Hacktivists Are Piercing Russia’s Propaganda Bubble

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Moscow users of Google Maps were greeted earlier this week with something they rarely see: photos of horrific scenes from Ukraine, including bombed out homes and injured civilians, and of captured Russian soldiers. The images showed up in the “latest photos” tab of landmarks on the app until Google blocked new photos from its maps of the region this week.  

While a blockbuster cyber attack from Russia has so far failed to materialize, hacktivists have waged dozens of digital skirmishes. The Ukrainian government has created a volunteer “IT Army,” attracting hundreds of thousands of people who have knocked major Russian websites offline and helped distribute an air raid siren app. Never before has a government crowdsourced hacktivists in this way, and in a country already teeming with expertise; Ukraine is one of the world's biggest markets for remote software engineers, with an estimated 200,000 tech employees. 

Broader and more intense than even the activity around the Arab Spring, however, the insurgency has looked chaotic and at times unconstructive. A group that disabled electric-charging stations in Russia and re-programmed them to say “Putin is a ****head” is unlikely to have won hearts and minds among Russian citizens. A more useful tactic in the long run may be to try and break through the propaganda bubble that surrounds Russians, as with the Google Maps stunt. 

Russians are surrounded by an Orwellian alternate reality from state media channels, with most citizens getting their information from TV broadcasts that censor the war. They are told the Ukrainian government is bombing its own residential areas and using children as human shields. Their own military, they are led to believe, is engaged in a human-rights mission while economic problems caused by recent sanctions are the fault of the West, not the Russian government. The few street protests against the war are, of course, never shown. 

Information warfare is a critical part of the Kremlin's offensive. Its warplanes have begun shooting down mobile-phone towers in Ukraine, while Russia's censorship office has threatened to block Wikipedia in the country if it doesn't delete information about the war. 

When hacktivists target electric fueling stations or warn Russians to withdraw all their money by March 3rd,  they risk fueling the narrative that Russians are victims of the West. Instead they could create windows to the truth about the invasion. Earlier this week hackers supporting the global collective Anonymous took down the websites of multiple Russian media outlets, including news agency TASS, and displayed messages showing stats for Russian army casualties and criticizing President Vladimir Putin for forcing journalists to “spread lies” about the war. Greasing the wheels on that effort: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube have all restricted posts from Russian state media channels at the request of European governments. 

A flood of enthusiastic, new volunteers, meanwhile, threatens to pull the leaders of such groups in different directions. The Cyber Partisans, a hacker group protesting the government of Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko, have seen supporters on their public Telegram channel swell to more than 60,000 in the past week. A smaller core of working supporters number 30 people, according to their spokeswoman, while a founding group of five people carry out actual hacks like the recent railway disruption.

Broadcasting to a population – not just breaking things – has remarkable power during an armed conflict. Hacktivists who can chip away at Russia's fake news bubble may have the greatest impact in the long run.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

• Global Cyber Guerrillas Coming to Ukraine's Aid: Culpan & Olson
• The West's Embrace of Russian Influence Has to End: Martin Ivens
• All Is Not Quiet on Putin's Home Front: Clara Ferreira Marques

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. She previously reported for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes and is the author of "We Are Anonymous."

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.