The testing ground of fake news – it’s in
Eastern Europe
by Vlad Lupan, February 8, 2018
Russian Ambassador to OSCE just complained to the Freedom of the Media Representative about Moldova’s
anti-propaganda law that limits the use of fake news by Russia.
Many voters around the
world seemed to fall for populist agendas and Russian propaganda campaigns
during last years. Where these campaigns are tested and what are the
implications?
The Republic of
Moldova, a small country in Eastern Europe, remains unknown to the large
public. In fact, a company in UK developed a board game called "Where is
Moldova?" that was praised by the British newspaper The Telegraph[1]. As I often call Moldova a
testing ground for Russian political interference in my tweets, the Moldovan
Parliament finally adopted an Anti-Propaganda Law in July 2017, in response to
the Russian disinformation campaigns. [2]
I have warned about
such a development in 2010 and, as the representative of the civil society in
the Inter-Governmental Working Group on drafting the National Security
Strategy, included the Information Security chapter in that document that was
finally adopted in 2011.[3] However, the adoption
of the 2017 anti-propaganda law, while welcoming, also sent ambiguous signals.
The Government led by
the so-called "Governing Alliance Coordinator", the Chairman of the
Moldovan Democratic Party (social-democratic) and oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc,
attempted to play a "Pro-Western" card, while voting in the
Parliament with the pro-Russia Socialists, led by the President of the Republic
of Moldova, Igor Dodon, Putin's protege. Transparency International Moldova
branch issued a statement on this worrisome power sharing.[4]
While
some observers already called this partnership "the binom" (a sum of
two components)[5], very few outside
Moldova seem to publicly notice that Mr. Plahotniuc plays, in
coordination with Dodon, a pro-Western card, while Dodon does vice versa.
Their purpose is to continue sharing power, as Transparency International notes.
I would add that the “bad cop – good cop” is meant to confuse their foreign
"partners", US including. It seems I am not the only one to notice –
as while I started to write this opinion on January 25, several days after another
article reflecting these issues was published on the Opendemocracy.net “Why
Moldova’s battle against Russian propaganda isn’t what it seems”.[6]
This dual approach did
ensure Mr. Plahotniuc at least partial support of the EU, including funding and
some acceptance of the US, after his visits to Washington DC. Russia supported
Mr. Dodon in turn with massive propaganda, after previous public appearances
with Putin, ahead of upcoming 2018 elections. It is worth remembering that Dodon
appeared with President Putin at their joint press conference one year ago and
later was invited at St. Petersburg Economic Forum panel with Vladimir Putin,
moderated by Megan Kelly of NBC.[7] Putin was asked at St.
Petersburg about Russia's interference in electoral affairs of other countries
and referred with a sarcastic smile to Dodon for an answer – the sarcasm had
its meaning. I had an unexpected personal experience with that, when my
Manhattan based Russian speaking barber asked me in autumn of 2016 if the Moldovan
pro-Western, US educated candidate promised to the German Chancellor Angela
Merkel to take in 30.000 Syrians to Moldova. When I asked him where he heard
that – he replied on TV, Russian TV. This was fake news. It is worth noting
that similar fake news about taking Syrians in were heard in Czech Presidential
elections recently.[8]
Upon adoption by the
Moldovan Parliament of the 2017 anti-propaganda law aiming at Russian
interference, some opposition MPs voted for it, but criticized Moldovan
Democrats leader Plahotniuc for using his wide media empire to discredit the
opposition and use similar technique as Russia does.[9] What they seemingly
failed to bring up is that, in reality, the Democratic party leader was
actually rebroadcasting Russian channels with news inserts of his own. Thus, he
was in fact partly perpetuating and spreading Russian propaganda in Moldova,
while adopting laws to curb Kremlin's propaganda on paper.
While this ambiguous
play continues, the Russian Duma plays its part, also seemingly unaware of the real
political and media positioning of the Moldovan oligarch and President. Duma
adopted on January 24th 2018 a statement in response to the
anti-propaganda law, condemning it and promising to bring Russian media to the
home of every Moldovan by other means.[10] And yesterday Moldovan
media posted an article called “Russia
protects its propaganda”[11],
reporting that that Russian Ambassador to the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe used his Facebook account to call the international body
Freedom of the Media Representative to react promptly to the law.[12]
A news site,
Report.md, published on January 25 a comment in Romanian to describe Russian
Duma reaction and the actual realities of Plahotniuc's Russian media embrace: "Democratic
Party MPs sign a draft statement to denounce Russia's attacks on national
informational security - while their boss' TV stations disseminated Russian
propaganda for years, rebroadcasting Russian TVs"[13]
And although in its
reaction Duma recommends to consider termination of Russian broadcast contracts
with Mr. Plahotniuc, there is apparently no one else who could broadcast those
channels in the Republic of Moldova and the oligarch is known to control both
the Moldovan Audio-Visual Broadcast Council overseeing the distribution of TV
licenses, and the judiciary.[14]
It would seem that all
involved actors, including EU and US, continue their business as usual ahead of
2018 Moldovan general elections. It would be helpful, however, for USA and the
European Union to understand the contradictions in Moldovan realities. Moldova
is not just a country, where people need to deal with its own issues - such an
approach can be understood “the West abandons pro-democracy voters”. About half
of its population continues to struggle against Russian influence and far more
against corruption, as even the last Presidential elections of 2016 and opinion
polls indicate. The unprepared and inexperienced pro-Western and
anti-corruption candidate, Maia Sandu got 47 per cent of the 2016 votes in
Presidential elections, compared to 52 for Igor Dodon, who benefited from a
coordinated media campaign, including widespread use of fake news between
Russia, Moldovan socialist affiliated media and the TVs of Mr. Plahotniuc
himself.
The West is still the
beacon of hope, emanating the attraction of democracy and rule of law. If one
wants to see democracy, rule of law and anti-corruption work in every part of
the world where people struggle to be free, then the pro-democracy supporters
should not feel alone in the face of external and internal pressures that made
Moldova a testing ground for other countries in fake news and political
interference. This is how long terms alliances and loyalties between democracies
are built. With the rise of anti-democratic populism, the West needs to wake up
and start stepping in or risk remaining alone and under siege.
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