Social media is a critical domain of ‘information warfare’, where states seek to advance their interests by shaping the views of their own citizens or those of other nations. A new study tracks activity in this domain at the start of Russia’s invasion.
Bridget Smart and colleagues obtained all tweets sent between February 23rd and March 8th containing the following hashtags: #(I)StandWithPutin, #(I)StandWithRussia, #(I)SupportRussia, #(I)StandWithUkraine, #(I)StandWithZelenskyy and #(I)SupportUkraine.
These hashtags were chosen as they were the most commonly trending hashtags that could be reliably identified with one or other side. If a particular tweet contained a pro-Russian hashtag and a pro-Ukrainian one, it was labelled ‘balanced’. Only English-language tweets were included.
The authors’ main finding is shown in the chart below. In short, the overwhelming majority of tweets (90%) were pro-Ukrainian, whereas only a small percentage were pro-Russian (6.8%).
Now, you might say this is not surprising, as most people in the West support Ukraine and very few support Russia. However, it provides evidence against the commonly heard claim that Russian troll farms exert large sway over public opinion.
An important caveat is that over 100 pro-Russian accounts were banned on March 4th, which partly explains the lack of pro-Russian tweets. However, it’s clear that even before these accounts were banned, the overwhelming majority of tweets were pro-Ukrainian.
Smart and colleagues used the Botometer tool to identify bots, and concluded that about 70% of tweets in their dataset were sent by bots (with the percentage being similar for pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian tweets).
However, as Mike Hearn noted in an article for Daily Sceptic last year, the Botometer tool has a massive false positive rate, making it almost useless. (In other words, it massively overestimates the number of bots.) So I wouldn’t trust the authors’ conclusions in this regard.
On the other hand, their finding that 90% of English-language tweets were pro-Ukrainian strikes me as highly plausible. Indeed, one notable feature of Twitter activity since the start of the war is the ubiquity of certain large, pro-Ukrainian accounts. One of these has attracted particular attention: The Kyiv Independent.
This is the account of a Kiev-based newspaper, founded in November of 2021. (Note: I use ‘Kiev’ because it is the English exonym for Ukraine’s capital.) The Kyiv Independent was the successor to the Kyiv Post, which became defunct last year after a dispute between staff and ownership.
What’s remarkable about The Kyiv Independent, as several observers have noted, is how quickly it rose to become one of the most influential accounts on the war in Ukraine.
Checking the internet archive, the account had just 731 followers on November 22nd. By February 13th, it was up to 11.4K. By February 24th, the date of Russia’s invasion, it was up to 37.2K. And by 28 March, it was up to 2 million. This is an extraordinary rate of growth, which must be partly explained by algorithmic amplification.
Indeed, The Kyiv Independent – which no one had even heard of before February – has more followers than the Daily Express, the Daily Mirror or The Times (which all joined Twitter more than a decade ago). Not only that, but it doesn’t produce any content in Ukrainian, so almost all its readers are in the West.
Another point worth noting is that calling itself ‘independent’ is a stretch, as the newspaper received a $200,000 grant from the Canadian government.
Evidence suggests that pro-Ukrainian accounts are much more influential on English-language Twitter than pro-Russian accounts. This is in part because the latter are frequently banned. Yet the unprecedented rise of The Kyiv Independent suggests that Twitter is also shaping the discourse via artificial boosting – not just banning.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Criminal! I hope to god children and parents have the sense to refuse. I fear they won’t.
having lived in British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec, I know that all Canadians have much sense.You do not last long in Canada without sense. Thye will not be scared by a piddly vaccine shot. I juat wished they’d get a move on and catch up, get back to normal so I can draw my pension that they owe me!
You want to be like the UK?
Step 1 – V day. Massive death spike
Step 2 – blame the V deaths on The Vid
Step 3 – more lockdowns
Step 4 – repeat.
There is nothing “piddly “ about experimenting on immature immune systems by invoking an unknown antibody response for a disease that will not harm them. I do not recognise your generalisation of Canada as having ubiquitous common sense. If you can demonstrate any other medicine or vaccine which has ever been licensed for children in a similar manner you would have some credence. This is a gross moral and ethically incorrect experiment on the young to make their elders feel better .
