ABOUT THE INITIATIVE
Studies conducted by the How not to become a vegetable initiative
RESEARCH: how much opposition public Russians and media are useful for Ukraine in the info field
(November 2022)
"The Russians aren’t guilty that the war started, nor that it has not yet ended, nor that Putin was not overthrown." This phrase by Russian oppositionist Maxim Katz illustrates the attitude of the majority of Russian public figures, who, on the one hand, criticize Putin, and on the other, spread messages of Russian propaganda – consciously or not.
For years, the Ukrainian information space was flooded with Russian content: music, books, media, and bloggers. For many Ukrainians, "good" Russians were idols, they trusted them. Sobchak and Bykov gathered large audiences, traveling across Ukraine, teaching Ukrainians freedom of speech and how to understand Lesya Ukrainka's work.
The slow development of Ukrainian-language content only strengthened this trend. When Russian public figures were already posting a lot of videos on YouTube, Ukrainians were just beginning to pay attention to this platform.
This began to change in 2014, but only in 2020-2021 did the Ukrainians achieve noticeable results. In 2021, the Ukrainian segment of YouTube began to defeat the pro-Russian one.
After the full-scale invasion, the Russian idols did not disappear. Their "liberal" attitude made them "good Russians." In the first months of 2022, they flooded the Ukrainian information space – from TV broadcasts to attempts to obtain Ukrainian citizenship. But with each new atrocity committed by the Russian army, the attitude of Ukrainians becomes more radical. The search for "good Russians" has turned into a denial of their existence.
However, little has been said about the political position of the so-called "good Russians" since 2014 and whether it has changed today. These "good Russians" were and are part of the information war – they shaped and continue to shape the attitude of Russians towards Putin, Ukraine, and the war.
The volunteer initiative How Not to Become a Vegetable together with the Analyze platform has analyzed the statements about Ukraine (2014-2022) of 91 Russian public figures and publications in nine Russian media that say they oppose Putin's regime. The purpose of the study is to show Ukrainians to what extent the public position of famous Russians who criticize Putin actually strengthens or weakens the image of Ukraine in the information space and whether "good Russians" broadcast Russian propaganda narratives (consciously or not).
Study of the information hygiene level of the Ukrainian Facebook users
(January 2023)
"Why is it that most of the lights are turned off on my street, while on others are not?" - Oleksiy wrote on his Facebook page at the end of November. He is 41 years old and is a mechanical engineer by education. Now he heads one of the production enterprises in the West of Ukraine. He hates everything Russian, but unconsciously spreads messages produced by Russian propaganda.
Oleksiy is an active Facebook user. Even before the massive blackouts and "treason" surrounding it, his profile looked like this: posts admiring the resilience and unity of Ukrainians, at the same time changing emotions and cursing those who still speak Russian, along with reposts of news from the "white list" media, publications with conspiracy theories spread by Russia, and posting 'thanks' to volunteer funds replaced in a few days with emotional and unsubstantiated appeals to stop corruption among volunteers.
Oleksiy is one of the 63% of Ukrainian Facebook users who spread fakes and manipulations on their pages during June-September 2022. These are the data of the 4th wave of the research on the level of information hygiene of Ukrainians on Facebook, conducted by the volunteer initiative "How not to become a vegetable".
The results of 2022 recorded an optimistic moment - the information operations of Putin's propaganda machine are losing their effectiveness in the Ukrainian information space. So, in September-December 2020, the number of Facebook users who spread disinformation was higher than 73%.
But behind the scenes of optimistic data remains the fact that every second Ukrainian Facebook user still spreads messages that strengthen the information operations of the enemy, considering that social networks are a source of news for 74% of Ukrainians.
RESEARCH: how much opposition public Russians and media are useful for Ukraine in the info field
(November 2022)
"The Russians aren’t guilty that the war started, nor that it has not yet ended, nor that Putin was not overthrown." This phrase by Russian oppositionist Maxim Katz illustrates the attitude of the majority of Russian public figures, who, on the one hand, criticize Putin, and on the other, spread messages of Russian propaganda – consciously or not.
