The University of Adelaide published a study of how the West has been using social media to feed the frenzy of Ukrainomania in the Western press. According to Australian findings, 60% of 5.2 million tweets on social media from February 23 to March 8 were shared by fake accounts, 90% of which were pro-Ukraine. Spikes in activity occurred at certain points in the war, like the Russian capture of Kherson or the taking of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The accounts identified were overwhelmingly English-language, suspected of being geared to the Western public, but there were also Russian-language bots geared toward the Russian-language speakers in Ukraine.
The bots also pushed a number of myths about the so-called “Ghost of Kiev,” an alleged Ukrainian fighter pilot who shot down 40 Russian jets at the beginning of the operation against Kiev. The report also notes a suspect organization known as the “North Atlantic Fellas Organization,” (NAFO) which the report says was instrumental on social media in preventing the CBS coverage of Ukrainian use of civilian areas to conduct their military operations and the Amnesty report of the same. The London Economist has labeled NAFO a “remarkably successful of information warfare.” One of the researchers, Joshua Watt says: ““In the past, wars have been primarily fought physically, with armies, air force and navy operations being the primary forms of combat. However, social media has created a new environment where public opinion can be manipulated at a very large scale.”
Twitter users may note that posts critical of NAFO receive hundreds of replies from accounts that all essentially look the same. Whether they are literally bots, or simply being run by rooms full of social media warriors in Ukraine, the effect is eerie.
