Note: This article was originally published in 2017

in Czech on Prague Security Studies Institute

website, authored by Viktor Paggio. Automatic
translation with minor edits, original here.

On-line propaganda: an old game in a

new setting
Propaganda has accompanied mankind since time immemorial. While the content has not changed much, new ways
of disseminating it are rapidly developing due to the development of the information society and new technologies.
In the debates of recent months and years, the content dimension of propaganda has been emphasized, less so its
craftsmanship and technological trends. I will try to avoid this in the following text. We will go through the mechanism
of propaganda action on the end recipients, selected procedures used by modern propagandists, and look into the
future of the likely arrival of artificial intelligence in this industry. However, despite the new technologies, the basic
principles of propaganda will remain the same as in the past – because the people it is supposed to persuade have
not fundamentally changed.

What is online propaganda?

Let's build on the propaganda definition we find in the Czech Language Dictionary: propaganda is the systematic
dissemination of ideas with the aim of gaining adherents, which is in the interest of the disseminator. Online
propaganda is then propaganda carried out in an online environment. In my definition, I deliberately free myself from
the simplistic notion that propaganda is always based on lies. Propaganda that is wholly or partially true is usually more
effective; a propagandist may only use true facts in an unbalanced way or place them in a misleading context.

Propaganda is the sister of advertising, it just doesn't sell products or services, but ideas and ideals. However, the
craftsmanship of both sisters is indistinguishable.

Propaganda Structure
The goal of propagandists is to change the mindset of the target audience and then gain adherents in their favor. For
this purpose, the propagandist must appropriately control the individual parameters of the dissemination of the
message shown in Drawing 1, which we will demonstrate on specific examples. A nice bonus of online propaganda is
the existence of a critical threshold beyond which the message begins to spread virally on its own, which saves the
financial and human resources of the propagandist.

Drawing 1 – Parameters of message dissemination

MESSAGE THAT INCITES: THE RECIPIENT IS ANGRY: “We

"Ukrainians crucified a child!" SOURCE FORMAT CHANNEL must punish those animals!”
Participant Text Webpage
Witness Image Social network
MESSAGE THAT EXPLAINS: Press agency Audio Email THE RECIPIENT IS CONVINCED:
"Flight MH17 was shot down Media portal Video Instant messaging “Aha!”
by Ukrainians because the Think-tank Programme VoIP services
shrapnels landed there and
there.

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Message
The message is the very essence of the message and it is necessary to adapt it to the target audience and the specific
situation. A message with the potential to change the thinking and attitudes of recipients is usually one of the following
types:
• has an added value in the form of
o emotion: moves, scandalizes, stirrs,
o information: brings new information, arguments, theories, a new or unexpected view of a problem,
• it is well-timed for the mood of the recipients and the context of the events;
• It resonates with the recipient's expectations, with their value system and ideas about the world.
For example, the Russian concept of "reflexive control" (reflexnivnnoye upravleniye) describes the targeted influencing
of information entering the decision-making process of the counterparty so that it takes a predetermined path – in
Western military theory, the concept is mirrored in the concepts ofiii perception management, Information Operations
(IO) and similar. Of course, the more a message resonates with the recipient's expectations, the less resistance it
overcomes and the more effectively it spreads.

A chapter in itself is the truth or falsity of the report. The current concept gives propaganda a negative connotation – it
is something impure, based on a lie. If the propagandist is already lying, he should

• create a high-quality fake that will be believable and will last at least long enough to achieve the set goal (see
below),
• suppress a rational review of the message by emotion or, on the contrary, to take refuge in expertise, i.e. to
overwhelm recipients with "expert opinions" and technical details they are unable to assess.
Exact studies show that, if a lie is solidly constructed, it spreads faster in the online environment and especially in the
environment of social networks and reaches further than a possible correction. For example, a 2014 study tracked a
false story circulating on Twitter after the Boston Marathon attack a year earlier. The tweet included a photo of an eight-
year-old girl running with the false caption that she had died in the attack. While a false tweet was recorded 90,668
times during the reporting period, a subsequent correction was recorded only 2,046 times, which represents a ratio of
44:1iii. Spreading false news is easier if recipients are overwhelmed by the amount of content and don't take the time to
review it thoroughly.iv

