenheiros do Chaos” (ed. VestÃgio, 2019), which has sold more than 32,000 copies in Brazil.
