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The Russian government exercises strict control over media content. This includes censorship of critical voices and monitoring of online platforms to prevent dissent or criticism of the government. Many independent journalists and outlets operate under constant threat of closure or prosecution.

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Overview of South Africa's Media Landscape

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Overview of South Africa's Media Landscape

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South Africa has seen significant growth in digital media consumption, driven by widespread internet access. Despite constitutional guarantees of press freedom, South Africa faces challenges such as political interference and intimidation of journalists. Efforts to regulate media content have raised concerns about potential threats to media independence.

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Turkey's media landscape is heavily influenced by the government, particularly under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Many media outlets are either owned by pro-government conglomerates or have faced government pressure, leading to self-censorship and limited press freedom.

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Despite economic liberalization, press freedom remains severely restricted in China. Journalists and media organizations face intimidation, surveillance, and censorship for reporting on sensitive topics such as human rights abuses, political dissent, and corruption.

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The cyber gulag: How Russia tracks, censors and controls its citizens

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The cyber gulag: How Russia tracks, censors and controls its citizens

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Motivations: What are the motivations behind Russia's crackdown on dissent, surveillance measures, and censorship?

Impact on Media Freedom:

How has media independence been affected in Russia under President Vladimir Putin's administration?

Responses/Reactions: What strategies have independent journalists and media outlets employed to continue reporting in the face of censorship and surveillance? Have they had successes?

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TALLINN, Estonia (AP) - When Yekaterina Maksimova can't afford to be late, the journalist and activist avoids taking the Moscow subway, even though it's probably the most efficient route.

That's because she's been detained five times in the past year, thanks to the system's pervasive security cameras with facial recognition. She says police would tell her the cameras "reacted" to her - although they often seemed not to understand why, and would let her go after a few hours.

"It seems like I'm in some kind of a database," says Maksimova, who was previously arrested twice: in 2019 after taking part in a demonstration in Moscow and in 2020 over her environmental activism.

For many Russians like her, it has become increasingly hard to evade the scrutiny of the authorities, with the government actively monitoring social media accounts and using surveillance cameras against activists.

Even an online platform once praised by users for easily navigating bureaucratic tasks is being used as a tool of control: Authorities plan to use it to serve military summonses, thus thwarting a popular tactic by draft evaders of avoiding being handed the military recruitment paperwork in person.

Rights advocates say that Russia under President Vladimir Putin has harnessed digital technology to track, censor and control the population, building what some call a "cyber gulag" - a dark reference to the labor camps that held political prisoners in Soviet times.

It's new territory, even for a nation with a long history of spying on its citizens.

"The Kremlin has indeed become the beneficiary of digitalization and is using all opportunities for state propaganda, for surveilling people, for de-anonymizing internet users," said Sarkis Darbinyan, head of legal practice at Roskomsvoboda, a Russian internet freedom group the Kremlin deems a "foreign agent."

RISING ONLINE CENSORSHIP AND PROSECUTIONS

The Kremlin's seeming indifference about digital monitoring appeared to change after 2011-12 mass protests were coordinated online, prompting authorities to tighten internet controls.

Some regulations allowed them to block websites; others mandated that cellphone operators and internet providers store call records and messages, sharing the information with security services if needed. Authorities pressured companies like Google, Apple and Facebook to store user data on Russian servers, to no avail, and announced plans to build a "sovereign internet" that could be cut off from the rest of the world.

Many experts initially dismissed these efforts as futile, and some still seem ineffective. Russia's measures might amount to a picket fence compared to China's Great Firewall, but the Kremlin online crackdown has gained momentum.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, online censorship and prosecutions for social media posts and comments spiked so much that it broke all existing records.

According to Net Freedoms, a prominent internet rights group, more than 610,000 web pages were blocked or removed by authorities in 2022 -- the highest annual total in 15 years - and 779 people faced criminal charges over online comments and posts, also a record.

A major factor was a law, adopted a week after the invasion, that effectively criminalizes antiwar sentiment, said Net Freedoms head Damir Gainutdinov. It outlaws "spreading false information" about or "discrediting" the army.

Human Rights Watch cited another 2022 law allowing authorities "to extrajudicially close mass media outlets and block online content for disseminating 'false information' about the conduct of Russian Armed Forces or other state bodies abroad or for disseminating calls for sanctions on Russia."

SOCIAL MEDIA USERS 'SHOULDN'T FEEL SAFE'

Harsher anti-extremism laws adopted in 2014 targeted social media users and online speech, leading to hundreds of criminal cases over posts, likes and shares. Most involved users of the popular Russian social media platform VKontakte, which reportedly cooperates with authorities.