Messages with a strong emotional charge have a great potential for dissemination and sharing, because emotions in
the recipient will suppress a rational review of their nature. A clear example is the war's "atrocity propaganda",
fulfilling the hackneyed phrase that the first victim of war is truth, and used since time immemorial to portray the enemy
as uncivilized, not respecting the rules of warfare and basic human values, and therefore unworthy of any protection or
scruples. Since the stakes are high when it comes to warfare or non-warfare, propaganda reaches for "heavy weapons"
that appeal to basic instincts and atavisms: to protect children, to protect the sick and the elderly, to protect women.
When we see someone who breaks these rules, we are entitled to take decisive action against them. And that, in the
words of the intriguers from the movie The Emperor's Baker - The Baker's Emperor, is done “in the name of civilization”.

In 2014, during the Russian occupation of Crimea and the ensuing conflict in eastern Ukraine, the Russian public was
shaken by the news of Ukrainian soldiers crucifying a three-year-old boy in Slavyansk in the Donetsk region and dragging
his mother behind a tank. In July 2014, the tear-jerking confession of a witness to this war crime, a sympathetic mother
of children, Galina Pyshnyak (Figure 1), was broadcast by the popular Russian Channel One as a TV report, which

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immediately began to spread on social networks and spread mainly to the Russian-language Internet and to "friendly"
Western websites, including several Czech ones (such as parlamentnilisty.czv)

Figure 1 – "Slavyansk resident Galina" describes how Ukrainian Figure 2 – "Nurse Nayirah" describes how Iraqi soldiers
Soldiers crucified a three-year-old boy Leaving newborns to die on the floor

In Slavyansk, however, no little boy was crucified. The report is thus a "mere" example of masterfully conducted
propaganda based on decades of high-quality Russian theoretical debate on information warfare. Conceptually, in the
Russian concept, cyber security is only one of the subsets of "information security" (informacionnaya bezopasnost), and
cyber operations are therefore part of a broader concept of "information warfare" (informacionnoye protivoborstvo,
informaccionaya borba), which focuses not only on the technical guarantee of the integrity of information, but also on
its essence.vi

This is where the news about the crucifixion of the little boy from Slavyansk was effective: it effectively followed the
images of the Second World War and the beliefs of many Russians about the latent Nazism of the Ukrainians-Banderites,
and thus contributed to galvanizing domestic support for Russian aggression on the territory of another state. It also
brought uncertainty to the ranks of Kyiv's decision-makers and their allies at a critical time. This fake news can be found
on the website of the Russian First Channel still todayvii.

The fact that the dissemination of a message is faster if it meets the expectations of the audience can also be
demonstrated by Czech examples. Let's remember February 2012 and the alleged Romani treasurer who disappeared
with the money of the emerging European Romani Party. The report, which leaked even to the serious media, was just
a figment of the imagination of one of the editors of the parlamentnilisty.cz server.

Of course, wartime atrocity propaganda is not only the domain of the Russians, no matter how topical their actions are
for us in the current geopolitical situation. In 1990, when the American public was hesitant about how to respond to
Saddam's occupation of faraway Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the American media ran the same narrative: the
confession of nurse Nayirah about the atrocities committed by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwaiti hospitals (Figure 2). A sympathetic
15-year-old girl testified in tears before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Committee that while volunteering at
Kuwait's main hospital, she saw Iraqi soldiers looting incubators and then leaving small premature babies to die on the
cold floor. However, this was not true. The girl was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S., whose country
had a vested interest in the U.S. entering the war, with the help of the renowned PR agency Hill & Knowlton.viii

Positive emotions such as pride, emotion and pathos can also be used in war propaganda. When President Trump
thanked Carryn Owens, the widow of U.S. Special Forces soldier, in an emotional speech to the U.S. Congress in late
February this year, for her husband's ultimate sacrifice in action in Yemen, she received an exceptional two-minute

