I keep seeing stories like this, literally dozens of them, whose main thrust is a breathless warning that Russian news influences — whether from direct sources like RT or “Kremlin line” ones like the Ron Paul Institute [?!?!?] — are totally wiping the floor with mainstream media, along with Western government press departments and the whole universe of Western think tanks, NGO’s and opinion setters. Pro-Kremlin opinion on issues like the Skripal poisoning is apparently sweeping all before it.
What this article, and all the others like it, fails to address is what I would have thought is the giant polka-dotted elephant in the room: how the hell are they doing that? Since no one seems to be entertaining the suggestion that the official British narrative on the Skripal poisoning is wrong, or maybe has serious holes in it, then how exactly are these Russian opinion-changing alchemists doubt their own government and media? No matter what the graphic below suggests, or how many trolls and bots they have, the Russians can’t possibly match the firepower of the Western mainstream media, and all of its resources, so what is it? Black magic? Some secret PR sauce? Have the British public been infected by a virus that makes them susceptible to certain Russki keywords? Why aren’t we trying to figure this out?
MEDIUM.COM
#PutinAtWar: Social Media Surge on Skripal – DFRLab – Medium
Two of three stories on the Skripal case shared on social media are from the Kremlin’s media outlets
[https://medium.com/dfrlab/putinatwar-social-media-surge-on-skripal-b5132db6f439]