As the crackdown widened, authorities also targeted Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Telegram. About a week after the invasion, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were blocked in Russia, but users of the platforms were still prosecuted.

Marina Novikova, 65, was convicted this month in the Siberian city of Seversk of "spreading false information" about the army for antiwar Telegram posts, fining her the equivalent of over $12,400. A Moscow court last week sentenced opposition activist Mikhail Kriger to seven years in prison for Facebook comments in which he expressed a desire "to hang" Putin. Famous blogger Nika Belotserkovskaya, who lives in France, received a nine-year prison term in absentia for Instagram posts about the war that the authorities claimed spread "fakes" about the army.

"Users of any social media platform shouldn't feel safe," Gainutdinov said.

Rights advocates worry that online censorship is about to expand drastically via artificial intelligence systems to monitor social media and websites for content deemed illicit.

In February, the government's media regulator Roskomnadzor said it was launching Oculus - an AI system that looks for banned content in online photos and videos, and can analyze more than 200,000 images a day, compared with about 200 a day by humans. Two other AI systems in the works will search text materials.

In February, the newspaper Vedomosti quoted an unidentified Roskomnadzor official as lamenting the "unprecedented amounts and speed of spreading of fakes" about the war. The official also cited extremist remarks, calls for protests and "LGBT propaganda" to be among banned content the new systems will identify.

Activists say it's hard to know if the new systems are operating and their effectiveness. Darbinyan, of the internet freedom group, describes it as "horrible stuff," leading to "more censorship," amid a total lack of transparency as to how the systems would work and be regulated.

Authorities could also be working on a system of bots that collect information from social media pages, messenger apps and closed online communities, according to the Belarusian hacktivist group Cyberpartisans, which obtained documents of a subsidiary of Roskomnadzor.

Cyberpartisans coordinator Yuliana Shametavets told AP the bots are expected to infiltrate Russian-language social media groups for surveillance and propaganda.

"Now it's common to laugh at the Russians, to say that they have old weapons and don't know how to fight, but the Kremlin is great at disinformation campaigns and there are high-class IT experts who create extremely effective and very dangerous products," she said.

Government regulator Roskomnadzor did not respond to a request for comment.

EYES ON - AND UNDER - THE STREETS

In 2017-18, Moscow authorities rolled out street cameras enabled by facial recognition technology.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities were able to trace and fine those violating lockdowns.

Vedomosti reported in 2020 that schools would get cameras linked to a facial recognition system dubbed "Orwell," for the British writer of the dystopian novel "1984," with his all-seeing character, "Big Brother."

When protests over the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny erupted in 2021, the system was used to find and detain those attending demonstrations, sometimes weeks later. After Putin announced a partial mobilization for Ukraine last year, it apparently helped officials round up draft evaders.

A man who was stopped on the Moscow subway after failing to comply with a mobilization summons said police told him the facial recognition system tracked him down, according to his wife, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because she feared retaliation.

In 2022, "Russian authorities expanded their control over people's biometric data, including by collecting such data from banks, and using facial recognition technology to surveil and persecute activists," Human Rights Watch reported this year.

Maksimova, the activist who repeatedly gets stopped on the subway, filed a lawsuit contesting the detentions, but lost. Authorities argued that because she had prior arrests, police had the right to detain her for a "cautionary conversation" - in which officers explain a citizen's "moral and legal responsibilities."

Maksimova says officials refused to explain why she was in their surveillance databases, calling it a state secret. She and her lawyer are appealing the court ruling.

There are 250,000 surveillance cameras in Moscow enabled by the software - at entrances to residential buildings, in public transportation and on the streets, Darbinyan said. Similar systems are in St. Petersburg and other large cities, like Novosibirsk and Kazan, he said.

He believed the authorities want to build "a web of cameras around the entire country. It sounds like a daunting task, but there are possibilities and funds there to do it."

'TOTAL DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE'

Russia's efforts often draw comparisons with China, where authorities use digital surveillance on a vast scale. Chinese cities are blanketed by millions of cameras that recognize faces, body shapes and how people walk to identify them. Sensitive individuals are routinely tracked, either by cameras or via their cellphones, email and social media accounts to stifle any dissent.

The Kremlin seems to want to pursue a similar path. In November, Putin ordered the government to create an online register of those eligible for military service after efforts to mobilize 300,000 men to fight in Ukraine revealed that enlistment records were in serious disarray.