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standing ovationix (Figure 3). The emotionally charged message suppressed without the need to lie the critical voices
questioning the meaning of this military action and the casualties of Yemeni civilians. President Trump's move was also
positively received by the mainstream media. Even CNN's renowned political commentator Van Jones, who is otherwise
very critical of Trump, declared that "at that moment, Trump became president of the United States. Period." x

Figure 3 – Strong emotions: the widow of soldier William Owens, who died in action in Yemen, receives an ovation from the US Congress; Ivanka
Trump on the right

At the other end of the spectrum, we find rational news, bringing new information, arguments, theories, a new or
unexpected view of a problem. The disadvantage over emotionally charged messages is that they are subject to the
rational review of the recipient. The rational type of news also has a different mechanism of action on the target
audience: it does not appeal to commonly shared values, but to the intelligence of the recipient. In the case of
conspiracy theories, it reveals to the chosen ones the "real truth", the world behind the curtain, completely different
from how the ignorant crowd sees it.

An example is the downing of a Malaysian Airlines flight during a conflict in eastern Ukraine in July 2014. The most likely
version: the plane was shot down by a Russian Buk anti-aircraft systemxi from an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels xii,
by the rebels themselves. Shortly after the downing, however, the Internet was flooded with other versions, namely that
the plane
• shot down by a Ukrainian SU-25 fighterxiii – a report propagated by Russian pro-government media (Figure 4xiv),
• shot down by an Israeli Python air-to-air missilexv (Figure 5)
• it was not shot down by a missile, but by the on-board cannon of a Ukrainian Mig-29 fighter, possibly even
piloted by a Pole, xvi
• hot down by a Buk system, but controlled by the Ukrainians – xvii in which case the Buk would probably have
been destined for Boeing, since the pro-Russian rebels did not have an air force at that time
and many others.

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Figure 4 – A faked photograph of the downing of flight MH17 Figure 5 – M H17 for the second time: the theory of an Israeli
missile and "calculated by a Ukrainian fighter in the broadcast of
Russia's Channel One area of the explosion site"

A number of theories were supported by complex drawings and technical details of the altitude range of various types
of fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft systems, the shape and location of the impact of shrapnel, the chemical composition
of the munitions, the shape and colors of the contrails behind the missile, and other highly technical techniques. They
don't mean anything to the average recipient of the message, so he judges the news according to the credibility of the
source or on the basis of an ideological key.

When it comes to the number of messages, a propagandist can follow two extreme strategies:
• Disseminating a single message in order to promote a single idea or vision – a strategy especially beneficial in
cases where the propagandist feels an authentic potential for dissemination. If the news is uninteresting, the
propagandist must force its dissemination by force – but for this purpose he must have sufficient control of the
media space and communication channels towards the recipient, which is rather rare in the age of information
pluralism. Exceptions are societal mausoleums such as North Korea.
• To spread a lot of news, even contradictory ones, and to create information confusion – the propagandist
does not have a sufficiently interesting message, nor the possibility to spread it by force. Therefore, they release
countless alternative reports that obfuscate the true state of affairs and verified facts, as in the case of flight
MH17.

Source
However, the report itself is just information. It needs someone to retell it – the source. The sources of the news are
diverse (Diagram 1):
• Person
o A participant who directly experienced the message: in the case of a traffic accident, the driver of
one of the cars,
o A witness who recorded the report and can describe it: saw a traffic accident (but was not involved
in it), or has a recording from a technical device (operates a traffic camera),
o A commentator who conveys the news or comments on it from the position of a journalist, citizen,
etc.
• Institution

