By Maksym Savanevskyy
Ukrainian authorities are ignoring the Internet as one of the most important weapons of war. Unfortunately, Russia, which has been conducting an open war against Ukraine for three months now, is working in this field professionally. It is investing considerable resources to conduct propaganda in the social networks.
The most recent example is the distribution today of the pseudo testimony of an alleged doctor from Odesa, a certain Igor Rozovsky, who reports that as he was trying to assist victims from the trade union building in Odesa, militants prevented him from saving the life of a wounded victim and supposedly told him that he and other Jews of Odesa would soon share the same fate.
“In my own town something happened that could not have happened even during the Nazi occupation,” the pseudo doctor concludes.
In just 15 hours, his post received more than 2000 shares and this number is growing right before our eyes.
However, upon closer inspection, it is obvious that the account of this so-called Igor Rozovsky was created only 16 hours ago. The photo depicts not a Jew from Odesa, but Ruslan Haji-Muratovich Semenov, a dentist who works at the Ust-Dzhegutinsky dental clinic in Karachay-Cherkessia, Russia.
It is also interesting to examine how the Russian propaganda services spread this information. First it was spread across large networks of bots and several popular communities. When the number became sufficiently large, translations of this posting in several different languages began to spread across international networks and foreign news sites. The translations were all identical and included many German, English, and even Bulgarian translations. An effort is currently underway to actively disseminate this information across Jewish social networks.
Viewers may complain to the account of this so-called doctor. Here is his profile:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008322601683&fref=nf
By Maksym Savanevskyy, Ukrainska Pravda Blog, May 4, 2014
Malsym Savanevskyy is the Managing Partner, PlusOne DA and founder of Watcher.com.ua
Original Ukrainian: http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/savanevsky/5365f834c31e7/ Translated by Anna Mostovych