For years, the Ukrainian information space was flooded with Russian content: music, books, media, and bloggers. For many Ukrainians, "good" Russians were idols, they trusted them. Sobchak and Bykov gathered large audiences, traveling across Ukraine, teaching Ukrainians freedom of speech and how to understand Lesya Ukrainka's work.
The slow development of Ukrainian-language content only strengthened this trend. When Russian public figures were already posting a lot of videos on YouTube, Ukrainians were just beginning to pay attention to this platform.
This began to change in 2014, but only in 2020-2021 did the Ukrainians achieve noticeable results. In 2021, the Ukrainian segment of YouTube began to defeat the pro-Russian one.
After the full-scale invasion, the Russian idols did not disappear. Their "liberal" attitude made them "good Russians." In the first months of 2022, they flooded the Ukrainian information space – from TV broadcasts to attempts to obtain Ukrainian citizenship. But with each new atrocity committed by the Russian army, the attitude of Ukrainians becomes more radical. The search for "good Russians" has turned into a denial of their existence.
However, little has been said about the political position of the so-called "good Russians" since 2014 and whether it has changed today. These "good Russians" were and are part of the information war – they shaped and continue to shape the attitude of Russians towards Putin, Ukraine, and the war.
The volunteer initiative How Not to Become a Vegetable together with the Analyze platform has analyzed the statements about Ukraine (2014-2022) of 91 Russian public figures and publications in nine Russian media that say they oppose Putin's regime. The purpose of the study is to show Ukrainians to what extent the public position of famous Russians who criticize Putin actually strengthens or weakens the image of Ukraine in the information space and whether "good Russians" broadcast Russian propaganda narratives (consciously or not).
BASE OF RUSSIAN PROPAGANDISTS
(November 2022)
The latest Russian art exhibitions abroad are a powerful cultural offensive, one can call it a kind of a "special operation". Many don't like it, but Russians are advancing, and no one can be allowed to deter their advance.
This is roughly what the long-term head of the Russian Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, recently said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
Russian propaganda has never been limited exclusively to what politicians, media and pundits say to achieve the goals set by the Kremlin.
It actually involves mouthpieces from various fields, who simultaneously – and in a controlled manner – say what's needed to be said. Each of them uses the arguments that their audience would understand best.
This is how anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western messages are spread by writers and soldiers, athletes and scientists, astrologers and priests. All of them are part of the genocide against the Ukrainian people, which is happening as a result of massive propaganda.
The initiative How Not to Become a Vegetable, has created a database of 1,800 Russian propagandists and public figures who support the war in Ukraine.
Apart from big names like Margarita Simonyan, it includes representatives of 15 industries involved in the information war against Ukraine and against the West.
These are not just employees of the propaganda media (629 of them are in the database), the list also includes writers, singers, actors, pro-Kremlin talk show experts, bloggers, military personnel, politicians, athletes, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, etc.
In this version of the database, we focused on those who shape the information field of Russian propaganda.
The consequent versions will also include the followers of the so-called "Russian world" and "esotericists" who actively help Russian propaganda.
Research of the level of information hygiene in Facebook of the TOP-50 best employers' staff
(November 2021)
43% of people do not follow the rules of the information hygiene on Facebook. This is the results of our recent research of the level of information hygiene among employees of TOP-50 best employers (according to Forbes in 2020).
Though the situation differs depending on the sphere of the activity. Only 23% of workers in the IT and media industry do not observe information hygiene. If you disregard these two industries, then the number of those who break the information hygiene rules raises up to 48%.
Here is a general picture of the breaking the information hygiene rules:
36,1% of people post the materials from the unreliable resources on their Facebook accounts (14,8% of people working in IT and media industries).
15,4% of people post manipulative information (11,1% in IT and media industries).
12,5% (of people post fake news, including the information that was marked as fake or manipulative (5,1% in IT and media industries).
6,8% of users post the results of tests, games, polls or flash mobs, that collect the personal data of users in exchange for the entertainment provided (1,1% in IT and media industries).
Briefly about the information sampling: 1990 accounts of the real Ukrainian Facebook users who work for the TOP-50 Ukrainian companies were taken for the research. The posts of May – July 2021 were analyzed. Random error for the data, excluding the design-effects, doesn’t exceed 2,5%.
The study was conducted by the How not to become a vegetable initiative along with SemanticForce.
