Episode 5: The role of influencers reporting on the War on Ukraine

The War on Ukraine is still raging as we record this podcast, and it is being mirrored online. There is an unprecedented amount of content being produced, mis and disinformation is flourishing, not to mention propaganda and deep fakes. How do we know who to trust and can we count influencers among those we can? This is a special episode of our Zooming in on Hate podcast. Dare to be Grey’s Hannah Richter and Textgain’s Lydia El-Khouri joined influencer Nathalie Van Raemdonck to find out more about the world of influencers and their role in the war. 

Nathalie Van Raemdonck is a PhD candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).  Her research focuses on platform governance, the organic spread of misinformation and online radicalisation. In her free time she runs an instagram account called anti_conspiracy_memewars, where she shares memes against conspiracies to her 41,000 followers. 

This podcast delves into the current trends in the world of online influencers in and around the War on Ukraine. Who is getting it right and who is categorically not. Do governments have the right or a duty to steer their content production given the huge columns of disinformation and propaganda being generated by Kremlin bot farms and content production apparatus. Take a listen now!