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 o A news agency, i.e. a specialized organization, ideally adhering to standards of impartial journalism
and verification of information, which further distributes the news to the media;
o media – in the online world, mainly news portals, whether operating purely on the Internet
(aktualne.cz), or with an overlap into print (lidovky.cz), television broadcasting (ct24.cz), radio
(irozhlas.cz) and other media,
o think-tanks, analytical and research institutions that place events in a broader context from the
intersection of academia, politics and the private sector;
and many more.
Ideally, the propagandist wants to achieve synergy of all sources, i.e. to include the entire Source column in Drawing 1.
Such a message has a better chance of breaking through and spreading successfully, because the individual sources refer
to each other, thus strengthening its credibility and weight. This is also the case with the Czech conspiracy mediaxviii.
Naturally, a false report lacks sources, the propagandist should create them. We have already shown the false testimony
of an individual in the case of Galina of Slavyansk. From the point of view of online propaganda, however, the most
interesting is the institutional dissemination through fake or manipulated news agencies, media and other actors. Again,
we will use Russia to demonstrate, but it must be said that a wide range of state and non-state actors use similar
practices.
A typical example of an artificial news agency that does not work with information obtained by methods of impartial
journalistic work, but primarily disseminates pro-government propaganda, is the Russian agency FAN – Federalnoye
agenstvo novostei from St. Petersburg. Among other things, FAN falsely reported that:
• journalists from the renowned Süddeutsche Zeitung consider Ukrainian President Poroshenko to be
autisticxix,
• The EU feeds on Ukraine through a free trade agreementxx;
• American journalist Andrew Chen, who was in Russia researching an article about one of St. Petersburg's
troll farms xxi (i.e., companies that promote the views of the Russian government on the Internet for money),
was in fact in league with local neo-Nazis.xxii It is worth noting that the company examined by the journalist
was located in the same building as the "news agency" FAN.
Of course, news disseminated by serious news agencies has more penetration. In April 2013, when unknown
perpetrators took control of the Associated Press' Twitter account and reported that two White House bombings had
injured President Obama, they erased more than $136 billion from the S&P 500 stock index for a few minutes xxiiixxiv.

When it comes to online portals pushing the government line, Russia and its well-known portals Sputnik.com or RT.com
will again serve as good examples. However, the United States, through the government's Broadcasting Board of
Governors (BBG), also funds affiliated media outlets with a strong online presence, even if their methods are significantly
more subtle: Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) based in
Prague.

Format
The message travels to the recipient in various forms – formats. To this day, the key carrier of information is the text,
whether in the form of an article, for example, on the idnes.cz portal, or a verbal description in a post on the Facebook
social network. The online environment then allows it to be improved leading to better acceptance by the target
audience.

If the propagandist spreads the text through networks of fake accounts – bots, posts must not be identical, because
Facebook would identify and block them. Therefore, various methods are applied to circumvent such restrictions. One
of them is syntax spin, which has been offered for years by over-the-counter fake account management programs like

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Mass Plannerxxv (Figure 6). The spin syntax allows you to create a number of other variants from the original text. This is
done by changing individual words for others with the same or very similar expression; for example, in the sentence
"The car is parked." the noun "car" can be swapped (hence the term "spin") for "automobile" or "vehicle", the verb
"parked” can be swapped for "is located" etc.

Figure 6 – Mass Planner Syntax Spin Function

From one sentence using the syntax spin method, we get a number of clones with the same meaning, but a different
word structure. Higher levels of text such as sentences or entire paragraphs, or hyperlinks, if the text contains them, can
also be changed and swapped. The method thus allows you to hide the fact that the text is centrally distributed.

A higher girl's level is the automatic tuning of the text for different social and professional groups, distinguishable by the
vocabulary they use. There are also efforts to modify the text at the phoneme level toxxvi improve the unconscious impact
of the phonetic structure of the text on the recipient's subconscious – an example is the Skai4Twi programxxvii (Figure 7)
for Twitter. With the help of similar tools, it is possible to create a new quality from the forced change of individual
words, which in turn will help the acceptance of the target audience.

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Figure 7 – Skai4Twi's "Professional Classic Content Analysis" tool interface

However, the current trend is a shift to visual content – for example, 94% of people with internet access visit YouTube in
the Czech Republic, and some surveys give even higher numbers xxviii. Even visual content, i.e. image or video, as well as
sound, can be modified, swapped (Figure 8) or directly falsified. Let's take a look at perhaps the most complex area for
falsification – video, and specifically video capturing a person's face, speech, and facial expressions. Researchers are
already mastering real-time 3D models of famous people, including U.S. presidents and celebrities (Figure 9).xxix We have
to slowly prepare for a time when a video of a person doing something or saying something means nothing at all and
can be fakexxx.

