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Monday, November 6th, 2023

How Russian disinformation toppled government after government in Africa

Author:     Elizabeth Dwoskin
Source:     The Washington Post
Publication Date:     October 21, 2023 | 7:00 a.m. EDT
 Link: How Russian disinformation toppled government after government in Africa
Stephan:  

The weaponization of disinformation (see SR archive) in my opinion is the leading political trend in the world today, and no one is better at it than the Russians and Chinese who saw the implications of what it could do while the American government was asleep in its chairs. The Russians used it to help Trump get elected, and have, as this article describes, been using it all over Africa to change governments. Based on hard evidence it is already distorting almost everything Americans, particularly young Americans think about their government. In my opinion if the government does not wake up to what is going on I think it may determine the outcome of the 2024 election and end democracy in the United States.

Supporters of Niger’s ruling junta hold a Russian flag on Aug. 3. Credit: Sam Mednick / AP

When Israeli businessmen Royi Burstien and Lior Chorev touched down in the busy capital of the West African nation of Burkina Faso, they had an urgent message for the country’s embattled ruler.

The Israelis — one a veteran political operative and the other a former army intelligence officer — had been hired with the mission of keeping the government of President Roch Marc Kaboré in power. Their company, Percepto International, was a pioneer in what’s known as the disinformation-for-hire business. They were skilled in deceptive tricks of social media, reeling people into an online world comprised of fake journalists, news outlets and everyday citizens whose posts were intended to bolster support for Kaboré’s government and undercut its critics.

But as Percepto began to survey the online landscape across Burkina Faso and the surrounding French-speaking Sahel region of Africa in 2021, they quickly saw that the local political adversaries and Islamic extremists they had been hired to combat were not Kaboré’sbiggest […]

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1 Comment

  1. Albus Eddie on Monday, November 6, 2023 at 6:17 am

    Do the powers that be actually expect us to believe this stuff? Really? The empire is totally blameless, it all the Russians. Right. Our sponsored coup in Libya had nothing to do with any of this. Our decades long exploitation of African resources and support of dictators had nothing to do with any problems. The narrative managers really need to do a better job. This article doesn’t even have face validity.