The register, promised to be ready by fall, will collect all kinds of data, "from outpatient clinics to courts to tax offices and election commissions," political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya said in a commentary for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

That will let authorities serve draft summonses electronically via a government website used to apply for official documents, like passports or deeds. Once a summons appears online, recipients cannot leave Russia. Other restrictions -- like suspension of a driver's license or a ban on buying and selling property -- are imposed if they don't comply with the summons within 20 days, whether they saw it or not.

Stanovaya believes these restrictions could spread to other aspects of Russian life, with the government "building a state system of total digital surveillance, coercion and punishment." A December law mandates that taxi companies share their databases with the successor agency of the Soviet KGB, giving it access to travelers' dates, destinations and payment.

"The cyber gulag, which was actively talked about during the pandemic, is now taking its real shape," Stanovaya wrote.

___

Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, and Joe McDonald and Beijing contributed.

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The cyber gulag: How Russia tracks, censors and controls its citizens

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It's becoming increasingly difficult for Russians to escape government scrutiny. Authorities monitor social media accounts, prosecuting critics of President Vladimir Putin or the war in Ukraine.

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Despite reforms, press freedom in Myanmar remains constrained. Journalists still face threats, intimidation, and legal action, particularly when reporting on sensitive topics such as the military, ethnic conflict, or corruption.

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Why is Myanmar's military blocking the Internet?

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Why is Myanmar's military blocking the Internet?

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Motivations: What reasons did the military junta provide for imposing internet blackouts in Myanmar?

Impact on Society: How did the internet blackouts affect Myanmar's society, including communication among citizens, businesses, and humanitarian efforts?

Responses/Reactions: How has the international community responded to the media crackdown in Myanmar? Have they had successes?

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Why is Myanmar's military blocking the internet?

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Generals have banned Facebook and other popular platforms and imposed an internet blackout for the past 18 nights.

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How social media regulations are silencing dissent in Africa

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How social media regulations are silencing dissent in Africa

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Motivations: What are the reasons given by African governments for stringent social media regulations?

Impact on Freedom of Expression: How do social media regulations affect freedom of expression and digital rights in Africa? What specific examples illustrate the curtailment of dissent and opposition voices?

Long-term Implications: What are the long-term implications of social media regulations for democracy and human rights in Africa?

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A demonstrator paints 'End Sars', referring to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad police unit, on a street during a protest demanding police reform in Lagos, Nigeria October 20, 2020. [Seun Sanni/Reuters]

In October, anti-police brutality activists in Nigeria used online platforms to raise awareness of and call for the dissolution of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), an infamous police unit accused of extortion, extrajudicial killings, rape and torture. Their multi-faceted social media campaign, #EndSARS, resulted in widespread protests that captured the global imagination and elicited a violent response from the Nigerian government. As protests raged across the country, the security forces forcefully detained dozens of protesters and used water cannons and teargas to disperse the crowds. The government's crack down on the protest movement reached its peak on October 20, when security forces opened fire on a peaceful protest camp in the country's commercial capital, Lagos, killing 12 unarmed protesters.

Despite the government's brutal response, and the regrettable acts of violence by a limited number of demonstrators as well as other unrelated groups taking advantage of the unrest, the #EndSARS campaign demonstrated the extensive role social media can play in advancing modern governance and human rights in Africa.

Keep reading

Through social media platforms, the #EndSARS activists not only managed to call thousands of Nigerians to action and hold Nigerian authorities to account, but also garnered unprecedented international attention and support for their cause.

The fact that a burgeoning human rights movement has been contemplated, created and sustained online did not go unnoticed in the overwhelmingly conservative halls of power in Nigeria. Shaken to the core by this new media phenomenon and its astounding proclivity to galvanise a traditionally silenced and disregarded youthful majority, some Nigerian state governors and public officials started to demand that social media be regulated.

On November 2, for example, the Northern Governors' Forum issued a communique calling for the strict supervision and censorship of social media to thwart "subversive actions" and "avoid the spread of fake news".

Far from being the exception to the norm, such troubling attempts to govern social media usage and effectively impede progressive public discourse and the universal right to assemble peacefully have become increasingly ubiquitous and fairly normalised throughout Africa.

On August 16, for example, a communique published by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), read much like the statement from the Nigerian governors. It "urged Member States to take pro-active measures to mitigate external interference, the impact of fake news and the abuse of social media, especially in electoral processes".

