Social media turn on Putin, the past master Carole Cadwalladr
One of the wildest aspects of the first Great Information War is not just that you can follow Russias invasion of Ukraine in real time, minute by minute and step by step, but you can also join in.
Because in 2022, information is power. And one of the many huge unexpected geopolitical shifts of the last week is that this power has been returned to the people.
In Russia on Friday, Vladimir Putin, a man who is now scared of his own shadow, took the extraordinary step of attempting to outlaw information. He banned Facebook. He shut down Twitter. He passed a new law that declares journalism a criminal offence: any journalist found to have published fake news on the war in Ukraine now faces up to 15 years in prison.
It is, like so many things in the last week, incredible, unprecedented, horrifying but more importantly its also desperate and absurd. Because in 2022 you cant ban information. Its like trying to ban oxygen. Its the kind of move that one of his grey-faced Soviet predecessors might have made. Its as modern and up-to-date as a typewriter. Only a fool would make predictions right now, but heres one anyway: it proves that Putin, the founding father of whats come to be known as information war, just lost the information war.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/06/social-media-turn-on-putin-the-past-master