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Figure 8 – A photograph illustrating the cruelty of the Russian Figure 9 – A real-time researcher controls a model of the U.S.
and Assad regimes troops in Aleppo; actually, a screenshot from President George W. Bush
a video clip of the Lebanese singer Hiba Tawaji

Computer programs are a distinctive format. Games are mainly used for propaganda purposes – the most famous is the
still active America's Army seriesxxxi, which reinforces the positive image of the United States Army and is directly linked
to the portal goarmy.com recruiting new recruits. However, al-Qaedaxxxii, Hezbollah (Special Force 2 shooter xxxiii) and
others have also presented their remakes of existing games in the past.

Canal
A communication channel is the path that a message travels from its source to its recipient. In terms of type, online
channels can be divided into passive websites, social networks where you can get a message either directly from another
user or by referring to its location outside the social network, various variants of instant messaging such as Whatsapp,
Facebook Messenger and many others.

Of the wide range of online tools, social networks are the gateway to mass dissemination. A 2016 survey by the Pew
Research Centerxxxivxxxv found that 62% of American adults get news from social media at least sometimes. However, each
social network has its own specifics: the old-school discussion forum Reddit has the highest proportion of users who at
least sometimes use it as a source of news – a total of 70%. This is followed by Facebook with 66% and Twitter with
59%. On the other hand, only 23% of its users choose Instagram as a source of news, which is natural given the
lightweight and visual effect-based construction of this social network.

If the propagandist wants to strengthen the spread of his message in selected networks, he has software at his disposal
that allows him to manage networks of fake accounts - bots. The popular MassPlanner could be installed on a computer,
worked cross-platform across social networks (Figure 10), and it only needed to run non-stop to run a few accounts.

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However, with the increasing number of controlled accounts (usually in tens to hundreds, theoretically unlimited), the
necessary computing power also grew, which is why developers also offered virtual private servers, as well as proxy
servers for the use of multiple IP addresses and other associated services. However, at the time of writing, the program
was banned in May 2017 following a lawsuit from Instagram xxxvi.

Official cloud-based account management solutions with a web-based interface such as Hootsuite, Buffer, Sendible, or
SproutSocial are easier to use and also offer a wide range of features (posting at a predetermined time, advanced metrics
evaluating the interest of content, etc.), but they do not allow you to control as many fake bots xxxvii, primarily because
they do not offer tools to circumvent the terms and conditions of social media operators.

Governments also have their irons in the fire. For example, as early as 2012, Russia's foreign civilian intelligence service,
the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service), demanded for a system called “Storm-12" (Shtorm-12) the ability to automatically
mass contribute through networks of fake accounts, create xxxviii an "information wave" (informatsionnaya volna),
monitor its dissemination, and analyze the effectiveness of information dissemination.

Figure 10 – Adding controlled accounts in MassPlanner

Truly advanced tools such as Kofax Kapow for social networks and discussion forums do not access through a program
interface, but imitate a live user: they fill in their login details in the browser, move the cursor across the screen to the
login button, click on it, and type the post sequentially on the keyboard just like a real person. At the same time,
artificially introducing entropy and suppressing machine behavior is very challenging from a conceptual and practical
point of view: every living person has a unique way of tapping keys, if the cursor travels from point A to point B on the
screen, chooses an inaccurate path, chaotically clicks and returns, makes typing mistakes and corrects them. It is
therefore difficult to imitate its behavior, but it pays off, and this trend will continue.

The spread of the message can also be strengthened by the fact that shares, likes and followers are bought on one of
the online marketplaces. However, the lack of control over the accounts that spread the message, which are often
inappropriate for the target audience, remains a problem.

