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INFLUENCE OF PRO-KREMLIN PUBLIC PAGES IN BULGARIA’S AND ROMANIA’S FACEBOOK ECOSYSTEM www.globsec.org List of Abbreviations AUR – Alliance for the Union of Romanians BSP – Bulgarian Socialist Party Contents DSB – Democrats for Strong Bulgaria List of Abbreviations 2 GERB – Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria PNL – National Liberal Party (Romania) Development of the report 4 PSD – Social-Democratic Party (Romania) Introduction 5 UDMR – Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania Maps of Bulgarian and Romanian Landscapes 6 USR – Save Romania Union Key Findings 8 Bulgarian Facebook Landscape 10 Romanian Facebook Landscape 17 Overlaps 24 Methodology 26 Collection & Network Reduction 26 Clustering & Labelling 26 Metrics 26 Authors 28 Disclaimer 28 4) Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Networks on Bulgarian and Romanian Facebook Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Networks on Bulgarian and Romanian Facebook (5 DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPORT INTRODUCTION In preparing this report, lists of sources consisting of It is important to bear in mind that many of these The aim of this report is to provide in-depth contextual Pro-Kremlin influence in Bulgaria is linked mostly public Facebook pages were provided to Graphika, pages are international in scope, with pages in assessment of about pro-Kremlin influence to left-wing political pages and some nationalistic a company which uses AI to map and reveal the local languages often linked strongly with operations and networks active on Romanian and accounts that advance pro-Russian interpretations communities online1. They included the most popular Facebook pages abroad that hold similar ideological Bulgarian public Facebook pages. To this purpose, of Bulgarian history. The latter pages are located pages on the Facebook information landscape affinities. According to Graphika’s natural language GLOBSEC has teamed up with Graphika to create in a cluster in close proximity to mainstream pages, such as, among others, mainstream media and processing method (the map-making process), a powerful social media landscape visualization of thereby indicating a possible channel through which influential public accounts, politicians and political some pages, furthermore, have a presence in the networks and information diffusion through these Russian disinformation, intermixed with general parties, problematic outlets (ranging from pro- information spaces of both Bulgaria and Romania. networks. content, could be disseminated to a broader Kremlin, manipulative pages to disinformation and This indicates only limited ideological, political, and audience. conspiratorial ones to those that have galvanized cultural overlaps between the two countries The result displays a complex picture in each country a broad swath of the public), pages focused on with the Bulgarian and Romanian maps containing In Romania, meanwhile, openly pro-Kremlin various political and social causes, pages of local One node in a map represents a Facebook page2. 13,179 and 4,741 pages3, respectively. discourses are largely marginal in importance in and international institutions, entertainment pages, These nodes/pages were aggregated by Graphika’s the online public sphere. Only a few pro-Russian and social media marketing pages. mapping process into clusters and then into groups, This data was subsequently analysed by the authors websites, like Sputnik.md4, are responsible for based on the identification of common interests, of this report to provide interpretative insight into distributing the bulk of this content. That said, Based on the comprehensive lists of Facebook according to which these clusters and groups of the identification of instrumental Facebook accounts outlets and accounts favorable to the Kremlin have sources, provided by national partner organizations clusters are also color-coded. The size of each node involved in an intricate web of pro-Kremlin influence adopted a strategy that sees them redistributing to Graphika, a machine-learning algorithm was (page) depends on the number of Facebook user operations in the region. This has produced a visual persuasive content. Though these materials may utilized to discover related pages and communities. accounts on the map that like or follow that page. and contextual overview of the Facebook information not be overtly pro-Russian, they exploit cynicism The network-reduction computing method ensured Proximity of pages is generated through information landscape allowing for the discovery of network towards Romania’s transatlantic partners and that only relevant pages were included in the on the interconnections between these pages. affiliations and potential ideological overlaps with promote nationalist sentiments. final cartographic landscape of the