Silicon Valley’s efforts to suppress “Russian propaganda” – meaning outlets like RT and Sputnik – on behalf of Ukraine may have reduced their reach, but they still reach more Americans than before the outbreak of fighting in Ukraine, Microsoft has revealed in a report on the ongoing cyber-war on the side of Kiev. RT and Sputnik still get as many monthly page views as a major US corporate outlet, the tech company said.
Kiev has relied on a “coalition of countries, companies, and NGOs” for cyber defense, moving its digital infrastructure to the public cloud hosted in the West, according to the report titled “Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War,” published on Wednesday and signed by Brad Smith, president and vice chair of Microsoft.
The 30-page pamphlet seeks to label any news reports coming out of Russia as Kremlin propaganda and “global cyber influence operations” to support the war effort in Ukraine. They “combine tactics developed by the KGB over several decades with new digital technologies and the internet” to “take advantage of the longstanding openness of democratic societies and the public polarization that is characteristic of current times,” according to Smith.