2y ago

A new CSIS ad campaign is using Soviet-style imagery to warn Canadians about disinformation

www.cbc.ca /news/politics/csis-disinformation-ads-soviet-imagery-1.6955717

Aaron Erlich, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it's important to make people aware of misleading information online. But he said the wording in the CSIS campaign was "not the most straightforward" and appeared to be an attempt not just to educate but to invoke fear.

Erlich said clumsy messaging can backfire, and he would like to know if the messaging was tested at all to see how it would be received.

30 comments

All of this, and they could have just started airing the house hippo commercial again...
- They remade the house hippo ad but it is super woke.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R_tOSRynZU
  
  I don’t see what is “super woke” about this.
  
  What does "woke" mean?
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=5R_tOSRynZU
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Ah yes: DO YOU KYOSH SHHO IS BEHIYD IT? coupled with the matryoshka doll. Good old 1980s style xenophobia. Sure, Russia is behind a lot of disinfo, but come on.
- It's topical and I'm glad they're being direct about it. Any more direct and it would have just been Putin's face with a speech bubble. Unfortunate that the used Russian cultural themes but eh, it is what it is.
  
  The Soviet Union is dead and gone. What this makes me think is that our spy agency is headed by someone old and out of touch with what disinformation looks like these days. Some cold warrior who hasn't taken in any new information in 30 years.
  [edit] I got kinda curious about this so I looked it up. The head of CSIS is David Vigneault.
  In his first public speech since he was appointed Director, he named Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Venezuela as "countries of concern"
  Do you sense a theme? No Iran? No Saudi Arabia? They threatened us with our own 9/11.
  Tell me this guy doesn't seem like he's living in 1950.
- Shno* and beniyd* - but your point is a good one
  
  I figured the H could be latin instead of a Cyrillic N.
- Yeah I agree for sure.
  It is possible to have a nuanced view here, to recognize that a) Putin is comitting several war crimes in ukraine and b) that governments are taking advantage of the war to justify a hyper-militaristic , hawkish foreign policy as well as mild xenophobia.
  Unfortunately whenever you point out part b) , people assume youre some kind of putin sympathizer
  its absurd how black and white peoples brains can turn into during wartime
- Many of the people that Russia is targeting with their disinformation are the same people that were worried about Russians in the 80s.
  Don't know if this will work, it's possible nothing can get through to them. But for the simpletons that are susceptible to disinformation you really need to dumb things down for them.
  RUSSIA DO BAD THING ON INTERNET. DON'T TRUST INTERNET.
  Maybe a couple of neurons will fire and they might question things they see on the internet a little. Sometimes.
  Probably not, but it's worth a shot.
- I approve. I can't wait to see the Chinese version in the next campaign.
  
  Russian disinformation appeals to the older crowd, while Chinese disinformation appeals to the younger crowd what with TikTok and all.
  So the Chinese version would be very different as it would be targeted at a different demographic. May not even be an ad campaign at all, could just come in the form of blocking TikTok. Though it could just be in the form of regulating TikTok in some way, there is now precedent for regulating social media.
  Outside of TikTok, Chinese disinformation is kinda amateur hour at the moment. I mean just look at hexbear LOL. You think that bullshit is convincing anyone of anything? They lack the sophistication the Russians have developed in the last decade and a half. They seem to go for quantity over quality and that's not at all effective.
  Though they have been a little more successful in simply discouraging discussion on how shitty the CCP is. But that's more a censorship thing than a disinformation thing. How do you do an ad campaign on that? "Don't not believe the things you didn't hear about China." Doesn't make a lot of sense.
Wow, these almost have the feel of old war propaganda posters.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Canada's spy agency is leaning on Soviet imagery to help prime the public against disinformation, but experts say Moscow is more likely to use images that make readers think the messaging is coming from North American sources.
Last month, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) started posting on social media about its efforts to counteract deliberately misleading information online.
The agency said that government and non-government actors exploit open democracies like Canada, particularly since the internet allows them to amplify messages that "interfere in healthy debate" and undermine confidence in institutions.
RRM Canada reports from early this year, which were obtained by The Canadian Press through the Access to Information Act, identify sites that are not overtly tied to the Russian state but are closely aligned with Kremlin narratives.
The analysis also notes that these sites try to undermine the decision made by Western countries to send military aid to Ukraine by arguing it comes at the expense of domestic programs.
It is difficult to know what sort of effect such narratives in cyberspace might have on a reader, because much depends on variables such as the person's world view, said Tim Blackmore, a professor in the faculty of information and media studies at Western University in London, Ont.
The original article contains 678 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

30 comments