Some of my Partner’s family live in Canada and married Canadians. One or two have common sense but by no means all of them. Certainly not the druggies and alcohol abusers.
All true, except it’s driver is pharma profitability. Nowt else.
A very dark day indeed
Heaven help them
My eldest is 7, but as and when they get down to that age they can stab me where the sun don’t shine before putting it in her. And yes, she’s had every other regular vaccine going.
Germany has just provided funding of 3.8 billion € for the purchase of booster and variant Covid gene therapies for 2022 and 2023.
There is no plan or chance that the plandemic ends, without us forcing them out.
Extrapolation of jab deaths sofar x doses purchased now suggests 11.000 ‘vaccine’ deaths in Germany alone.
Before the medium and long term side effects related ones, or the vascular ones due to the spike protein factories in the jabbed.
DEUTSCHES ÄRZTEBLATT: Gesundheitsministerium bekommt weitere 3,8 Milliarden für Beschaffung von Coronaimpfstoff – Auszug: „Es geht dabei um Impfstoff für die Jahre 2022 und 2023, also vor allem für Auffrischungsimpfungen und Impfungen gegen mutierte Coronaviren. Das geht aus einem Schreiben des Finanzministeriums an den Haushaltsausschuss des Bundestags hervor. (…) Demnach zeichnen sich Vertragsabschlüsse der Europäischen Kommission ab, ‘um eine ausreichende Versorgung mit adäquaten Impfstoffen gegen COVID-19 auch für die kommenden Jahre sicherzustellen‘. (…) Außerdem stehe ein Vertrag kurz vor dem Abschluss, bei dem es auch um angepasste Impfstoffe für Kinder gehe. Deutschland müsse jetzt Zahlungsverpflichtungen eingehen, damit entsprechend viel Impfstoff bestellt werde.“ (Anmerkung Paul Schreyer: Damit ist die Katze ist aus dem Sack: Die Impfungen sollen fortan regelmäßig erfolgen. „Neue Normalität“ für immer – sämtliche bekannten und unbekannten Risiken und Nebenwirkungen inbegriffen. Kinder zu impfen ist dabei die letzte denkbare Eskalationsstufe und angesichts der vollkommen unerforschten Langzeitwirkungen eine Verantwortungslosigkeit unfassbarer Tragweite. Eines Tages werden sich viele von denen, die diese Beschlüsse und deren Umsetzung jetzt „durchwinken“, vor Gericht verantworten müssen.)
CORONA TRANSITION: Wie gefährlich sind die neuen Covid-19-Impfungen wirklich? – Auszug: „Hat sich Deutschland mit 410 Mio. Impfdosen auch 11’000 Todesfälle ‚eingekauft‘? (…) Im Vergleich zu allen anderen Impfungen zeigen sich bei den neuen Covid-19-Impfstoffen stark erhöhte Werte (jeweils pro 100’000 Impfungen): Nebenwirkungen steigen von 7 auf 217 (Faktor 31); Schwerwiegende Nebenwirkungen steigen von 3,2 auf 23,9 (Faktor 7,5); Todesfälle steigen von 0,06 auf 2,83 (Faktor 47) (…) Deutschland hat sich 410 Millionen Impfdosen ‚gesichert‘ (Stand Anfang Januar 2021). Aufgrund der aktuellen Zahlen des Paul-Ehrlich-Instituts (und nach Adam Riese: 2,83/100’000 x 410 Mio.) müssen wir also in Deutschland mit über 11’000 Todesmeldungen im Zusammenhang mit den Impfungen rechnen! Wohlgemerkt: Es handelt sich um gemeldete Verdachtsfälle! Die Zahl der ursächlich an den Impfungen Verstorbenen liegt natürlich darunter. Andererseits gibt es eine Dunkelziffer – nicht alle Todesfälle werden gemeldet.“
Andy chance of a translation?
“The BBC News report is worth reading in full.”
NO
IT’S
NOT.
None of the stories you quote from the BBC, Guardian or Telegraph are worth reading in full.
We need to shun these organisations and anyone who works for them.
LDS became a media noise repeater several months ago.
Agreed. We do not need to be linked to the propaganda, thank you
Great, I’ve got a little pension, locked up in canada worth £7 a day, which covers my bar tab, but I can’t get at it since Canada is closed. I can’t open a bank account, nobody answers the phones, I can’t get transfer funds. so my money stays locked up, I’m pissed off at Canada. They need to get a grip on this thing there, like we have, I want my 2 pints a day!!!