The analysis of the study was published on Liga.net
Studies of the Ukrainian social and political content on YouTube
(November 2021)
The YouTube channels with pro-Ukrainian position have 30% more views than those with pro-Russian position (data of the last three months). Though a year before the latter was leading.
At the same time, the views of the channels associated with Medvedchuk and Muraiev rose from 200 million to 300 million during the last three months, despite the blocking of them.
Every month more than 12 000 Ukrainians donate over 2 million hryvnas on Patreon.
Shariy is still leading: this year, his videos were watched 0,5 billion times. Half of the viewers were from Russia.
The Ze channels lost 60 000 subscribers this year.
Besides, in the research you may read about the anti-vaccinators, the schemes of blocking of Ukrainian channels and the new-old tricks of the new-old media of Shariy.
The study was conducted by the initiative “How not to become a vegetable” along with "beTrue Media" digital media agency. We studied 421 biggest social and political YouTube channels which target Ukrainian audience.
The analysis based on the study was published on the Ukrainska Pravda platform
Study of the information hygiene level of the Ukrainian Facebook users
(January 2021)
The real Ukrainian Facebook consists of the people like a teacher called Nataliia, 48, from Mohyliv-Podilskyi. She has a higher education, an active pro Ukrainian position and 10-year-experience of work at school. All of these doesn't protect her from the information viruses. She doesn’t deny the perils of COVID-19, but she is against vaccination and supports those who think the same. She often posts pleas to help the children on her Facebook page, but she doesn’t know that these posts were created by fraudsters. She shares pictures of the miraculous icons and prayers, but she doesn’t care that these are the instruments of the popularization of the unreliable recourses.
The situation in figures and facts:
61% of real Ukrainian Facebook users post the materials from unreliable resources – sites, public pages and groups.
39% of people post manipulative information.
26% of the users post fake news, including the ones that were marked as fake or manipulative information by Facebook (13%).
25% of the users post the results of the tests, games, polls or flash-mob texts that collect personal data in exchange for the entertainment.
To sum up, 73% of the Ukrainian Facebook users do not observe the information hygiene.
The study was conducted by the How not to become a vegetable initiative along with SemanticForce. The results were revealed on the Ukrainska Pravda platform.
Sample: 3002 pages of real Ukrainian Facebook users (posts dated September-December 2020).
Random error for the data, excluding the design-effects, doesn’t exceed 2,2%.
Insights of the research were published on the Ukrainska Pravda platform.
The study of the Ukrainian social and political YouTube 2020
(November 2020)
Volunteer initiative on information hygiene, called How not to become a vegetable, formed a list of the most popular Ukrainian YouTube channels devoted to social and political topics. This list was extended by beTrue Media, a company that is focused on YouTube studies and content development on this platform. As a result, 334 Ukrainian YouTube channels were included to the list.
The enhanced statistics of each channel was formed using beTrue Media software and open-source data. Therefore, it was possible to analyze the evolution of each channel based on 19 criteria. The period of analysis was from August, 4 till November, 2 2020.
All the channels were ranked based on the ‘number of views of all videos in the channel by November 2, 2020' criterion. The analysts of How not to become a vegetable had been researching the content of each channel from the aforementioned list and categorised them. On the finishing stage of the analysis, they picked 41 channels - the key leaders of each category. They also studied the geographic report on views (by October 23, 2020), analysed top commentators as well as topics and tone of their messages.
The analysts used the tools of beTrue Media and SemanticForce for the research. SemanticForce is an international product company that has been developing a platform for monitoring and analysis of the media and social networks since 2009.
The insights of this research were published on the Ukrainska Pravda platform.
54%
of the Ukrainian Facebook users break the basic information hygiene rules in the social network
34%
of the users post manipulative headlines and materials
29%
of the users post links to unreliable sources
13%
of users post fake news
10%
of users take tests that steal personal data
How the employees of 20 big Ukrainian companies observe information hygiene in Facebook
(January-June, 2020)
34%
share the links to unreliable sources on their pages
7%
post materials that were flagged as fake or manipulative by Faceboo
27%
post texts with manipulative headlines
21%
post fake news
13%
take tests like "What kind of a snake are you?” and give the access totheir personal data