Moscow Increasingly Using Social Networks to Suggest Belarusians aren’t a Separate People, iSANS Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 2 -- Moscow is dramatically expanding its use of social media in Belarus to promote the idea that Belarusians aren’t a separate people but part of the Russian nation and therefore the two countries must unite, Anton Matolko of the International Strategic Action Network for Society (iSANS) says.

            They have shifted much of their effort to the internet, he says, because nearly 100 percent of Belarusian young people use it and because it is far easier for them to spread such false narratives online than in the print media which are more carefully monitored and controlled by the regime (polskieradio.pl/397/7839/Artykul/2395920,Белорусские-эксперты-ведут-сбор-данных-о-российском-влиянии-в-социальных-сетях).

            Matolko says he and his colleagues are half way through a three-month project to monitor the internet but expect to present some preliminary findings before the end of November.  Already, however, it is obvious what the basic features of this effort in Belarus by Russian actors look like.

            “Most often, they employ narratives which pro-Kremlin and anti-Belarusian sites create. These narratives are directed at discrediting Belarus and the Belarusian people. On the basis of various fakes, they publish stories saying that the Belarusian people does not exist and that Belarus never did and that the Belarusian language is a mix of Polish or Ukrainian.”

            “From this it follows,” Matolko continues, “that we must unite. Belarus and Russia are already not fraternal peoples but a single people.”  Until recently, the primary audience of anti-Belarusian internet sites is one that already accepts those ideas. Thus, these sites only reinforced views already in existence.

            But now the situation is changing: these stories are spreading into nominally neutral sites either because their managers aren’t paying attention or because they are being paid to include such stories, a major source of income for the sites and for the managers, the iSANS researcher suggests.