This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality

by Peter Pomerantsev

Overview

Learn how the perception of truth has been weaponized in modern politics with this "insightful" account of propaganda in Russia and beyond during the age of disinformation (New York Times).

When information is a weapon, every opinion is an act of war.

We live in a world of influence operations run amok, where dark ads, psyops, hacks, bots, soft facts, ISIS, Putin, trolls, and Trump seek to shape our very reality. In this surreal atmosphere created to disorient us and undermine our sense of truth, we’ve lost not only our grip on peace and democracy — but our very notion of what those words even mean.

Peter Pomerantsev takes us to the front lines of the disinformation age—from Kiev to Manilla—where he meets Twitter revolutionaries and pop-up populists, “behavioral change” salesmen, Jihadi fanboys, Identitarians, truth cops, and many others. Forty years after his Ukranian dissident parents were pursued by the KGB, Pomerantsev finds the Kremlin re-emerging as a great propaganda power. His research takes him back to Russia — but the answers he finds there are not what he expected.

Blending reportage, family history, and intellectual adventure, This Is Not Propaganda explores how we can reimagine our politics and ourselves when reality seems to be coming apart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541762121
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	05/26/2020
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	174,155
Product dimensions:	8.35(w) x 5.60(h) x 0.95(d)

About the Author

Peter Pomerantsev is a Senior Fellow at the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and at the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics where he runs the Arena Initiative, dedicated to investigating the roots of disinformation and what to about them. He has testified on the challenges of information war to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the UK Parliament Defense Select Committee. He is a Contributing Editor and columnist at the American Interest. His first book, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, won the 2016 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, was nominated for the Samuel Johnson, Guardian First Book, Pushkin House and Gordon Burns Prizes. It is translated into over a dozen languages.

Table of Contents

Preface: Telegram! vii

1 Cities of Trolls 1

2 Democracy at Sea 31

3 The Greatest Information Blitzkrieg in History 71

4 Soft Facts 109

5 Pop-Up People 141

6 The Future Starts Here 179

Acknowledgments 205

Notes 207

References 221

Index 223

Editorial Reviews

"The truth was supposed to set us free. But Peter Pomerantsev's brilliant This Is Not Propaganda shows how the very idea of truth has been weaponized by dictators and other enemies of liberty. These techniques, first used against us in Russia, have spread around the globe like a toxic cloud. Taking us from the Philippines to Ukraine to MAGA-land, Pomerantsev is an unparalleled tour guide of our post-truth world-and what we all must learn to survive in it."—Garry Kasparov, chairman of the Renew DemocracyInitiative and author of Winter Is Coming

"In this moving, unusual, and carefully reported book, Peter Pomerantsev reminds us that propaganda is not just a political tool: it can also shape individuals, their relationships with their children, their friendships, their marriages. Far more than just another take on today's chaotic information wars, this book argues that we will have to understand how propaganda seeks to shape our deepest thoughts and feelings before we can confront it."—Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag and Red Famine

"Insightful. . . . Diagnoses our fact-distorting age with understanding and acuity."—New York Times

"This is a gripping and unsettling account of life in grim post-Soviet Russia."—Washington Post on Nothing is True and Everything is Possible

"It is hard to think of another work that better describes today's Russia; Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible may very well be the defining book about the Putin era."—Commentary Magazine on Nothing is True and Everything is Possible

"Captivating...keen observations."—New York Times Book Review on Nothing is True and Everything is Possible

"A patchwork tapestry that leaves you shaking your head in disbelief."—The Guardian on Nothing is True and Everything is Possible

"[Pomerantsev] describes in detail how social media have been weaponized by the bad guys...The contrast between the tight regulation of information by repressive regimes in the 20th century, and the free-for-all of today's media environment, gives the book its disconcerting force."—Economist

"Groundbreaking.... Every Democratic candidate should have a plan for how to counter disinformation and misinformation in American politics. Pomerantsev's book should be required reading for each of them."—CNN.com

"Vivid and chilling reports from the frontlines of the disinformation wars."—Foreign Affairs

From the Publisher

Pomerantsev diagnoses our fact-distorting age with understanding and acuity…

The New York Times Book Review - Rebecca Reich

Narrator Matthew Waterson’s crisp diction and light accent suggest the author’s Eastern European background and personal connection to propaganda. Pomerantsev’s own family was investigated and persecuted by Soviet agents. In this audiobook, he uses his intergenerational family history as an entry into his discussion of messaging today—as it is now taking place on the part of individuals and governments using various technological platforms. Waterson’s accent distracts from what is an otherwise impressive performance. However, he effectively shifts his tone as the author’s discussion moves between journalistic reporting and accounts of his own family. L.E. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

Narrator Matthew Waterson’s crisp diction and light accent suggest the author’s Eastern European background and personal connection to propaganda. Pomerantsev’s own family was investigated and persecuted by Soviet agents. In this audiobook, he uses his intergenerational family history as an entry into his discussion of messaging today—as it is now taking place on the part of individuals and governments using various technological platforms. Waterson’s accent distracts from what is an otherwise impressive performance. However, he effectively shifts his tone as the author’s discussion moves between journalistic reporting and accounts of his own family. L.E. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

2019-05-27
A senior fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics parses the ramifications and perplexity of today's "disinformation" wars.

Pomerantsev (Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, 2015) offers a singular perspective on the new forms of influence campaigns promulgated on social media and the internet by mysterious entities worldwide. "We live in a world…where the means of manipulation have gone forth and multiplied," he writes, "a world of dark ads, psy-ops, hacks, bots, soft facts, fake news, deep fakes, brainwashing, trolls, ISIS, Putin, Trump." The author is the child of dissident writers pursued for years by the KGB for their outspokenness. For his parents, the words "freedom" and "democracy" were not empty husks. Pomerantsev alternates his family's personal saga with his journalistic sifting through the "wreckage" of the last few years' information campaigns to find how the "meaning of freedom of speech [was flipped] on its head to crush dissent." For example, he begins by tracking the disinformation campaign that led to the presidency of Manila's anti-drug strongman Rodrigo Duterte in 2016: essentially, by discrediting the liberal internet-based news site Rappler. The trolls behind this effort were traced to a "troll farm" in a suburb of St. Petersburg, Russia, where they pumped out "fake reality" incessantly. Ultimately, its tentacles reached America in the form of fake social media accounts. The author then shifts to the now-famous tactics of Srdja Popovic, a Serbian political activist who is in demand across the globe for his expertise in overthrowing dictators. Perversely, the Kremlin co-opted these methods to "strengthen the dictator." Parodying protests, creating discord to "confuse, dismay, divide and delay"—these and other tactics have been used in the upheavals in Ukraine, Syria, England (Brexit), and, of course, in the U.S. during the presidential election of 2016, which, frustratingly, the author scarcely touches. In fact, much of the author's exploration barely scratches the surface, and the memoir aspect is tentative.

A work that one wishes would dig much deeper.

Kirkus Reviews