That a whole regional bloc attributed the emergence of social media-driven dissent to "external" designs is most disturbing. The regional bloc's ambition to control the content posted on social media platforms is undoubtedly sinister, especially in a region fraught with hotly disputed elections and violent spurts of authoritarian crackdowns on mundane civic activism and political opposition. Needless to say, the aim of the SADC's statement is not to protect Africans from foreign disinformation campaigns and fake news, but to ensure self-serving narratives and political agendas promoted by local governments remain unchallenged.

Angola, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Swaziland and Zambia already introduced harsh laws that regulate "social media abuse". Zimbabwe and Lesotho are also in the process of introducing new social media controls.

While the regulations promulgated in these countries appear essential and even reasonably progressive on the surface, they contain problematic clauses aligned to dubious "national security" imperatives. And in practice, they all serve to instil doubt and fear in social media users and encourage them to practice self-censorship to avoid facing the wrath of the state machinery for voicing their grievances about their governments and local institutions.

The "good old days" of archetypal state media organisations, or media empires with strong ties to dominant political forces, singlehandedly churning out jingoistic propaganda to diversity-starved and disinterested listeners, viewers and readers are truly over.

Still, in the main, Africa's rulers remain unwilling to move on and embrace the changing times. Social media platforms have allowed the masses to scrutinise the actions of their leaders and demand accountability in real-time, but many African leaders are failing to understand that they no longer have the ability to diminish or obliterate the truth by establishing and moderating national conversation topics through "friendly" media organisations.

During the #EndSARS protests, for example, Nigeria's president, Muhammadu Buhari, complained that his government's critics were spreading "deliberate falsehoods and misinformation" through social media, claiming "that this government is oblivious of the pains and plights of its citizens".

With these words, he attempted to delegitimise not only the protests, but also Nigerians' right to form an independent opinion on the policies and actions of their elected government. More importantly, he made it clear that he believes Nigerian people should only consume information and opinions compiled, approved and disseminated by the Nigerian state, or media houses that support his administration's policies.

It did not dawn on the Nigerian president that the #EndSARS protests themselves were in fact a solid repudiation of the "truths" and state-sanctioned opinions his administration has long been pushing on the Nigerian people.

This demonstrates Buhari's inability to understand how democratic expression and interactions work in the social media era. Granted, state authorities should sanction social media users that spread hate speech, propagate disinformation and encourage violence. But they cannot simply cast the growing dissent and anger on social media platforms as "falsehoods" and "misinformation". Social media commentary and analyses exist well beyond the protective realm of state-controlled media, where the limits of legitimate criticism are defined by the state and bad governance is repeatedly whitewashed.

The Buhari administration is not the only leadership in Africa unable to understand and accept the realities of the social media era.

In Zimbabwe, for instance, amid a stifling economic crisis, intense political wrangling, and lack of media freedom, people turned to social media to voice their criticism of the government, and share important information on corruption, oppression and governmental abuse.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa and other high level officials from the ruling Zanu-PF, however, refused to accept as authentic the anger expressed by members of the public on social media over the government's failure to curb high-level corruption and human rights abuses.

They instead chose to accuse "bad apples" and "foreign detractors" of misrepresenting Zimbabwe's increasingly calamitous situation to the world on social media. Disappointingly, even South Africa's ruling African National Congress party weighed in on the matter in September, in Zanu-PF's defence, and declared a need to guard against "fake news and agenda-setting on social media".

All this, while the #ZimbabweanLivesMatter hashtag was trending on social media, in response to the Mnangagwa administration's brutal crack-down on anti-government protests in the country.

This blistering and unapologetic contempt for freedom of thought and expression has certainly engulfed the continent. In Morocco, a YouTuber who criticised the Moroccan king was handed a prison sentence and a journalist-activist who defended anti-government protesters in a tweet was detained. Egyptian journalist Basma Mostafa was detained in October for "using her personal social media account to publish and promote false news".

The states pushing for greater social media regulation in Africa have, for the most part, long suppressed traditional media liberties and clamped down on journalistic endeavours. From Lesotho to Kenya and Egypt, new social media regulations that have been passed or currently being considered mark a retrogression to the repression of freedoms and limitations to the dissemination of information that shaped the pre-social media era.

Small wonder that where service delivery is bad, poverty is rampant and youth unemployment and underemployment are high, dubious legal manoeuvrings and statements against so-called social media abuse and external political interference are equally rife.

