The idea that New Zealand is safe from Russian disinformation is an 'enduring fiction'
Monday, 12 June 2023
Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa is a researcher with The Disinformation Project.
OPINION: The unprecedented, and profoundly troubling discovery of well over a dozen articles published by RNZ to re-present wire news reports as partial to, and promoting a Kremlin worldview, signalling Putin’s political rhetoric is a stark reminder of how entrenched Russian disinformation is in New Zealand.
This number may increase.
RNZ’s own reporting of its failure indicates an individual from its digital team was allegedly responsible for all the edits, but the issue is greater than a single person at the country’s public broadcaster.
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It goes to the heart of Russian disinformation’s entry, expansion, and entrenchment in New Zealand’s news, information, and media landscapes.
Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, I have led the research at The Disinformation Project to study sophisticated, highly strategic, and sustained Russian disinformation pathologies infect New Zealand at pace with no meaningful official acknowledgement, response, or remedy.
The enduring fiction remains that the country is somehow inoculated – because of geographic distance, a strong democracy, a vibrant, independent media, and liberal values – from Russian disinformation’s cancerous entry, and effects.
To read that this isn’t the case, and hasn’t ever been the case ironically risks complete rejection, because the degree to which, over the past year alone, these narratives have shaped worldviews remains under-appreciated, at best.
In 2022, a closely-knit tapestry of Russian disinformation narratives shaped domestic anti-vax, anti-mandate, and anti-establishment responses to, as well as foreign web, and social media-based presentations of former Jacinda Ardern’s consequential addresses at Harvard University, Nato, and the UN General Assembly.
Like a toxic patina over the course of 2022, these narratives got more voluminous, vicious, and violent, targeting the former PM, her family, the government, and others.
In May, coverage of Russian offensives against Bakhmut in Ukraine illuminated how for hundreds of thousands subscribed to Telegram channels in New Zealand, pro-Kremlin frames shape their worldview.
Studying hundreds of posts, and associated commentary around imported content re-featured in public channels, and chat groups revealed the discourse – without a single exception - was pro-Putin, pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukraine, and anti-Nato.
When the original source wasn't from a Russian disinformation vector, including for example accounts of RT News correspondents on Telegram, it was from a QAnon or MAGA channels based in the US.
Presenting Putin as saviour, some of the posts openly congratulated him on the capture of Bakhmut. Wire news reports were rare, and when linked to, were censured as Western propaganda or journalism that was counterfeit, corrupt or compromised.
Every source on Telegram with content on Bakhmut featured on domestic disinformation ecologies was a repository of vastly more voluminous Russian propaganda.
Channels based in the US also featured QAnon conspiratorialism, and related harms including, but not limited to anti-semitism, white Christian nationalism, white supremacism, and often, thinly veiled violent far-right ideologies.
There are two ways to appreciate Russian disinformation’s imprint in New Zealand.
One, as highlighted above, in the study of content imported into New Zealand. The other, as a blueprint, template, or script, consistently adopted, and constantly adapted by domestic disinformation networks, including (but not exclusively) from the far-right.
Both are under-appreciated phenomena impacting democracy. At the Disinformation Project, we study this infection as narrative injection, semantic infiltration, and distortion – linked to how the manipulation of language signals, seeds, and spreads falsehoods.
In essence, all this speaks to what 15 articles published by RNZ sought to do, and got away with till last week. This was a considered, highly strategic endeavour, indicating clear subscription to Russian disinformation, and an interest in disseminating it.
It underscores how as a dangerous script, a divisive narrative scaffolding or disinformation template, Russia’s designs are now present in domestic productions, which don’t have any direct ties to the Kremlin’s global propaganda networks.
This is of consequence to national security, and social cohesion.
In May, and again in December 2022, the government sanctioned Russian disinformation actors, with the Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta noting how they had “direct influence over public perceptions about Russia’s illegal and unprovoked war”.
What the government sought to resolutely reject, and inoculate those in the country against, are now ironically, narrative frames present in RNZ’s own output.
The discovery of Russian disinformation’s promotion by RNZ is a significant development, speaking to a broader spectrum of “active measures” instrumentalising a high-trust society’s implicit faith in incorruptible practices by fellow citizens.
The lack of oversight, and early detection suggest RNZ never planned or accounted for Russian disinformation’s infiltration of newsroom output, and editorial input.
Other newsrooms must take note, audit their output, and review their own workflows. Russian disinformation is entrenched, and exclusively defines New Zealand’s domestic anti-vax, anti-establishment discourse. This is not just about Ukraine.
What was present is now entrenched, and expanding at pace here. Russian disinformation’s intended end state is a hollowing out of democracy, instigating unrest, disbelief, anxiety, anger, and incivility through violent othering.
It seeks to erode trust, erase truth, and negate facts. Public service media, and independent journalism are bulwarks against these dark designs. New Zealand must fight to protect them.