I could fly to Canada to sort it out in a year or two, meanwhile, I’m pissed off at Canada.
Canada has turned into Gilead.
The whole of North America, Europe and Australasia has turned into Gilead.
Yes, barmy in Gilead.
This is the Devil’s work – and yes, they are closing the churches and jailing the pastors.
The forces of the Antichrist are sadly ascendant.
Keep praying. Keep resisting. Do not throw your children into the tophet.
What, in hell’s name, is wrong with Canada? From the current state of. Vancouver, I wonder if it’s Chinese influence flooding over it from west to east.
Healthy children in Canada probably have a 1-in-2-million probability of dying from COVID … and still parents will line up to make sure their kids are “protected” from this terrifying health risk.
Sod the kids, it’s to protect old people.
That’s a shame, because vaccinating children will contribute NOTHING to safety of seniors.
Kids don’t infect adults with this virus, more the others way around.
Vaccines for kids, booster jabs without any evidence that they achieve anything, cheap treatments such as Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine blocked. Yes Covid is a serious disease for certain groups, but it’s looking more and more like big pharma carries a lot of the blame for blowing the whole thing out of proportion, maybe more blame than authoritarian/incompetent governments or people pushing the great reset.
I think the credulous people who accepted all the extraordinary, unsupported claims with nary a question in response also bear some of the blame.
Jesus, I lived in Calgary for 18 years and hearing this makes me ill … Evil fuckers behind this abhorrent decision.
In the UK in 2020, a little more than 1 in 700,000 children in this age group died of covid-19. These had pre-existing conditions. For those without pre-existing conditions, it was less than 1 in 3,000,000.
The current UK death rate for the jab is about 1 in 42,000. This jab is therefore between 17 and 70 times as risky as that which it protects from! Furthermore, their immune system will be compromised and less able to deal with new pathogens in the future.
Jabbing these kids is criminally insane!
“Criminally insane”
No, not insane, as that implIes they are not aware of their actions.
Leave it at criminal
Died with covid-19!
Yes, to the 1 in 700,000. But the 1 in 3,000,000 had covid-19 as the sole reason on the death certificate, unless it was a misdiagnosis.
Died within 28 days of taking a test that may or may not have produced a false positive result.
Did you know almost 4,000 children have been vaccinated for COVID-19 in the States?
And that:
9 died within 28 days (0.2%)?
7 almost died?
3 were permanently disabled?
71 had to see a doctor or were admitted to hospital or had their stay prolonged?
https://mobile.twitter.com/RealJoelSmalley/status/1390011607175081985
9 out of 4000? Seriously? So more than 2 per 1000 died? So in a big school, expect 2 kids to die and one be permanently disabled, and in a smaller school of a few hundred expect one to die?
Add in the 3 disabled and 7 nearly died, that’s 5 per big school. Do you feel lucky, punk?
Appalling.
Twitter deleted that Tweet. Can you remember the source?
“Bring out your dead….”
6,662 DEAD 299,065 Injuries: European Database of Adverse Drug Reactions for COVID-19 “Vaccines
https://healthimpactnews.com/2021/6662-dead-299065-injuries-european-database-of-adverse-drug-reactions-for-covid-19-vaccines/
Not to be biased, other jabs are available…
Total reactions for the experimental vaccine AZD1222(CHADOX1NCOV19) from OxA…Z: 1,086 deaths and 150,863 injuries to 10/04/2021
4,092 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 44 deaths
5,911 Cardiac disorders incl. 140 deaths
52 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 1 death
3,886 Ear and labyrinth disorders
112 Endocrine disorders incl. 2 deaths
5,994 Eye disorders incl. 4 deaths
47,881 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 40 deaths
117,802General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 363 deaths
162 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 6 deaths
1,499 Immune system disorders incl. 5 deaths
8,809 Infections and infestations incl. 84 deaths
3,095 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 11 deaths
7,336 Investigations incl. 14 deaths
6,078 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 10 deaths
68,519 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 7 deaths
97 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 3 deaths
92,586 Nervous system disorders incl. 154 deaths
71 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions
39 Product issues
7,934 Psychiatric disorders incl. 9 deaths
1,446 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 8 deaths
1,328 Reproductive system and breast disorders
12,49 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 109 deaths
19,069 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 6 deaths
256 Social circumstances incl. 3 deaths
322 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 7 deaths
6,136 Vascular disorders incl. 56 deaths
All coincidence. It has a long harm, remember.
