Experts explain why Ukraine is among top five countries in Facebook's fakes rating

28.05.2021 11:35

Ukrinform

Ukraine's fifth place in the ranking of the world's largest disinformation centers from Facebook means that the world recognizes the real danger to Ukraine, as well as the fact that the country is at the forefront of the war against Russian disinformation, the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security (CSCIS) has reported.

"What does Ukraine's fifth place in the ranking of the world's largest disinformation centers from Facebook mean? It means that our information field has been mined. Who has mined it? First of all, this is Russia that is recognized as the world's largest disinformation center. Secondly, these are its agents inside Ukraine with which Russia is at war on all fronts. Thirdly, this is our own PR market, which produces hidden ads, creates bots and is not interested in the origin of money, which makes Ukraine even more vulnerable to hybrid aggression," the report reads.

CSCIS also stressed that Ukraine is "at the forefront of the war against Russian disinformation, which the world, in fact, declared this year." "It is on our internal affairs and external image that the world's main disinformation center is working out his attacks," the report said.

At the same time, CSCIS noted that "all this makes our struggle not only the most responsible, but also the most difficult. Therefore, we must unite our efforts both domestically and with partners abroad."

"That is, there is no betrayal, but there is recognition by the world of the real situation and understanding of the real danger to Ukraine. And this allows us to work out a really effective joint response to brazen Russian aggression. Ukraine is ready for this. We have almost the most expertise and experienced fighters on the information front. The world is ready for this as it has seen the scale of the problem. So, we keep calm and continue to work," the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security reported.

In its report, Facebook named Russia, Iran, Myanmar, the United States and Ukraine as the initiators of most disinformation operations both domestically and abroad. The company said that since 2017, disinformation campaigns have been detected in more than 50 countries. The report draws on over 150 CIB (Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior) networks that were found and disrupted on the platform since 2017. According to the analysis, Russia was the largest provider of disinformation, with 27 CIB networks recorded in the country within four years. Iran is second on the list with 23 such networks.

The countries most frequently affected by influence operations in 2017-2020 include the United States, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Libya, and Sudan.