HACKER Q&A
📣 rosndo

Why is the West not using social media to amplify anti-war messaging?


There’s one thing I haven’t been able to get out of my mind after watching Ukrainian president Zelensky address the Russian people.

Why aren’t Western countries using their social media platforms to amplify their messaging to the Russian population?

There aren’t many people in Russia who don’t use Instagram, injecting anti-war messaging into their stories could have tremendous impact domestically in Russia.

This could be one of the more realistic ways to sabotage Russian war efforts, but I haven’t heard anyone speak of it.

  👤 leppr Accepted Answer ✓
Why ask HN though? I don't know who decides on social media propaganda, but I doubt it comes from any HN participant. Assuming you live in the US, reaching out to your government officials should be more effective.
👤 armchairhacker
well the entire front page of Reddit is basically pro-Ukraine material. I haven’t checked Facebook or Twitter but i would expect the situation there is very similar.

I think the simple answer is that there is some subtle propaganda and maybe government agencies are posting on anonymous accounts, but also there’s already a lot of natural anti-war sentiment so amplification isn’t necessary.

👤 johntdaly
Because they are old and elitist. Or at least that is the way I see the situation in Germany and the US.

There aren’t a lot of new politicians that are young or tech savvy and the people that might have thought about it probably aren’t high up enough to get the message through.

I also expect that many are still in shock that Putin did something instead of just continued threatening. I mean the biggest “menace” they had to deal with where people like Trump or Johnson, who are still a hell of a lot more “reasonable” than Putin.

Look, we are stuck on problems like, why aren’t we all rich? And, how can we not hurt each others feelings? Those are first world problems for the self obsessed that we have been chewing through endlessness and we have been chocking on a solution to both (because there probably isn’t one to either). How are our politicians who’ve had it cushy like that supposed to switch gears to ACTUAL problems over night?