Nice to see the comments are considerably more “sceptical” than the considerably “unsceptical” author on the “so-called sceptical” website.
If there’s one crime out of all of this nonsense that’s worth getting angry about, it’s medical experimentation on children who bear no risk and do not have the capacity to consent for themselves.
True, but the list of anger-raising crimes is so long it is hard to pick a worst one!
Vaccines for everything and all ages if this is the baseline.
Parents get ready for the fight of your life.
Keep your murderous hands off our children! Off our grandchildren! You evil genocidal scumbags.
Sadly scientists have failed to recognise that in their rush to publish regardless of the quality of their data they are harming society. When innocent children are having their future lives potentially harmed by a vaccine for a disease which will not harm them ethics and morality has been dismissed. Shame on all those who feel that children should be used as a comfort blanket for their elders.
Scientists might have rushed to publish but the blame lies squarely with governments the world over who are coercing their populations to have the current jabs on offer and future “top-ups” to deal with scariants or whatever public health emergency is drummed up. The blame lies with the governments. They are the pushers.
Disgusting unethical child abusers
Sorry, Curzon is incorrigible. My only explanation is that TY wants a contrarian voice on the page to show that there is “balance” in the reporting. Note: contrarian here is used to mean contrary to the principles of the site. The byline of Lockdown Sceptics is: Stay Sceptical. Control the Hysteria. Save Lives. Curzon is not sceptical (of vaccines). The articles he promotes elevate hysteria and could cost lives–it is unconscionable to inject children with an experimental substance for a disease that does not affect them. This is so outrageous that even MSM should be asking this question of why children?. So I guess Curzon is just going to keep doing Curzon when it comes to vaccines…..
If there is one that is likely to cause the sheeple to finally wake up is when these bastards start taking their children.
“In March, Pfizer said initial results from trials of its vaccine in this age group showed 100% efficacy and a strong immune response.”
Strong immune response – meaning the poor children experienced adverse effects from a totally unnecessary assault on their medical freedom by use of questionable injections?
What is the world coming to, abusing children like this? To abuse those children in order to ‘protect the old and / or vulnerable’ and in doing so, may irreparably affect their own health and life. Unforgivable.
This must be about the vaccine passport. There’s no other reason for it. They need everyone to be vaccinated so that everyone has a ‘passport’. Children and young people are key to this ambition since they will be the ones who will be mostly affected by future passport control.
Did I really write that? How things have changed in the last 12 months.
There’s a lot of money in the child vaccine market.
I think it’s high time we stopped calling this injection a vaccine. If you’ve not watched the video of five doctors discussing this thing, you can see it here:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/i2fMnrMH3Zm3/
Set aside an hour and twenty minutes (though jump past the first 5 minutes of the annoying woman at the start who keeps letting her phone ring while talking).
And the UK column transcript of the interview with the NHS whistle blower who was working on the jab rollout – that person kept calling it a jab for the very precise reason that the injection did not meet the criteria to be called a vaccine. That same person said it was genocide.
Essential watch on the ‘vaccines’ – Interview with Sucharit Bhakdi :
https://off-guardian.org/2021/04/30/watch-perspectives-on-the-pandemic-15/
… and the answers to all the Mayo crap about absolute v. relative RR (above) is also answered – with the important point that the risk increase from the vaccine can also be calculated – with a very sobering set of figures for vaccine worshippers – whichever way you look at it. The relative risk of blood clotting symptoms of no-vaccine versus vaccine are pretty shocking in relative terms – if that’s your chosen measure.
Sauce for the goose …..
“Canada has recorded more than 1.2 million coronavirus cases and roughly 20% of those have been in people under the age of 19”
The underlying message is that kids are at threat – get them vaccinated! But they could have tested in any winter season and got the same (or better or worse) results.
The only reason for vaccinating kids (or anyone) is if there’s a threat of serious illness or death. There is not.The policy continues to be abhorrent and parents should be defending their kids by NOT getting the vaccine.