In the absence of strong leadership and guidance from the African Union to help safeguard hard-won media freedoms and safeguard human rights, sadly social media regulations in Africa are not fighting hate speech and disinformation. They are silencing dissenting voices and shutting down one of the only democratic spaces in which Africans can demand change and accountability from their leaders.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

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How social media regulations are silencing dissent in Africa

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Social media regulations in Africa are not fighting hate speech and disinformation.

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Internet censorship before local elections

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Internet censorship before local elections

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Motivations: What are the reasons behind Turkey's increased internet censorship before local elections?

Social and Democratic Impact: How does internet censorship impact freedom of expression and democratic processes in Turkey?

Responses/Reactions: What reactions and responses have there been from Turkish citizens, civil society, and international organizations? Have they had successes?

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January 23, 2024

Ahead of local elections, Turkey is facing increased internet censorship, with the government blocking web pages and VPN services. This suppression is part of Erdogan's strategy to regain control over major cities.

Istanbul, January 7: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launches his party's campaign for the local elections

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to boost confidence among his voters. "We will defeat the opposition in all their strongholds!" he declared when he launched the local election campaign a few days ago by presenting his AKP party's candidates.

In these elections, which will take place on March 31, Erdogan is especially keen to win back Turkey's economically powerful metropolises, like Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Antalya, from the opposition. However, he does not seem confident of victory. Erdogan is well aware that voters in the major cities are unpredictable, which is why these seats are so fiercely contested.

Whoever controls the major cities wields considerable power. Together, the metropolises account for almost half of Turkey's economic output. The AKP is, therefore, determined to regain them at all costs and is doing whatever it believes necessary to achieve this, including censoring the Internet by imposing ever-tighter controls.

In December, it was revealed that 16 virtual private network (VPN) services in Turkey had been blocked without a court order based on a directive from the Information and Communication Technologies Authority. They include popular ones like Proton, Surfshark, SuperVPN, and Psiphon. Some of the blocked VPNs are used and recommended by DW to bypass censorship in some areas of the world.

A VPN is a digital service that allows users to surf the Internet encrypted and protected. They are particularly popular and widespread in countries with authoritarian regimes, where they are used primarily to access blocked websites and restricted social media.

712,000 web pages blocked in 2022

According to the Turkish Freedom of Expression Association, which has documented internet censorship in Turkey for many years, more than 712,000 web pages were blocked there in 2022. The association's annual report says that around 150,000 URL addresses, 9,000 accounts on Twitter (now X), 55,500 tweets, 16,585 YouTube videos, 12,000 Facebook pages and 11,150 Instagram posts were also blocked. These actions were taken in response to the Internet law that came into force in Turkey in 2007.

Füsun Sarp Nebil, an expert in digital technologies, says that passing that law was the start of Internet censorship in Turkey. "Until 2013, there was some blocking of YouTube and Eksi Sözlük (a popular information site to which users can contribute), but there wasn't much censorship," she says. However, Nebil explains that since the Gezi protests in 2013 and the corruption scandal that same year, the legislation has been tightened considerably.

In May 2013, environmental activists began protesting against the development of the popular Gezi Park in Istanbul. The protests, organized primarily online, soon escalated. They were followed in December 2013 by the biggest corruption scandal to date involving Erdogan. Numerous telephone recordings of confidential conversations were published on YouTube, exposing dubious money transfers between government officials and shady business people. The Turkish government responded by making the Internet law even more restrictive.

"In the past 17 years, the government has reformed the law 19 times," says Nebil. In 2020, it was amended to include social media. The so-called " disinformation law" followed in 2021.

Many experts describe the disinformation law as yet another instrument for suppressing freedom of speech and the press. They say it creates an atmosphere of fear and aims to silence all criticism under the pretext of protecting citizens from supposedly false information. The law imposes strict penalties on anyone disseminating misleading or "untrue information concerning the internal and external security ... of the country." The vague formulation allows for broad interpretation. A single post, for example, can be punishable by up to three years imprisonment, a provision which government-friendly prosecutors and judges often use.

Criticism of ruling AKP blocked

Füsun Sarp Nebil explains that the Internet law is often used to block criticism of the ruling AKP. Posts about corruption, failures, or nepotism are swiftly censored. "Last year, a prosecutor's letter revealed that a block could also be obtained with bribes," she says.

The government does not want any critical reporting ahead of the important local elections, either. Candidates standing for its election alliance should not be portrayed negatively.

The digital technology expert Nebil says that, by blocking the 16 VPN services, the government aims to exert maximum control over the Internet. Is this strategy proving successful? Probably, she says. "If the government continues to do well in elections, despite its many failures and poor management of various crises, we must assume that its tactics are working."

