How is the war going for Putin on social media? Not great.
On Telegram and other platforms, cracks are appearing in the official Russian narrative
WaPo, no paywall: https://wapo.st/3trzu6g
While Vladimir Putin’s military lays siege to Kyiv, his propaganda organs at home are waging an impossible war to simultaneously hide and justify the invasion of Ukraine. Despite the Russian president’s reputation as a master media strategist, his government is losing the propaganda war — and fast.
His propaganda assault is monotonous. The news is full of references to the “special military operation” — a term that is as tedious in Russian as it is in translation. While the sense of war pervades this media space, it is never named as such: The conflict is supposedly between the West, which has insidiously spread anti-Russian and “fascist” oppression, and the innocent people of Ukraine; Russia and its armies are absent from the battlefield.
But look beyond the state’s social media sphere, and cracks begin to emerge. Only 47 percent of younger Russians profess support for the war. More active on independent or foreign-owned platforms such as Instagram and the messaging service Telegram, they are expressing support for Ukraine and hearing anti-government views.
Telegram, which allows total anonymity and provides strong encryption, has thus far proved unblockable by the government. It has in recent years increasingly been used as an organizing space for anti-government protest. Opening one of an array of Russian-language Telegram channels — some with subscriber counts in the millions — gives Russians easy access to a counternarrative.
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