Bulgarian and Pages with similar content and/or narratives are pro-Kremlin outlets which may have been previously Romanian Facebook maps. included in common clusters. overlooked. Graphika’s final outputs are two maps of networked The clusters were then labelled by human analysts nodes, one for each country examined. The maps based on common characteristics between nodes are tautological (cartographic - map) representations included in each cluster. Subsequently, the clusters of the most influential public pages on the Romanian were aggregated into groups, again, based on and Bulgarian Facebook information landscapes. content similarities. Although generally precise, The Bulgarian map covered the period between 16 the labels assigned to each cluster and group are September and 16 October, 2020, and the Romanian indicatory only, as the system itself has limitations. map – between 26 July 2020 and 25 August 2020. For example, some clusters were quite large and for As such, these maps offer unique insight into the this reason included a number of pages which could diverse information communities present in each be considered thematic outliers within the cluster. country and the ways in which they interact with and Cluster and group descriptions, therefore, reflect influence one another. the content of the majority of pages within those clusters/groups. 3 The large difference in nodes between the Bulgarian and Romanian maps is due to the fact that the Romanian map went through an additional whitelisting 1 https://graphika.com/our-story process that further narrowed down the scope of the clusters present in the map to areas more closely related to the current affairs conversation. 2 To avoid word repetition, we might refer to “Facebook pages” as pages, accounts, or nodes. All of them are used synonymously with “Facebook pages”. 4 https://sputnik.md/ 6) Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Networks on Bulgarian and Romanian Facebook Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Networks on Bulgarian and Romanian Facebook (7 MAPS OF BULGARIAN AND ROMANIAN LANDSCAPES Bulgaria Romania Figure 2: Map of the Romanian Facebook landscape RO Politics RO State Institutions Figure 1: Map of the Bulgarian Facebook landscape • • • EU / US / NATO • INT Human Rights | NGO | Activism • Russian Foreign Policy & Soft Power • Civil rights & Climate & Sustainable Policy • RO NGO | Business • RO Culture | Music | Hobbies • Russia-linked conspiracies & Pro-Russian • Entertainment, Mainstream Media • RO Media • INT Illiberal | Conspiracy • Western Foreign Policy, EU and International • Art, Museums, History • Pro-Russian pages • MD • Left-Wing Politics & Organizations • Travel & Tourism • Illiberal | Traditionalism | Fringe Outlers • INT Culture | Hobby | Entertainment • Center-right Political Movements • Other - mixed 8) Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Networks on Bulgarian and Romanian Facebook Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Networks on Bulgarian and Romanian Facebook (9 KEY FINDINGS BULGARIA ROMANIA 1. The Russian foreign policy and soft 3. The primary link between pro- 1. In Romania, there is limited 3. The periphery of the map also hosts power public pages on Bulgarian Kremlin disinformation channels overt pro-Kremlin influence on numerous clusters of potentially Facebook form a small cluster on and mainstream groups is found Facebook. Unlike many of its problematic accounts including the periphery of the map close to on pages attached to a Russophile neighbours, Romania shares few conservative Orthodox, anti- pages that focus on Western foreign interpretation of Bulgarian history cultural affinities with Russia and abortion, and ultra-conservative policy, the EU, and international and pseudo-patriotic ideas. its population rather perceives pages. Fringe media outlets such organizations. Pages that are These nodes demonstrate a Moscow as the foremost threat to as ultraconservative Revista Rost7 explicitly pro-Kremlin, however, proclivity for diffusing nationalistic the country’s national security and (created by AUR senator Claudiu do not interact actively with other narratives that often spill over even territorial integrity5. These Tarziu) also appear at this outer more mainstream pages and their to racist, xenophobic, and other attitudes persist primarily due to edge. The implication is that primary thematic activities include discriminatory rhetoric. Influencers historical grievances that still live these polarizing ideas are not interviews with high-level Russian from this cluster were also identified on in the public psyche6. Pages especially pervasive in mainstream politicians and the sharing of official in mainstream entertainment oriented around Russian patriotism, discussions. They are, nonetheless, documents on Russian foreign clusters, underlining the risk that culture, and political leaders,