2019-11-09_The_Economist_-_Asia_Edition

44 Europe The EconomistNovember 9th 2019

O

n thedeskofa governmentbuild-

ing,a dioramaislaidout.Littlevehi-

clessitbythesideofa road,watchedover

bylittlepolicemen.Ontworecentmorn-

ings,thisscenewasrecreatedinreallife.

Driverscaughtspeedingalongtheroad

betweenTallinnandthetownofRapla

werestoppedandgivena choice.They

couldpaya fine,asnormal,ortakea

“timeout”instead,waitingfor 45 min-

utesoranhour,dependingonhowfast

theyweregoingwhenstopped.

Theaimoftheexperimentistosee

howdriversperceivespeeding,and

whetherlosttimemaybea stronger

deterrentthanlostmoney.Theprojectis

a collaborationbetweenEstonia’sHome

Officeandthepoliceforce,andispartof

a programmedesignedtoencourage

innovationinpublicservices.Govern-

mentteamsproposea problemthey

wouldliketosolve—suchastrafficacci-

dentscausedbyirresponsibledriving—

andworkundertheguidanceofan“in-

novationunit”.Teamsareexpectedtodo

allfieldworkandinterviewsthemselves.

“Atfirstit waskindofa joke,”says

LauraAaben,aninnovationadviserfor

theinteriorministry,referringtothe

ideaoftimeouts.“Butwekeptcoming

backtoit.”ElariKasemets,MsAaben’s

counterpartinthepolice,explainedthat,

ininterviews,driversfrequentlysaid

thathavingtospendtimedealingwith

thepoliceandbeinggivena speeding

ticketwasmoreannoyingthanthecost

oftheticketitself.“Peoplepaythefines,

likebills,andforgetaboutit,”hesaid.(In

Estonia,speedingfinesgeneratedby

automaticcamerasarenotkeptonre-

cordandhavenocumulativeeffect,

meaningthatdriversdon’thavetheir

licencesrevokedif theygettoomany.)

Makingdriverswaitrequiresman-

power.Theteamacknowledgesthatthe

experimentisnotcurrentlyscalable,but

hopesthattechnologycouldmakeit so

inthefuture.Publicreaction,though,

wasnotwhattheyexpected.“It’sbeen

verypositive,surprisingly,”saysHelelyn

Tammsaar,whomanagesprojectsforthe

innovationunit.Estonianshavepraised

theideaforbeingmoreegalitarian—

monetaryfinesarenotadjustedaccord-

ingtoincome,asinneighbouringFin-

land,buteveryonehasthesamenumber

ofhoursintheday—andbecausethey

perceivethepunishmentasbeingdi-

rectlyrelatedtotheoffence,ratherthan

anexcusetofillstatecoffers.

Thenickoftime

Estonia

TALLINN

Finingroadhogsinminutes,noteuros

A

fter jessikka aro, a 38-year-old Finn-

ish journalist, exposed pro-Kremlin

trolls, they started trolling her. They re-

leased her medical history and her home

address. They created a music video mock-

ing her as a “Bond girl”. They claimed, with-

out basis, that she was a prostitute solicit-

ing male bigwigs from the ciaand nato,

who fed her lies about Russia. Some Finns

read and believed the bogus stories online,

then threatened to rape or kill her.

Sexual slander of the sort Ms Aro en-

dured is a hallmark of disinformation cam-

paigns. For the Kremlin, spreading such

lies advances two related aims, says Jakub

Janda, of the European Values think-tank

in Prague. It can help discredit individual

women who criticise the regime, and it can

aggravate political divides in societies it

wants to weaken.

Russian propaganda regularly dismiss-

es female critics in sexist ways. “Women

are targeted in cyberwars the same way

they are in kinetic wars,” says Ms Aro. After

Russian operatives carried out a nerve-

agent attack in 2018 in the British city of

Salisbury, pro-Kremlin sites concocted a

story that Yulia Skripal, a victim of the poi-

soning, had been raped and impregnated.

Russian state tvhas claimed that Ukrai-

nian protesters are plagued with sexual

“psychosis”, and that Ukrainian politicians

are closeted lesbians. When Svitlana Zal-

ishchuk, a female former parliamentarian

in Ukraine, publicly criticised Russia, doc-

tored nude images of her appeared online.

Nina Jankowicz of the Wilson Centre in

Washington has dubbed such tactical

smearing “sexualised disinformation”.

Sex-themed lies pervade pro-Kremlin

fake news. If they are to be believed, ridicu-

lous things are true: that the United Na-

tions mandates sex education which fos-

ters impotence and homosexuality among

the young, or that British government

funding has turned the whole of the Bela-

rusian opposition gay. Another common

narrative is of migrants sexually assaulting

European women. These stories are usual-

ly exaggerated or fabricated—how victims

are forced to apologise to their rapists, how

law enforcement and politicians turn a

blind eye to migrant crimes for fear of be-

ing labelled racist, how “semi-feminised”

Western men are too enfeebled to protect

women from such assaults.

Far-right political groups across Europe

emulate Russia’s disinformation tactics

and its themes. In Spain the populist Vox

Party has shared false statistics about sexu-

al assaults committed by migrants via its

official Twitter account. Ironically Vox—

which has made anti-feminism part of its

platform—frames hard-line stances

against migration as good for women. It is

not always so easy to determine the source

of fakery, though. Ms Jankowicz notes that

often the most convincing co-ordinated

disinformation blurs its origins. Luckily

suspicious patterns offer clues.

One red flag is when lots of pages pub-

lish the same inflammatory messages,

with the same captions, at roughly the

same time. This is, in part, how Avaaz, an

advocacy group, identified networks of

fake accounts spreading far-right mes-

sages in Poland, Britain, Spain, Germany,

France and Italy ahead of this year’s Euro-

pean Parliament elections. In April, within

11 minutes, more than two dozen Facebook

pages, many since removed, “indepen-

dently” posted a Polish-language story

with warnings that migrant taxi drivers are

sexual assailants, accompanied by an im-

age of a woman lying limp by the road-

side—a screenshot that was lifted from a

fictional Polish film. And during cam-

paigns for Spain’s election, a blitz of disin-

formation on WhatsApp reached 9.6m peo-

ple, more than a quarter of potential voters.

According to one of the erroneous stories,

Manuela Carmena, then the left-leaning

mayor of Madrid, planned to set up zones

where gay people could have sex in public.

What she had actually said was that the city

should welcome gay people. 7

How women are singled out for vile

abuse for political ends

Sexualised disinformation

Naked untruth