Friday, February 28, 2025

Context

Stories in the Context section are not fakes. We publish them in order to provide greater insight for our readers about the techniques, methods and practices used by the Russian government in its information war. They appear on our site with the permission of their original publisher and reflect the views of the authors and not necessarily the position of StopFake’s editorial board.

Russia Bans Internet Database Archive

Internet users in Russia will no longer be able to access a massive database of cached webpages, apparently due to one single website authorities...

Swedish MTG Becomes Latest Target in Russian Media-Ownership Rules

Sweden’s Modern Times Group AB is the latest company to face being pushed out of Russia as President Vladimir Putin’s media law tightens control...

Digital Investigators Try To Disperse Fog Of War In Ukraine

In June 2014, Russian soldier Stanislav Tarasov posted on a social-media site a photo of himself standing in front of a military convoy against a...

Conspiracy theorists will truly believe anything, says science

Admit it, you love to hate-read the conspiracy theory BS your friend or relative regurgitates all over Facebook. But have you ever asked yourself...

Pro-Putin Think Tank Based In New York Shuts Down

A pro-Kremlin think tank based in New York City is shutting down, an official with the group told BuzzFeed News on Tuesday. “I can confirm...

Hashtags and User Networks in the Putin-Poroshenko Twitter Chatter

This article is part of a citizen-media data-analysis project, a collaboration between RuNet Echo and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. Explore...

Europe Seeks to Counter Kremlin Success Pushing World View

Larry King's back on the air, beaming his high-octane brand of talk to households around the world. Where can you catch him? Kremlin-backed television. Moscow wants you to pay better...

Russian Soft Power In Central Asia

The Kremlin surprised nearly everyone when it unleashed its media machine on the world after the pro-Moscow president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was chased...

EU drafts plan on Russia’s media ‘misuse’

EU institutions aim to counter Russian propaganda with “positive” messages, media funding, and closer regulation, a new action plan says. The plan, a nine-page paper...

Russian ‘Troll Factory’ Agrees to Compensate Former Employee, But She’s Just Getting Started

The phenomenon of “troll factories” or “troll farms” operating on the RuNet and beyond to shape the conversations and sentiment online has by now...