The Kremlin’s fake news machine swirl COVID-19 conspiracies

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The coronavirus pandemic has been no exception to this general trend. Kremlin-funded news agencies, together with their Georgian counterparts, have skilfully exploited the country’s vulnerabilities in the face of the pandemic outbreak and have tried to deepen societal divisions with an eye to the upcoming parliamentary elections, including circulating disinformation, online rumours and conspiracy theories. Facebook, the country’s most popular social media network, has been the main arena of their operations. This is hardly surprising, since many Georgians are now spending more time on social media, hence, the ground for such information inroads has never been more fertile.

Although much of these campaigns remain on the fringes of social media and their impact is somewhat limited, some of these messages still resonate with wider segments of the population. Those that do make it into the mainstream media are exacerbating societal fears about the virus and threatening the country’s hard-won success in containing the pandemic outbreak. For that very reason, coronavirus-related disinformation in Georgia calls for a more scrupulous analysis and not least because it might shed light on the nature of the Kremlin’s information operations elsewhere. More importantly, the timing, the messages and the means of the disinformation campaign point at the extent of coordination between various pro-Kremlin actors – an apparent sign that the Kremlin used the occasion as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming elections.

Who’s who in Georgia’s disinformation scene

Over the past few years, Russia has managed to build a strong information infrastructure in Georgia, spending considerable resources – financial and human alike – to establish, maintain and widen the scope of its operations in the country. Georgia’s geographic proximity to Russia and its history of close cultural and religious ties, coupled with some parts of the Georgian population still using Russian-language media as their primary source of information, have all contributed to Kremlin’s relative success in the Georgian information landscape, most notably on Facebook. No less important has been the Georgian government’s general neglect of the threat of Russian disinformation. Although the authorities have repeatedly acknowledged the problem in their public statements and strategic documents, they have shown little concrete effort to counter the influence of these malign actors, let alone to proactively limit their freedom of operation. More disturbingly, there has been a growing number of reports, including those confirmed by Facebook, that the authorities have resorted to tactics similar or identical to that of the Kremlin-funded actors, and at times, even benefited from their inauthentic networks – to promote the government’s work or discredit their political opponents. 

As a result, the Georgian social media landscape has found itself flooded with real and false media pages, online trolls, accounts and groups of all walks of life and persuasion. Many of these actors have formed well-established and coordinated networks, spreading or amplifying pro-Kremlin, anti-western and anti-liberal messages in a synchronised and simultaneous manner.

This time around the Russian disinformation campaign relies heavily on false information and coordinated behaviour. At the forefront of these efforts stood Sputnik and News-Front, two Kremlin-funded media outlets with a history of ardent anti-western content. To achieve their objectives in the coronavirus context, the two agencies gave voice to usual pro-Kremlin mouthpieces in Georgia, including extreme conservatives, religious zealots and other anti-liberal factions. The two outlets then tried to amplify their messages using a network of fake accounts and false media pages, some of which were later removed by Facebook as part of its efforts to crack down on coordinated inauthentic behaviour.

Corona myths

Over the last few years, Kremlin-funded media outlets have spared no occasion to try and influence the country’s pro-western course and its fragile, but still prevalent, liberal consensus. By circulating disinformation, rumours and conspiracy theories they have contributed to societal divisions along the lines of foreign and domestic policies and challenged the public’s confidence towards democratic institutions, civil society organisations and liberal values.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a new opportunity for these actors to achieve their objectives. Questions about the origins and nature of the virus, combined with economic and political uncertainties caused by the lockdown measures, created a predictably conducive environment for the manipulation of information. The Kremlin-funded media were quick to exploit this opening. By fuelling doubts and conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus and sowing distrust towards the government’s lockdown measures, they have generated a social media spin against the West and democratic institutions. In doing so, they used a multitude of narratives, targeting specific groups of Georgians and tailoring messages that resonated with various segments of society.