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Fake social media accounts and the algorithms that are supposed to block them are in a never-ending race. If an account
has suspicious characteristics – it posts to too many groups, spreads the same or similar content to multiple locations at
the same time, posts 24 hours a day and doesn't sleep, doesn't contain authentic photos – it's suspicious to Facebook
or another social network and can be suspended.
Developers of professional administrators are responding with improvements that prevent the identification of centrally
distributed content: introducing syntax spin, automatic change of title and text of URL links, automatic changes to images
by cropping or minor color skews, and much more. In the context of propaganda and disinformation campaigns, efforts
to detect bots have intensified, such as the US military agency's DARPA Twitter Bot Challenge xxxix . The Fake News
Challenge, xl on the other hand, focuses on the identification of a single text in different variants, which will allow you to
monitor the spread of fake news and counter the aforementioned syntax spin.
How many fake accounts are there on social media? The companies that run these networks are waging war against
them, quietly, because advertisers could question the statistics and prices of advertising if they found out that a large
proportion of users are not flesh and blood. As a result, official estimates are largely lacking. A March 2017 study by
American researchers estimated the proportion of fake accounts on Twitter to be between 9% and 15%. xli Submissions
by US tech giants to the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission prior to their IPO have also proven to be very
useful – Twitter reported in 2014 that roughly 8.5% of active users access Twitter through automated third-party
applications that xliixliiicontact servers "without a recognizable impulse from the user", as with MassPlanner and other
similar tools. In a filing two years earlier, Facebook estimated that more than 8% of accounts were fake or duplicated xliv.

Future
The main trend in online propaganda will be the advent of artificial intelligence, which will give rise to online personas
indistinguishable from living people. If she can win chess tournaments or tell people where the nearest pizzeria is, why
can't she spread ideas and argue about political issues? Digital assistants such as Siri and Cortana are just the vanguard
of the artificial personalities that will flood cyberspace. It will no longer be a simple fake account as it is today, controlled
by a program or managed by a human employee. These will be distinctive digital personas that will pass the Turing test
– in other words, you will be no longer able to tell whether you are talking to a human or a machine.

Personas will live their virtual lives. They'll get up at eight and sleep in on the weekends. That's why they will log in to
various social networks and email earlier on weekdays and later on weekends. They will share their photos and videos,
in the first phase edited from existing material, later completely computer-generated. In the photographs, they will
gradually age over the years and their consumer preferences will change – their internet searches for consumer goods
will be gradually replaced by searches for strollers and mortgages. Personals will type on the keyboard in their own
distinctive unmistakable way, clicking and making mistakes and discussing like a real person. When Czech personas visit
U.S. and have breakfast near the Empire State Building while on vacation, they will upload photos from the New York IP
address to Facebook and Twitter after midnight Central European Time, because they will be counting on the time
difference.

Personas will have hobbies to write about and share photos and videos of. From time to time, they may engage in a
debate about various goods or services in order to carry out covert advertising and to earn money for themselves. Above
all, they will be able to promote this or that idea or ideology on command in online propaganda campaigns much
more effectively than today's robots, because many of their online friends will have no idea that they are talking to a
machine. But they won't be alone – there will also be paradoxical situations where one machine will persuade another
machine because they can't tell each other apart.

These virtual personas will put the workers of various troll farms out of work, just as in the 19th century shuttle weaving
machines put workers in British cotton factories out of work. A person will then move up in the vertical of online

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propaganda – they will program groups of personas, come up with rough outlines of the campaign and make strategic
decisions. Sitting behind a computer and rewriting the same idea for the hundredth time will no longer be necessary.
However, just like today, it will only be a matter of changing the technological backdrop. The basic principles by which
propaganda will affect people will remain the same.

i Рефлексивное управление – технология принятия манипулятивных решений - Reflexive control – techniques of making a manipulated

decision. G. L. Smolyan. (2013). Journal of the Institute of Systems Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences – Труды Института Системного
Анализа РАН, Institute of Systems Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was accessed on May 17, 2017 from:
http://www.isa.ru/proceedings/images/documents/
ii -63-2/t-2-13_54-61, Russia's Reflexive Control Theory and the Military. Timothy L. Thomas. (2004). Journal of Slavic Military Studies. It was

accessed on May 17, 2017 from: https://www.rit.edu/~w-cmmc/literature/Thomas_2004.pdf.

