How to mitigate anti-Ukrainian disinformation
Relax, you don't need censorship to do it effectively
After I said that Substack should attempt to soften the blow of anti-Ukrainian disinformation on this platform â because it is regurgitating fascist Russian propaganda, aimed at making the destruction of Ukraine palatable for a Western audience â several people decided that I want âcensorship on Substack.â
The odious Michael Tracey had a hissy fit about it â which proved my points for me.
But seriously? No. Words mean things.
And mitigation is not the same thing as censorship. Mitigation in this scenario is akin to harm reduction.
Removing a source of disinformation can work in some cases, on some platforms, but the sourceâs audience then thinks that they are being punished. The truth is, a platform like Substack (Twitter is very different, just FYI) benefits from a healthier ecosystem instead â where factual narratives are designed to be attractive and where there are opportunities to interact with peopleâs newsletters, instead of just scroll.
Hereâs why more Substacks should be interactive
I understand that some people truly enjoy passively reading Glenn Greenwaldâs rants about how we shouldnât stand up to a demented ethno-nationalist like Putin because [insert self-justifying screed here], but over the course of my years as a journalist and editor, I noticed that you build better trust if you allow your readers to really interact with what youâre doing.
For example, back when I ran the Moscow News, before Putin and his sulfur-breathing propagandists shut us down, we had very interactive social media accounts, where we could talk to our readers and organize events we could invite them to. It helped humanize our team and show our motivation in how we covered certain stories, creating more loyalty and trust.
Today, I use my Twitter to play online detective games with my followers. Usually, I will put up a picture and ask them to find where it was taken. Sometimes, there are easter eggs along the way â such as identifying a part of my outfit that can lead a follower to discover a shop or a designer Iâd like to highlight, or an interesting story about a background tombstone, etc.
Itâs a specific OSINT game, but to be honest, it can be extrapolated to so much more. Whatâs better is that itâs teaching people to master the tools behind open source investigations, which then helps them identify disinformation. Theyâre having fun, but theyâre also becoming more impervious to murderous propaganda such as what weâve seen in Syria and now in Ukraine. The propaganda that says, âItâs OK that these people are dead.â Or, âThese people are dead, but it wasnât us.â Or, âThese people are not dead, theyâre crisis actors in body bags.â
You can tweak the Substack CSM to make many games like this. What about games and puzzles built around historic events? What about a game where you identify munitions? What about a puzzle that helps people identify AI-generated faces so they donât fall for fake accounts?
You can take all of that and make it part of the writing that makes Substack so popular. Thereâs great writing on here! Just check out Summer Brennan, whose work has kept me sane this horrifying spring.
Iâm not saying, âGet rid of all that, letâs just be nerds together.â What I am saying is this, âMake this ecosystem more vibrant, and better suited to addressing a multitude of issues.â
How to make facts more appealing
Itâs OK to make facts emotionally tinged. I feel like in the news media, that can be problematic. But Substack is a very different animal. Emotion is organic to this place, and other similar platforms.
This is why curating and promoting factual narratives whose authors are humanized is important. Just take a look at the work of Tim Snyder to see what I mean. Tim understands human emotion, but he also doesnât bullshit his readers. His writing on Ukraine is evidence-based, but he allows himself to have feelings about whatâs happening, and that is what makes him so persuasive, frankly.
Letâs cultivate more of that. Letâs have residencies and aggressive promotions for authors that have Snyderâs talent, and focus on many different aspects of this war, or Russian fascism in general, or global corruption, or climate change, etc. Facts + âhere is how I feel about these factsâ is a good formula.
The formats can be different. A well-researched, immersive long read, New Yorker-style or Atlantic-style is a great format, for example â and one that requires significant financial support. But a first-person narrative summing up oneâs area of expertise can work just as well.
I just need you to not start with the, âBut Natalia, who knows what a fact is.â Thatâs how Russian officials want you to think. And, newsflash â if youâre American, Russian officials hate you even more than they hate Ukrainians.
Conclusion
Iâm not a marketer. But I do know that good marketing is important. This is why Iâm always excited to hear new ideas about how to promote content that doesnât suck.
Moral clarity is important. If you think that anti-Ukrainian disinformation isnât a big deal, because Putin claiming that Ukraine shouldnât exist is just fine by you, Iâm going to need you to step back and imagine yourself going back in time and explaining this to your young self:
âSorry, kid, but Iâm a realist now, and if a despot with a decaying nuclear arsenal wants to wipe an entire country off a map, we should let him do itâŠâ Yeah, just dwell on that, please.
I canât do this kind of work alone. No one on the pro-Ukrainian side can. As heartbroken and furious Iâve been, I want to keep pushing, but I need your support. So if youâre reading this for free, please get a paid subscription today! đđ