PropOrNot
| Formation | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Founded at | United States |
Official language | English |
| Website | www |
PropOrNot is an organization and website described by The Washington Post and the Associated Press as a nonpartisan foreign policy analysis group composed of persons with prior experience in international relations, warfare, and information technology sectors.[1][2][3] PropOrNot seeks to expose what it views as Russian propaganda and groups that it feels use material from Russian sources. The methods used by PropOrNot have received significant criticism from publications including The New Yorker, Fortune, and Rolling Stone.
Russian propaganda analysis
The Washington Post reported that the group PropOrNot concluded there was a Russian propaganda effort involved in propagating fake news during the 2016 U.S. election.[1][2] PropOrNot analyzed data from Twitter and Facebook and tracked propaganda from the disinformation campaign by Russia to a national reach of 15 million people within the United States.[1][2] PropOrNot concluded that accounts belonging to both Russia Today and Sputnik News promoted "false and misleading stories in their reports", and additionally magnified other false articles found on the Internet to support their propaganda effort.[1]
Criticism
Writers in The Intercept, Fortune, and Rolling Stone criticized The Washington Post for including a report by an organization with no reputation for fact-checking in an article on "fake news".[4][5][6] The Intercept journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ben Norton were particularly critical of the inclusion of Naked Capitalism on the list of "useful idiots" for Russian propagandists, arguing that the Washington Post article was akin to McCarthyist black-listing.[4] Later, in The New Yorker, Andrew Chen said that he had been previously contacted by the organization, but had chosen not to follow up with them. Looking more carefully into their methodology, he argued that PropOrNot's criteria for establishing propaganda were so broad that they could have included "not only Russian state-controlled media organizations, such as Russia Today, but nearly every news outlet in the world, including the Post itself" on their list.[7] Writing for Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi questioned the methodology used by PropOrNot and the lack of information about who was behind the organization,[6] while Nation co-owner Katrina vanden Heuvel opined that this "hysteria being drummed up around Putin's alleged intervention in the campaign" was overblown, arguing that it was the broken US electoral system that decided the election rather than propaganda from afar.[8]
References
- ^ a b c d Timberg, Craig (24 November 2016), "Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say", The Washington Post, retrieved 25 November 2016,
Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment
- ^ a b c "Russian propaganda effort likely behind flood of fake news that preceded election", PBS NewsHour, Associated Press, 25 November 2016, retrieved 26 November 2016
- ^ "Russian propaganda campaign reportedly spread 'fake news' during US election", Nine News, Agence France-Presse, 26 November 2016, retrieved 26 November 2016
- ^ a b Ben Norton; Glenn Greenwald (26 November 2016), "Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group", The Intercept, retrieved 27 November 2016
- ^ Ingram, Matthew (25 November 2016), "No, Russian Agents Are Not Behind Every Piece of Fake News You See", Fortune magazine, retrieved 27 November 2016
- ^ a b Taibbi, Matt (28 November 2016). "The 'Washington Post' 'Blacklist' Story Is Shameful and Disgusting". Rolling Stone.
- ^ "The Propaganda About Russian Propaganda". The New Yorker. 1 December 2016. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
- ^ vanden Heuvel, Katrina (29 November 2016), "Putin didn't undermine the election. We did.", The Washington Post, retrieved 1 December 2016