The broadcast ban in the European Union of RT and Sputnik, considered “propaganda organs” of the Kremlin by European Commissioner Thierry Breton, entered into force on Wednesday March 2, less than a week after the start of the war in Ukraine. The content in English, German, French and Spanish of these Russian media can therefore no longer be broadcast on television networks and on the Internet. A sanction that each Member State is now responsible for enforcing.
>> Follow the latest information on the war in Ukraine in our live
But the battle for information also passes through more unexpected channels. Thus, Vladimir Putin’s French Wikipedia page was recently the subject of“an edit war”in the very words of the Universal Online Encyclopedia. “Several contributors have mutually undone their respective edits. This non-collaborative behavior is prohibited”, announced a red banner at the top of the notice dedicated to the Russian president. A warning visible from Friday February 25, the day after the start of the war in Ukraine, and until Tuesday evening March 1.
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“Changes to a page appear instantly and sometimes contributors remove them immediately”explains to franceinfo Capucine-Marin Dubroca-Voisin, president of Wikimedia France, an association which promotes with Wikipedia “the free sharing of knowledge”. “When it gets too hot, this headband is all about saying ‘now you stop’we will discuss for several hours or several days and we will arrive at a consensual version of the article.”
Who participates in this “edit war” ? “It is not impossible that people paid by the Kremlin try to modify the page of Vladimir Putin, but they will come up against the mechanisms of Wikipedia”, assures Capucine-Marin Dubroca-Voisin. They are of two types: first a discussion between the contributors and, secondly, the setting “under protection” of the page. Thus, only users registered for more than three months and having at least 500 contributions to their credit, a guarantee of respectability accepted by the community, can still intervene on a page targeted by all-out modifications.
These two mechanisms were put in place at the end of February for Vladimir Putin’s French page, which has already been the subject of numerous modifications in the past. It can be simple clarifications, as more strategic corrections, reveals the history of Wikipedia. In addition to the additions concerning the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, there are embellished details on the course of the head of state and information not sourced or relaying Russian propaganda. In other cases, these changes relate to more subtle elements, such as a more flattering photo of Vladimir Putin.
Capucine-Marin Dubroca-Voisin recalls that this type of event is not new and affects Wikipedia as a whole. “Contributors are not anonymous but some may hide their political orientation, she raises. We saw it recently with militants of Eric Zemmour, who tried to manipulate the encyclopedia.”
Russian propaganda can even get to you when you’re looking to take a break from the news. Antoine sees this regularly when playing his favorite video game, Starcraft 2. This military strategy and sci-fi game with aliens has a chat, allowing players to communicate with each other in real time.
“Messages written by players scroll through the homepage and during the mission. I regularly see anti-Semitic or hateful messages appear. And references to Vladimir Putin, reveals the thirty-something. It is then possible to join groups of players and continue the discussion.
This process was documented by journalist Paul Conge, who infiltrated a far-right movement recruiting activists via the Fortnite game. He recounts this experience in his investigation The Greats replacedpublished in 2020 (Arkhê edition). “Fragments of the far right in France are in adoration for Vladimir Putin”says the journalist, joined by franceinfo.
In these spheres, we salute the longevity in power of the Russian president, his firmness towards the United States and the European Union, as well as his traditionalist vision of the nation and the family. Vladimir Putin is perceived there in their jargon as “‘chad’, a strong, virile and imposing man”, continues Paul Conge. According to the journalist, this movement has been developing in the world of video games for ten years. “This explains why gamers suddenly talk to you about the evils of NATO when they didn’t talk about it before or they didn’t know what it was.”
This rhetoric is also disseminated via specialized forums on video games, such as Avenoel or “Blabla 18-25” of the site Jeuxvideo.com (whose users have been implicated in cases of misinformation and cyberbullying). “There is a pro-Russian tropism in certain gamer universes, with members sharing meme [des images humoristiques] valuing Vladimir Putin”advances Paul Conge, who evokes a “strategy of harpooning” of the players. “They will first receive bad taste jokes during a game. If it takes, they are invited to join messengers like Discord, where they then find themselves with politicized members”, he details.
“The video game world is a breeding ground for recruits for the far right and the promotion of Russian politics because there are people who are more solitary, less socially integrated, feeling abandoned by the state and the social ladder, even despised. medias.”
Paul Conge, journalistat franceinfo
The Russian influence is also deployed on social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Youtube. Google has announced that it has suspended the possibility for Kremlin-funded media to generate money on these platforms. But French creators of pro-Russian content remain free to broadcast videos there relaying racist or conspiracy theories, and to earn income thanks to the audience they generate.
Asked by franceinfo, Reporter Without Borders (RSF) said it regretted that “Youtube’s content promotion policy is not based on journalistic criteria with regard to information on the platform”. “Yet there is a standard, the Journalism Trust Initiative, which does not focus on the contents but on the methods to produce them. It could be used for Youtube instead of being based on the popularity of a video or its author”denounces the NGO.
Another social network where disinformation is rampant from Russia: Facebook. The specialized journalist Nicolas Quénel has flushed out pages that claim to do “reinformation” and “alternative” media that relay pro-Russian messages never sourced, even conspiratorial. According to him, several types of actors are involved in this disinformation effort: Russian military intelligence, companies with interests to assert or private actors who aspire to be seen well by Vladimir Putin.
What are these contents aimed at the French public about? “From a whole range of subjects: NATO, the conflict in Crimeaand [une péninsule ukrainienne annexée par la Russie en 2014] or the Donbass, or any topic on which Russia wants to influence public debate in France, explains Nicolas Quenel. The distrust that we observe towards the State and the traditional media has become generalized, so these pages are appealing.”
Internet users access this content by using social network algorithms or by sharing a link in a Whatsapp loop with their loved ones. So what solutions can be put in place against this misinformation? “Platforms must invest a lot more resources in moderation and be more responsive”, Judge Nicolas Quenel.
“States must ask platforms for these efforts and citizens must strengthen their vigilance and critical thinking. These influence operations are not inevitable. Many operations carried out also fail miserably.”
Nicolas Quénel, specialized journalistat franceinfo
For its part, RSF initiated the Forum on Information and Democracy, which has already delivered 250 recommendations to combat disinformation. The NGO demands in particular “public regulations to impose transparency requirements on platforms, to require them to spend a minimum percentage of their income to improve the quality of content review or even measures that limit the virality of misleading content” .