If YouTube can do it, then so can we.
Like YouTube, on PoliticsTOO, Russian propaganda falls under the umbrella of another pre-existing policy: our prohibition of disinformation generally.
What makes Russian disinformation so obnoxious is the fact that Russia doesn’t even pretend to offer a level playing-field for information within its own country. Independent journalists are harassed, jailed, even murdered. Protestors are stomped, and you can be thrown in jail for 15 years for accurately describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “war.”
Russia doesn’t play by the rules, and its state-sponsored propaganda therefore won’t be abided here.
But what is Russian state-sponsored propaganda? How do we distinguish it from right-wing nonsense generally?
Good questions!
I’ve identified several false narratives about Ukraine that are piped in straight from the Kremlin. I won’t describe them here now because that would only give Putin’s nonsense more airtime, but if you’re curious, all you have to do is follow Putin’s public statements. Since the only kind of information now allowed in Russia about the Ukraine War is that which receives Putin’s personal blessing, it’s actually rather easy to discern what propaganda comes from Russia.
(On the subject of disinformation generally: Another example from not long ago is Anti-vaxxing and COVID-19 denialism. Our mod team made the determination that false information about COVID had a substantial likelihood of exposing Americans to death and injury, and that we would therefore play no part in helping sponsor or share such disinformation.)
(Interestingly, it has been suspected that Russian propagandists helped add fuel to the fire of COVID denialism, since the ends of COVID denialism dovetail with Putin’s own goals of keeping Western countries weak, sick, and divided, and undermining faith in science, etc. However, right-wing propagandists right here in America were so receptive to the message that it hardly mattered. If Russia was sponsoring COVID disinformation, then it probably didn’t make much of a difference in that case — like pouring a can of gasoline on a forest fire.)
Due to Putin’s own intense interest in the outcome of the Ukraine War, expect to see a renewed push from Russian online propaganda trolls. Even if it’s patent nonsense, which no informed person would ever believe, there are many uninformed people & it interferes with the sharing of accurate information about the Ukraine War.
Caption this Meme 