iii Rumors, False Flags, And Digital Vigilantes: Misinformation On Twitter After The 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. (2014). Starbird, Kate; Maddock,
Jim; Orand, Mania; Achterman, Peg; Mason, Robert M. Iconference 2014 Proceedings. iSchools. It was accessed on October 1, 2017 from:
https://www. ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/47257, Lies, Damn Lies, and Viral Content. Craig Silverman. (2017). Tow Center for Digital
Journalism. It was accessed on June 16, 2017 from: http://towcenter.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/02/LiesDamnLies_Silverman_TowCenter.pdf, also This Analysis Shows How Viral Fake Election News Stories Outperformed
Real News On Facebook. (2017). BuzzFeed. Retrieved 1 October 2017, from https:// www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-
outperformed-real-news-on-facebook?utm_term=.bmjAWjkd1#.sdYb0wOG9.
ivLimited individual attention and online virality of low-quality information. Qiu, X., F. M. Oliveira, D., Sahami Shirazi, A., Flammini, A., & Menczer, F.
(2017). Nature Human Behaviour. Paid content June 27, 2017 accessible from: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0132.
v Report on torture in Ukraine: Nothing pretty. (2017). Parlamentnilisty.cz. It was accessed on October 1, 2017 from:

http://www.parlamentnilisty.cz/arena/ monitor/Message-about-torture-in-Ukraine-Nothing-nice-326932.
vi Russian Information Warfare. M. Jaitner, P. Mattsson. (2014). NATO CCD COE Publications – 7th International Conference on Cyber Confl ict Tallinn.
It was accessed on May 17, 2017 from: https://ccdcoe.org/cycon/2015/proceedings/03_jaitner_mattsson.pdf.
vii Беженка из Славянска вспоминает, как при ней казнили маленького сына и жену ополченца – A refugee from Slavyansk remembers
how the wife and young son of a militia guard were executed. (2017). Первый канал – 1tv.ru. It was accessed on May 17, 2017 from:
https://www.1tv.ru/ news/2014-07-12/37175-bezhenka_iz_slavyanska_vspominaet_kak_p.
viii Deception on Capitol Hill. (2017). Nytimes.com. It was accessed on May 17, 2017 from: http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/15/opinion/deception-

on-capitol-hill.html.
ix Trump honors Ryan Owens, Navy SEAL who died in Yemen raid. (2017). PBS NewsHour on YouTube. It was accessed on May 17, 2017 from: https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_3FR6FrTEk&feature=youtu.be.
x Van Jones: Trump became President in that moment. (2017). CNN on YouTube. It was accessed on May 17, 2017 from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPhsSqXHRAs&feature=youtu.be.
xi
MH17 Crash – MH17 crash report. Onderzoeksraad Voor Veiligheid – Security Council of the Netherlands. (2015). Accessed May 17, 2017 from:
https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads/phase-docs/1006/debcd724fe7breport-mh17-crash.pdf.
xii
MH17 report suggests eff orts were made to cover up causes of disaster. Harding, L., Walker, S., & Borger. (2015). It was accessed on May 17, 2017
from:
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btn_tw.
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xiv Сенсация! Малазийский самолет 2014 (MH17 Boeng 777) Сбил Украинский МиГ-29 (Фото со спутника) - Sensation! Malaysian Airlines 2014
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November 2014, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU6p7GwDAS8 (photos and were previously posted by an anonymous member on the
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xix Original message: Новости Украины: Порошенко болен аутизмом, Донбасс заманивают пенсиями – News from Ukraine:

Poroshenko is autistic, Donbas attracts pensions. (2016). "News Agency" FAN – Federalnoye agenstvo novostei. It was accessed on
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xx Original message: ЕС наживается на Украине, благодаря соглашению о свободной торговле – the EU is making money in Ukraine thanks
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xxi Столица политического троллинга – The capital of political trolling. A. Soshnikov. (2015). Moj Rajon. It was accessed on May 17, 2017 from:
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xxii Что общего у журналиста The New York Times и нациста из Петербурга – What does a journalist from The New York Times and a Nazi
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xxvi A phoneme is the smallest part of the sound aspect of speech that has a distinguishing function in a particular language. A phoneme is not every

sound, but only the one that changes its meaning (e.g. press – forest – lot). Phonosemantics, on the other hand, is a linguistic direction that
attributes the ability of these phonemes to carry meaning or emotion on their own.
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xxxvi
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