This Is Not Propaganda Adventures in the War Against Reality

I've been wanting to read about the disinformation propaganda age, from a non-US focused perspective, and Peter Pomerantsev delivers. At the center of this book is Russia and how it seems to have perfected a politics based on behavioural changes through psy-ops, trolls and gaslighting. Spearheaded by a leader who smirks while invading nations claiming to rescue them from situations that were media-engineered by his bot farms. Trump follows in the footsteps. Truth and facts lose their meaning. People are united and radicalised under a common lowest denominator, while being micro-targeted based on their own personal fears. Populism not as ideology but as strategy. And those fighting against the populists and dictators have no choice but to learn to adapt the same tools.

The book goes from Duterte's influencer-supported win in the Philippines, to Moscow's Internet Research Agency, to Russia's cyber-attacks on Estonia, to Russia's strategic information warfare and the brutal consequences in the Ukraine, to Brexit, to ISIS recruitment tools, to China's propaganda. Entwined along is Pomerantsev's own family history, his parents fleeing Ukraine from the KGB, and dedicating their lives to entwining the lies and to help ex-soviets free themselves from the Kremlin's propaganda.

The book doesn't necessarily leave you with any hope, just with a disquieting and oppressive feeling of being overwhelmed by today's twisted reality game full of political agendas. Eye-opening and scary.