An investigation by the Tbilisi-based International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy demonstrated that News-Front alone, together with Geworld, its partner outfit with Georgian registration, promoted these ten broad messages:

• Developed European countries had failed to quell the coronavirus outbreak, while Georgia – a developing country – was able to contain the pandemic;
• Social distancing and lockdowns – the two measures employed by the Georgian government – were counter-productive in the fight against the virus;
• Georgia’s coronavirus response efforts were not supported by the United States and the European Union, but by the Chinese government;
• The virus was created and purposefully leaked by the US army;
• The government was fighting against the Orthodox Church with its state of emergency measures and not the virus;
• Those who would refrain from attending church services during the state of emergency restrictions would not be regarded as true Christians;
• Foreign actors and liberal-minded elite were waging a war against the ritual of Holy Communion;
• Italy was abandoned by the EU, and it was Russia and China that came to their aid;
• The world is led by 13 families who have intentionally caused the virus outbreak in order to reduce the global population; and
• Russia was invincible in the fight against the coronavirus and they already have effective treatments.

Other sources went even further, attributing the virus outbreak to 5G technology or accusing Bill Gates of seizing the momentum to microchip humans. Some others spent considerable effort demonising the work of Amiran Gamkrelidze and Paata Imnadze of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Georgia’s two top epidemiologists leading the country’s coronavirus response.

Lugar lab in the spotlight again

The recent events have also seen the re-emergence of Russia’s bio-warfare allegations involving the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research, a US-funded biological research facility functioning under the NCDC and located on the outskirts of Tbilisi. Established in 2011 to promote public and animal health through infectious disease detection and surveillance, the Lugar lab has become a frequent target of Kremlin’s information operations, with Russian officials, Kremlin-funded media outlets and their proxies in Georgia frequently accusing the facility of spreading deadly viruses, and occasionally, at experimenting with human health.

The research facility, known for its high-level biosafety standards and cutting-edge technologies, has played a vital role in Georgia’s coronavirus response, allowing disease control officials to have reliable diagnoses of possible cases of contractions and a full picture of the geography of the virus distribution. Yet the facility came under another information offensive; in a statement at the end of May, timed – perhaps intentionally – for Georgia’s independence day, the Russian ministry of foreign affairs slammed the research centre for its “double-purpose activity” and for failing to explain “what exactly it is doing in the direct vicinity of Russian borders”. The statement prompted an angry response from Georgian officials, with President Salome Zurabishvili slamming it as “slanderous” and with the Georgian foreign ministry accusing the Kremlin of “crude attempts” to discredit the role of the facility.

Strength of civil society

Georgian civil society organisations have also stood at the forefront of the fight against the recent wave of Russian disinformation. They have monitored, analysed and debunked coronavirus-related messages and related content and have successfully advocated for active counter-measures by Facebook, securing the takedown of pages and accounts affiliated with Sputnik and News-Front in Georgia, along with two domestic political networks. Despite these measures, however, civil society activities alone might prove to be insufficient to counter the problem of disinformation, not least because of their limited resources and capabilities. This will be particularly pronounced in coming few months – in the lead-up to the October parliamentary elections, a milestone event for the country’s political system. With more actors at the table and more of them willing to resort to disinformation tactics to achieve their political objectives, the electoral campaign promises to be much more divisive and polarizing than the coronavirus outbreak.  

Pro-Kremlin actors will stay vigilant. They will exploit every possibility to increase their power base along with socially-conservative and anti-liberal political forces and catapult them into the Georgian parliament. All of this will surely require greater public reporting – something civil society organisations have performed in a highly professional manner, but this will also call for more pro-active measures by the government of Georgia and Facebook, by far the most crucial link in the long chain of information transmission.

The social media company also needs to be ready to act upon civil society reports, and do so quickly and decisively. It also has to ensure stricter rules of transparency of electoral advertising, as well as a harsher application of community standards. The authorities, on their part, have to unequivocally decry the use of disinformation in campaigns and, where necessary, probe into the activities of malign pro-Kremlin actors. Only the combined efforts of civil society, the government and Facebook will minimise the impact of pro-Kremlin disinformation campaigns, and will ensure that Georgians are able to make up their minds in an environment that is free of manipulation and fear.

Tornike Zurabashvili is a programme manager at the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), a Tbilisi-based elections and democracy watchdog, and a Eurasia Democratic Security Network Fellow (EDSN) at the Tbilisi Center for Social Sciences.

coronavirus, disinformation, Georgia, hybrid war, Russia