{"id":1213,"date":"2023-02-10T16:14:41","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T13:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalskills.by\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2024-05-01T19:42:15","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T16:42:15","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalskills.lt\/en\/2023\/02\/10\/tsikhanouskaya-not-leaving\/","title":{"rendered":"\"Tikhanovskaya resigns\". How Russian publishers promote fakes","raw":"\"Tikhanovskaya resigns\". How Russian publishers promote fakes"},"content":{"rendered":"The fake news that Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is resigning has been circulating on the internet for over a month now. Judging by indirect signs, its launch seems to be a planned information campaign, which is supported by pro-government Russian public pages on social media.\n\n\n\n\n

How fake news spread on social media<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n“Svetlana Tikhanovskaya resigns” <\/em> \u2013 the news in the form of a short video appeared about a month ago on the Youtube channel “People Speak”. This short video<\/a>, which was published at 02:00 at night, was noticed by the Baltic Internet Policy Initiative. It has 969 comments underneath.\n\n\n\n
\"Fake<\/span><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Baltic Internet Policy Initiative found this publication by analyzing mentions of the Belarusian woman-politician Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in the preparation of the publication “Belarusian Politicians<\/a>, January 2023″.\n\n\n\n\nAmong the mentions, an unusual trend stood out on January 9-10, 2023, called “Svetlana Tikhanovskaya resigned as President of Belarus”.\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/span><\/figure>\n\n\n\nLet’s examine the hourly breakdown:\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/span><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe news first appeared on the Youtube channel “People Speak”, which had 350,000 subscribers as of February 10, 2023. If you go to the channel’s main page, you will see videos about Nostradamus, Haruki Murakami and Al Capone, as well as many videos with quotes from Russian public figures.\n\n\n\n\nThe second publication with the text about Tikhanovskaya (matching down to the last punctuation mark) was made by Ilya Begun, a “influencer<\/a>” of state media, on his telegram channel “Authoritatively”:\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/span><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\nWithin five minutes (!), this text appears on the Telegram channel “Political Humor” with the tags “sarcasm” and “joke”:\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/span><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWithin an hour, the information moves on to twitter<\/a>\n\n\n
\n

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has relinquished her presidential powers of Belarus.<\/p>\n“I am forced to admit that my appearance was premature. The people of Belarus are not ready for democracy. I did not receive the support I was expecting.” pic.twitter.com\/Ww8x1QqCdh<\/a>\n\n\u2014 \u0170nu\u0167r\u0101ny ni\u00e6h\u00f8dni\u0137 \ud83c\udff4\u200d\u2620\ufe0f \ud83d\udef4\ud83d\udeb2\ud83d\ude9c (@Benderbr_rb) January 9, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n\nThen the journey begins on Vk.com. However, it’s inactive: the fake didn’t take off until midday. Vk.com users wrote<\/a>: “Will there be any proofs, besides a couple of posts and VK publics?”\n\n\n\n\nBy 18:00, the text (with the same image) reached<\/a> “Odnoklassniki”.\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/span><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe rise begins after the publication in a group that fully supports Russian aggression in Ukraine. It was published<\/a> exactly at 19:00 (!). And this post was shared 56 times as of 14:00 on February 9.\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/span><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAt the exact minute (19:00), it appeared in several groups, giving the impression of a planned and synchronized action:\n\n\n\n