Misinformation has been circulating on social media since the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The short video clips create anti-Ukraine sentiment and are increasingly hitting terrible ground in Germany.
A man pulls products from the shelves in a supermarket. The video showing the scene caused a lot of outrage on social networks. There is an allegation that the rioters are Ukrainians and have raged in a Russian shop in Regensburg. But that’s a lie. Rather, the clip shows a years-old incident involving a drunk in the Russian city of Ulyanovsk.
False claims like these can currently be observed frequently in connection with the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. Videos are torn from their original context, new connections are made without any evidence. The Kremlin propaganda that barbaric Ukrainians would not shy away from destruction and violence against Russians also falls on fertile ground in Germany.
Case Euskirchen: Nothing corresponds to the truth
As in the Euskirchen case. In mid-March, a woman shared a selfie video, crying in Russian, that Ukrainian refugees had beaten a 16-year-old boy who spoke Russian to death in the city near Bonn. You know the affected family personally. Because the clip, which first appeared on Tiktok, later also ended up on Facebook and Whatsapp, it reached a large number of people. In addition, a pro-Russian influencer shares the video via Telegram to her more than 100,000 subscribers.
Alone: Nothing about the case corresponds to the truth. The police have no information about such a violent attack or death. Instead, state security is investigating the video. The woman later apologizes for her clip. The fake is quickly exposed because the authorities react quickly.
But why did this clip of the crying woman have such an impact? “We know that the messages that have a strong emotionalizing and activating effect are then also spread the most,” says political scientist Josef Holnburger of the German Press Agency (dpa). He is one of the managing directors of the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS), which monitors, among other things, radicalization tendencies and the spread of conspiracy stories in social media. Supposedly personal references make videos particularly viral, then they would also be shared with acquaintances. “These are mainly voice messages and short videos.”
Seevetal: Recordings are put in the wrong context
Change of location: Seevetal. In the city near Hamburg, more than two dozen buses were damaged at the end of February. There is a mobile phone video from an employee showing the vandalism on the company premises. The recording is real, but the act is exaggerated in social networks: the company boss is said to be a German from Russia, whose ethnic origin is the motive for the attack.
But that too is bogus. “In our management, no one has even an indirect Russian background or a corresponding origin,” says a spokesman for the company. The police rule out a political motivation in connection with the alleged ethnicity of the management. So the video is launched in a completely different context. It is questionable who of the users will even notice the correction.
False claims like these spread rapidly and are often passed on without a countercheck. According to the Bitkom industry association, just one in four Internet users (28 percent) checks questionable reports with research by fact checkers. However, according to the March survey, 56 percent of those surveyed said they had come across fake news on social media.
Russia’s propaganda spreads on social media
In times when the thirst for information about the war is increasingly being quenched via social networks, this can become a problem. Precisely because correct classification there is difficult and takes a certain amount of time. “If you are not sure whether a message is correct, you should not share it without thinking, but check the originator, verify content via a search engine and use fact checker offers,” says Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder.
A role could be played by people who hold a special position in the Russian diaspora in Germany – musicians or actresses. Recently, for example, singer Helene Fischer, who was born in Russia, commented on the war of aggression. “Every day the images of families torn apart; of fathers, brothers, soldiers, husbands who have to die. Of women who have to flee.” She wore a bow in the national colors of Ukraine during her performance. The official Kremlin narrative is that the “special operation” in the neighboring country is mainly aimed at military targets.
Media competence must be strengthened
According to Holnburger, public steps like these are the most effective. In addition, media competence must be strengthened in private – especially in the generation that did not grow up with social networks.
In the context of the Ukraine war, reports of increased racism against Russians in Germany are perceived. Shortly after the invasion began, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said: “We take a very firm stance against people being hostile to or discriminated against because of their Russian origin or language.” And yet invented stories like those from Regensburg, Euskirchen or Seevetal should not be passed on unchecked, says Holnburger. Because: “That’s not the reality.”
Source: Stern
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