Putin’s virtual army — how to resist it?

30.05.2022, 17:15 newssky.com.ua

Of course, the communication giants themselves — YouTube video hosting, which is a part of Google and the Meta / Facebook social network, categorically deny such complicity. On the contrary, they are widely publicized in opposition to Putin, by condemning, only in words, the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine.And YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, speaking at a recent economic forum in Davos, said that the video hosting she managed had already removed more than 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels that spread fakes about the war in Ukraine and violated the rules of the platform. Wojcicki called these impressive numbers, trying to justify the need to continue the work of YouTube in Russia. After all, according to her, the unwillingness to leave the Russian market is generated exclusively by the civic position of the hosting management: the desire to provide Russians with access to independent information and to fight disinformation spread by the Kremlin. Wojcicki said it with such a conviction that those who have not experienced YouTube censorship could easily believe her. But those who have dealt with it in practice, and know how it works, are well aware of both the local devil and the one who lives, as usual, in inconspicuous folds of the terrain. And they know that this devil is providing services for Kremlin. There is no free internet hosting and there are no free social networks — this is as obvious as the absence of free lunches in our reality. But the average YouTube/FB/Google user often misses this detail. Meanwhile, YouTube is not a group of enthusiastic volunteers; its annual income has reached close to the $20 billion mark. Where does the money come from if the access to YouTube for the entry-level users is free? Everything is obvious with the providers: you pay them money to get access to the World Wide Web. And who pays YouTube so that you can roam its collections in search of a video that interests you, or post one of your own there? After all, this opportunity, which is used by more than 2.5 billion people worldwide every month, is provided by thousands of employees sitting in buildings stuffed with billions of dollars of equipment. And where does the money for all of this come from? Money comes from advertising and trading in user data arrays. In data arrays trading — no one infringes on your personal data, at least in a legal way. But data arrays about search queries, and visits to different video content, make it possible to judge topics of interest of people in a given region. This is BigData in action, and a Klondike for advertisers/political technologists. In addition, by paying money, you can increase the frequency offers for your videos, as well as raise their position in the user search column. It is clear that all these benefits will cost more, if they can cover a large part of the Earth’s territory/population. Russia, with its nominally 140 million inhabitants, is a huge advertising market, with a huge demand for data to make this advertising more effective. As you can see, Susan Wojcicki’s civic position has a solid financial foundation. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but we are not finished yet, we are moving on. Digressing a little to the side, I note: Facebook works exactly on the same principles. Everything that will be said in this article about YouTube applies to Facebook. But Mark Zuckerberg and his deeds are already widely publicized. And it would be unfair not to organize some PR for the lesser-known Wojcicki. Moreover, she also gave a reason for this, declaring her civic position from the podiumin Davos. So, let’s get back to our data. It is clear that the data on Russia are of interest to those who work with the Russian population — that is, sell them something tangible or intangible. Including political ideas — well, why not? But no matter what is sold, it is clear that most of the buyers of the attention of the Russian audience, paying for this attention to YouTube, will be located in Russia. Not all, of course, but the vast majority. And, taking into account the sanctions that have hampered the movement of cash flows from Russia, and into it, it is better to take money from them in Russia too. Yes, in rubles — just like some countries are now buying Russian gas for rubles, albeit very conditionally. This sale of gas for rubles became a way for Moscow to evade the sanctions, and the rubles that YouTube’s Russian office raises on the Russian market naturally find a place in this chain. But we won’t be picky. After all, this is a trifle compared to the fact that the inhabitants of Russia, through YouTube, will be able to access independent information that exposes the disinformation of the Kremlin. And, in general, we are not talking now about the fact that YouTube being on the Russian market without fail means that it has a Russian branch that sells hosting services directly in Russia. In this, if not to find fault with the details that we decided to omit, there is also no big sin — but we are still not finished, we continue to delve deeper into the topic. Russia is a state with a rule of law, and this is a fundamental provision that determines all further reasoning. The reason for the non-legal structure of Russia, where the administrative will is above the law, and the law oppresses as it pleases, lies in the fact that the Russian Federation is a specific ‘special operation’ country, built on the ruins of the USSR around the surviving Soviet special services. It was the special services, due to their caste closeness, that were the least affected by the processes of Soviet disintegration. As a result, it is precisely the people from the special services and their descendants, or at least persons closely associated with the Russian special services, that today form the backbone of the Russian political and propertied class. This position is supported by so many facts that it does not need detailed consideration. This feature of the genesis of the Russian elites gave rise to the Russian style of doing business — any business, including money, politics, humanitarian cooperation, and even opposition to the current authorities. Behind everything that happens in Russia, and has at least some meaning or importance, there is always one of three rival intelligence services: the FSB, the SVR or the GRU. No other foundation — tradition, the rule of law, ideology, culture or anything else that can be the basis of the processes going on in society — exists anywhere in Russia — neither in politics, nor in business, nor in the media. Even the anti-Putin opposition is a reserve project of the same Russian special services, formed in case they have to be friends with the West again during the next «thaw», while cursing Putin’s past. This, in turn, means that any foreign business operating in Russia will inevitably be forced to act in the interests of the Russian special services, and its local staff will be densely saturated with their agents. Moreover, it is not necessary to send already-made agents for a job interview — it is easier to recruit local employees who have already been hired and working. In other words, the local YouTube branch operating in Russia will almost entirely consist of agents. The only exception could be a few specialists that have arrived from abroad, and it would make no sense to recruit them. But, if such need arises, they will also be recruited, and the intractable ones will be squeezed out of Russia, and those who will arrive to replace them, the more compliant ones, will be recruited. Isn’t it true that this local feature immediately makes one doubt that YouTube video hosting, being present in Russia with the aim of making profit in rubles, and its further conversion, bypassing existing restrictions, and forced in connection with this to reckon not only with Russian laws, but an unofficial wishes of the authorities, standing above the law, moreover, saturated with local agents at all levels, is it possible in practice to provide Russians with access to independent information and combat disinformation spread by the Kremlin? But that’s not all. Strictly speaking, this is only an introduction to the topic. YouTube has thousands of employees around the world — and billions of active users. Once again: thousands — and billions. In other words, for every YouTube employee, from Susan Wojcicki, inflamed by the consciousness of her high civic mission, to cleaners, security guards and other low-level personnel, there are about a million users. Let’s say that videos are posted by one in a hundred users — there is no exact data, YouTube does not like to share them, but offhand, from everyday experience, this figure is probably close to reality. On the other hand, not all YouTube employees are engaged in censorship — most of them perform other functions. The number of those who are directly involved in censoring content, in whatever form it may take, hardly exceeds 1% of the total number of video holding personnel. In other words, for one censor there are about a million content producers who post on average… well, even if 3-4 videos a year, this is the minimum figure. It is not possible to view them manually. We need an algorithm that would view the content automatically, filtering out unwanted content for some formal reason. What are these reasons? Here it must be said that the details of content filtering are perhaps the most guarded secret, both in Facebook and in Google, which YouTube is a part of. But, based on the introductory part of this article, and on the practice of working with YouTube and Facebook, it is still possible to draw conclusions about what exactly is filtered out. Let’s start with the fact that neither «fighting disinformation» nor «providing access to independent information» can have the highest priority in terms of reference given to the developers of filtering algorithms. Topping their list of tasks will be the successful sale of th