Douglas Wilbur
In 2022, Russian state media launched a coordinated narrative campaign portraying Ukraine’s government as “neo-Nazi” and its citizens as victims of Western manipulation. The “neo-Nazi” narrative worked unusually well because it activated deep cultural memories from Russia’s World War II mythology, where defeating fascism is central to national identity. This signal’s Russia tried to construct was simple but powerful: Russia is morally righteous, Ukraine is inherently dangerous, and military action is not just justified but necessary. Within days, thousands of automated social-media accounts began repeating the same story frame across Telegram, VKontakte, Twitter, and YouTube. The repetition created a sense of coherence that transcended evidence. Users were not persuaded by facts. They were reassured by familiar patterns, heroes, villains, and moral redemption, that felt intuitively true. Analysts at RAND later described this “firehose of falsehood” approach as a system that overwhelms critical thinking through volume and repetition rather than logic. These operations succeed because they weaponize the way human beings naturally seek order in chaos. Cognitive research shows that when people face missing or confusing information, the brain automatically fills in the blanks to create a complete picture. If part of an image, story, or message is unclear, the mind supplies the missing detail from memory or expectation to make it feel whole. This process reduces uncertainty and creates a sense of order, even when the available data are incomplete or misleading. This bias toward pattern completion makes intuitive judgments feel accurate even when they are wrong. When adversaries shape those patterns, they shape belief.
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