Ministry of Truth: How the Russian state fights fake news during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

We research how the Russian authorities, using both fact-checking resources and law enforcement measures, have been fighting COVID-rumors and fake news during 2020-2021. To find out what the Russian government considers to be the most dangerous rumors, we built three databases: COVID-rumors in social media (6.2 million reposts from 1 January through 30 April); cases of court prosecutions against spreaders of fake news (240 cases from February, 2020 to August, 2021); and cases of debunking of “fake news” on coronafake.ru (194 cases). The majority of Russian infodemic texts in social media (65%) consists of anti-vaccination narratives and folk medicine for COVID-19. Those rumors are generally claimed to be the most socially dangerous because they can adversely influence human behavior. Meanwhile, of the fake news and rumors which became the subjects of court cases, the majority (84%) concern the possible negative socio-political scenarios of the coronavirus pandemic and express distrust of the actions of government institutions. At the same time, anti-vaccination fake news and false medical advice draw no attention from state agencies. Thus, the policy of the Russian state in the fight against the infodemic turns out to be focused mainly on preserving the legitimacy of government institutions and public confidence in them, and less on public health.