Is It Propaganda Or Not?

In the short time since we started this project, we have been approached by whistleblowers leaking documents, laid the groundwork for collaboration with other researchers, and received an immense outpouring of support, constructive suggestions, offers to contribute, and volunteer applications.  Our approach has been successfully used by people around the world to critically examine online propaganda outlets and expose the pro-Russian bias, lies, and uncritical reuse of state-controlled media therein. Operators of sites we have highlighted have reached out to us, made a case for their independence, described how they take state-sponsored propaganda very seriously, and put measures in place to avoid being a conduit for it. We are very encouraged by that. We have removed these outlets from our list, and are continuing to add other ones, especially ones which are directly owned and controlled by governments that suppress and restrict free media.

Reporters have investigated some of the outlets we highlighted and found them to be foreign-run, popular, and supportive of Russia in important ways. Some reporters in particular have engaged with our work in its larger context to produce thoughtful analysis. Allied governments and intelligence services, including those of Germany and Sweden, are well aware of the phenomena we highlight and take it very seriously. We have accomplished these things in a very short time, with no budget and no formal organization, by building on the work of numerous others who have paved the way.

We have been strongly criticized as well. Journalists and other researchers have made some thoughtful critiques and pointed out the need for certain improvements that we take seriously. Some have questioned our anonymity, but we will remain anonymous for the reasons which we laid out at the start of this project, in our Frequently Asked Questions: We are anonymous because we are civilian Davids facing down a state-sponsored Goliath. We take things like Russian hacking of Americans, Russian physical attacks on journalists, “Pizzagate”-style mob harassment, and doxing and harassment seriously.

We would also like to be clear: We strongly believe in the First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Diverse and independent media are vital to the health of free society. Non-profit and commercial, alternative and mainstream - all are critical to our democracy.

Americans have the right to echo, repeat, be used by, and refer their audiences to Russian official and semi-official state media, including “fake news” propaganda - just as we have the right to analyze and highlight that, without fear or favor. Our list was never intended to be “black”. We highlight these outlets because we believe that the public should be able to know that very disparate kinds of online outlets frequently display a strong bias towards Russia in ways that echo, repeat, are used by, and redirect their audiences to Russian official and semi-official state media. We also highlight them to encourage readers to think critically about the media they encounter, especially when it might confirm their ideological preconceptions.

We highlight. Unlike the Russian government, we do not censor.

As an example, we are happy to remove from the List any outlet whose operators understand how Putin's Russia is a brutal authoritarian kleptocracy that uses "fake news" as online propaganda, and resolves to help do something about it. For example, any outlet that has used a lot of Russia Today and Sputnik News content, but resolves to stop doing so, is going to be removed from the List.

After productive conversations with several website operators, in which it became clear that they shared the same concerns we do and were interested in constructively moving forward, we removed them. Please see the updated List for more information.

Also please see our November 30 Press release, which goes into more detail on the themes above, is available for download here, and can be viewed inline below:

We are grateful for the outpouring of support we've received over the past day or so, and are currently starting to wade through it all, as well as working to map out and analyze all the outraged accounts who jump in randomly to tell us how great Putin is and decry the very suggestion that Russian influence operations might actually be a real thing.

We are also amused by everyone who wants to change the subject. We have been writing code, collecting data, analyzing data, manually reviewing outlets, responding to media, drafting, editing, internally debating, etc, with a team of volunteers, on a holiday weekend, and it is working. We have helped start the conversation we wanted to start, and greatly increased awareness of the problem we are trying to address. There remains much more to do, but we look forward to the upcoming public discussion, and intend to respond to questions and requests for more information as soon as humanely possible - again, bearing in mind that we are an all-volunteer team, with no budget, on a holiday weekend.

We would also like to be very clear that we fiercely believe in the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and have no interest in seeing anyone punished for exercising them. Quite to the contrary. However, when outlets echo, repeat, and refer their audience to Russian propaganda, especially of the fake-news variety (which they have the right to do), we're going to highlight it (which we have the right to do). If they in fact were not doing so, and we were incorrect, we are happy to correct the record. We highlight. We do not censor.

Our criteria are behavioral, not motivational. If a particular outlet consistently echoes, repeats, and refers its audience to official and semi-official Russian state media, we will to try to measure it. We often cannot know the motivations of the people involved, although sometimes, thanks to other reporting, we can have have a very good sense - but the motivations are less important to us than the behavior.  That's one big reason why we don't accuse any Americans of deliberate wrongdoing, and why we so generally focus on outlets, not individuals.

More generally, we would like to point out that propaganda outlets like Russia Today are the mouthpieces of a brutal authoritarian oligarchy run by a mafia-spy tyrant, who assassinated a leading opposition politician literally right in front of the Kremlin, and strategically supports and funds political movements around the world. There is no moral equivalence between the United States and the Putin regime. Everyone has the right to criticize the US government, but criticizing the Russian government can get you killed. That is one reason we're anonymous.

There are a few other points of interest as well:

1. We have updated and will continue to update our Frequently Asked Questions in response to some of the most common inquiries we've received, although we intend to get back to everyone as soon as possible as well. Watch that space.
2. We will be updating The List slightly as well, in part based on the numerous new outlets we've been asked to look into over the past 24 hours. We will do that as soon as we can sink our analysis tools and review processes into the outlets we've been asked to look into, and we'll be updating our browser plugin as well. Due to different volunteers being responsible for different parts of the option, please note that the list in the plugin is slightly ahead of the list on the website. We will fix that.
3. We are updating our homepage slightly, to give people a better sense for what the Russian folks working to influence US public opinion look and sound like.
4. We are proud to present our updated Black Friday Report, and extremely grateful to everyone who contributed! We look forward to your thoughts, suggestions, and contributions as we move forward. It is available for download here, or can be reivewed directly below:

Thank you very much for all your support, and watch this space - much more soon.

-- The PropOrNot Team