On the other hand, Nebil points out that the constant tightening of internet laws and bans on services in recent years mean that Turkish citizens are now good at getting past them. As soon as one VPN is blocked, they switch to an alternative. "Compared with many other countries, many people in Turkey are very familiar with VPNs," she says. "It's a cat-and-mouse game. These days, we even laugh about it."

Technological restrictions are another form of censorship

Nebil explains that not only is the government tightening the screws of censorship to silence criticism, it is also deliberately hindering the expansion of digital infrastructure.

She told DW that in 2006, 11 companies acquired licenses to lay modern fiber-optic networks, paying huge sums at the time: between 100,000 and 200,000 US dollars, depending on the region. Yet the government repeatedly delayed the completion of the digital infrastructure, with the result that only a fraction of the progress initially planned has been achieved.

"We saw the disastrous consequences of this after the major earthquakes," Nebil points out.

On February 6, 2023, two powerful earthquakes shook southern Turkey. More than 50,000 people died. The telecommunication network partially collapsed after the quakes, making the coordination of search and rescue operations and humanitarian aid impossible.
This article was originally written in German.

Elmas Topcu Stories on Turkey, German-Turkish relations and political and religious groups linked to Turkey. @topcuelmas

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Turkey: Internet censorship before local elections - DW - 01/23/2024

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Ahead of local elections, Turkey is facing increased internet censorship, with the government blocking web pages and VPN services. This suppression is part of Erdogan's strategy to regain control over major cities.

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Chinese officials create 488m bogus social media posts a year

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Chinese officials create 488m bogus social media posts a year

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Motivations: What are the objectives behind Chinese officials generating such a massive volume of social media posts?

Public Perception and Impact:

What are the consequences of these government-generated social media posts on public trust and civic engagement/democracy?

Responses/Reactions:

What are the challenges faced by independent media and/or digital rights advocates in countering the influence of the "50 Cent Party"? Have they had successes?

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The Chinese government is fabricating almost 490m social media posts a year in order to distract the public from criticising or questioning its rule, according to a study.

China's "Fifty Cent Party" - a legion of freelance online trolls so-named because they are believed to be paid 50 cents a post - has long been blamed for flooding the Chinese internet with pro-regime messages designed to defend and promote the ruling Communist party.

However, the study by Harvard University researchers (pdf) claims many of those comments are not posted by ordinary citizens, as previously thought, but by civil servants who double as online stooges.

An analysis of nearly 43,800 posts found that 99.3% were the work of government employees working for more than 200 agencies, including tax and social security and human resources bureaux.

The researchers believe such comments are usually posted in "bursts", timed to coincide with politically sensitive periods, such as Communist party meetings, outbreaks of unrest and public holidays.

For example, hundreds of pro-Beijing messages were posted after the outbreak of deadly ethnic rioting in the western province of Xinjiang in June 2013. A similar deluge of positive messages emerged during a major political summit in Beijing in November the same year.

The study, based on a cache of documents leaked from a government propaganda office in eastern China, claims about half of the 488m propaganda messages posted each year appear on government websites. The remainder are fed into the social media networks of a country which has about 700 million internet users.

But while much of the online propaganda was previously thought to involve attacks on unwelcome ideas or the defence of government policy, the study suggests most pro-party stooges are not expected to engage in debate or argument at all.

"They do not step up to defend the government, its leaders, and their policies from criticism, no matter how vitriolic; indeed, they seem to avoid controversial issues entirely," the study's authors write of members of China's "enormous workforce" of online propagandists.

Instead, most are about "cheer-leading and positive discussions ... which, we infer, is a strategy designed is to actively distract and redirect public attention from ongoing criticism, other grievances, or collective action."

The explanation, the authors write, is that "distraction is a clever strategy in information control".

"An argument in almost any human discussion is rarely an effective way to put an end to an opposing argument," it concludes. "Letting an argument die, or changing the subject, usually works much better than picking an argument and getting someone's back up (as new parents recognise fast)."

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Chinese officials 'create 488m bogus social media posts a year'

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Harvard researchers say leaked documents show bureaucrats fabricate positive posts to distract from criticism of government

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1) Pick 1 of these 5 case studies to learn about.

2) Read the article; you can also go beyond it to Google from other sites.

3) Jot down notes that help you address the guiding questions that get you to think about the What-So What-Now What. Your notes can take any form.

4) What interesting phrases/vocab did you come across in your reading? Start a Media-specific vocab bank for yourself.

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This is just a start; create your own list and populate it along the way as you read.