Media: Russia uses online games to promote propaganda, popularise the war in Ukraine and recruit mercenaries
Video games have long become an integral part of modern culture and a full-fledged media space.
Unfortunately, the virtual world is used not only for entertainment, but also as a tool of propaganda and manipulation of public opinion.
Here's What We Know
Modern Russia is the undisputed leader of propaganda. Millions of bots, dozens of TV channels, thousands of websites and print media work to popularise the narratives of Putin and his minions.
The hands of Russian security services and propagandists have also reached video games - this was noted in their investigation by journalists from The New York Times.
They contacted a group of researchers who studied the use of video games to promote Russian narratives.
The technology is mainly used by online games and their internal chat rooms. The researchers found Kremlin propaganda in Minecraft, Roblox, World of Tanks and World of Warships, Fly Corp, Armored Warfare and War Thunder.
Most of the propaganda revolves around the USSR's victory over Nazi Germany, a theme that Putin actively uses to justify the war in Ukraine.
The use of games and social networks in promoting and popularising the Wagner terrorist organisation and attempts to recruit new participants in future war crimes through them is also noted.
Flashback
Back in the spring of 2023, Microsoft president Brad Smith warned that Russian intelligence services and the Wagner terrorist group were infiltrating gaming communities to gather information and recruit agents.
Obviously, after the June armed demarche of the Wagner group against Moscow and the Kremlin's subsequent order to all media outlets to denigrate and debunk the artificially created glorification of the mercenaries, references to these terrorists will now disappear in the gaming communities, but it is certain that the russian security services will come up with new "heroes" to manipulate public opinion.
To a greater extent, propaganda throws in online games are designed for the domestic public, but gamers around the world should not lose their vigilance.
P.S. George Orwell's novel "1984" is not fiction, but what modern Russia is living now.
By the way, Orwell's books are not welcome in this country, to put it mildly! - draw your own conclusions.
