(Part 6 of the series “Propaganda for Beginners”: Read Parts 1234 and 5.)

What is “pre-bunking” and why is it dangerous? It is a method of perception control that is intended to “vaccinate” against disinformation. But who actually determines what disinformation is? And how does this method work? Unfortunately, very well, as this article shows using examples from the Covid crisis and the Ukraine conflict. A new article from the Propaganda-Tactics series by Maike Gosch.

To introduce this propaganda method, as a great fan of Jane Austen, I would like to start with an example from her classic novel, aptly titled for this theme, ‘Pride and Prejudice’:

In the novel, young Elizabeth Bennet meets the seemingly aloof and arrogant Mr. Darcy. Before she gets to know him better and can make her own assessment of his character, she encounters another young man named Mr. Wickham at a party. He appears very charming and friendly. Through his manner, he quickly gains her trust and tells her about his fate — that he was, in fact, the foster son of Mr. Darcy’s father and, following his death, was supposed to be supported by the family and provided with a living as a clergyman. However, Mr. Darcy, out of pure heartlessness and without giving any reasons, denied him this position, thus subjecting him to a life of dependence and poverty. Elizabeth is horrified, and the story spreads through her to her family and the entire community, leading everyone to view Mr. Darcy as a cruel and cold-hearted man who has greatly wronged the warm-hearted and lively Mr. Wickham.

This story later turns out to be very incomplete and grossly distorted. In reality, Mr. Wickham had seduced Mr. Darcy’s underage sister and planned to elope with her, and it was only Mr. Darcy’s courageous intervention that saved her from the disgrace that such an event would have meant for a young girl at that time. Also, the reason Mr. Darcy did not offer Mr. Wickham a position as a clergyman was that Mr. Wickham himself declined the position and was even recompensed very generously by Mr. Darcy. By omitting these circumstances, Mr. Wickham had reversed the story. In fact, he was the villain in the story, and Mr. Darcy was the hero. However, Elizabeth, and those around her, are so influenced by this false story, that from that moment on, they only see Mr. Darcy as if through a distorted lens, finding signs of coldness, selfishness, and heartlessness in all his words and actions, and interpreting nothing charitably or sympathetically. This malicious rumour, this false story, has painted a certain (false) picture of his character and thereby shapes and guides their perception of all future experiences with him.

This manipulation technique has some parallels to the modern propaganda method of ‘pre-bunking.’

What is Pre-Bunking?

What exactly is ‘pre-bunking’? ‘Pre-bunking’ is a coined term derived from the English word ‘debunking,’ which means ‘exposing’ or ‘disproving’. ‘Debunking’ describes the process of uncovering and refuting false or misleading information.

‘Pre-bunking,’ on the other hand, is pre-emptive and describes a preventive communication strategy that aims to prepare people in advance for receiving false information or harmful narratives, thereby ‘immunizing’ or ‘vaccinating’ them against misinformation (with this framing, I would suspect they’ve already scared off half the population). This method is often used by governments, media, and social platforms to prevent the spread of disinformation. At first glance, this sounds very well-intentioned: To equip people through preventive education to recognize and resist lies and manipulations later on.

The use of these methods is consequently not denied at all; instead, it is proudly reported how the population will be warned against the danger of misinformation and conspiracy theories through ‘pre-bunking’ or ‘inoculation’ (i.e., vaccination).

The problem with this method, as so often in recent years, lies in the invisible premise that precedes it, but which is not disclosed and therefore also not justified or discussed. And that is the very simple question: Who decides what constitutes ‘false information’ and what constitutes a ‘harmful narrative’?

Or rather, we know who decides this — usually the government or state authorities. And here we reach the heart of the problem. Free public discourse in a democracy, in science, and in all other public domains, is precisely aimed at collectively arriving at the truth, not at presenting a truth and then dismissing or arguing away everything that dares to challenge it or attempt to disprove it.

This point is so obvious that I am surprised it has hardly ever been addressed or discussed in the many articles and publications on the topics of ‘fighting disinformation’ and ‘pre-bunking’ that I have read in recent years. How has this fundamental flaw gone unnoticed by nearly everyone?

Are they simply not that clever (sorry), or has this important preliminary question been omitted for a very good reason — because these methods are actually about suppressing dissent and controlling public opinion?

Or is it a kind of exaggerated self-confidence on the part of the responsible actors—the absolute confidence that they are the ones who know best and that anyone with a differing opinion or assessment is a foolish, deluded conspiracy theorists (Covidiots, tinfoil-hat-wearers, etc.)? This, in a way, is already the result of a propaganda narrative: the ‘otherizing’ of critics and the distorted portrayal of all of them as ‘crazy’ has, in turn, led to many people—such as mainstream journalists, scientists, science influencers, politicians, etc. — no longer perceiving them as intellectual equals, as worthy opponents in a discussion, but only as annoying, unqualified hecklers from the side-lines, who need to be convinced of the one and only truth. This shows a great deal of arrogance: “What could they possibly tell me? How could I be wrong?” This is effectively the end of any debate.

I believe that, similar to what Mr. Wickham did to Elizabeth Bennet, extensive pre-bunking was planned and implemented by the state, with the help of intelligence agencies and NGOs, in relation to the COVID-19 crisis and also in relation to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. This was done so that the public would be primed to perceive and reject any opinions or factual claims that deviated from the government line through a certain filter, even to the point of ‘repelling’ them.

Pre-Bunking in the COVID-19 Crisis

In what way was ‘pre-bunking’ present in the communication strategy during the COVID-19 crisis? Well, on October 18, 2019, a few months before the outbreak of the crisis, a simulation exercise known as ‘Event 201′ took place in New York, organized by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where the reactions and, in particular, the cooperation of governments, international organizations, private companies, and media representatives in response to a global coronavirus pandemic were simulated and practiced. What sounds like the figment of conspiracy theorists’ imagination has demonstrably taken place.

There were also recommendations developed, in case a real global pandemic of a respiratory virus were (hypothetically, of course) to take place in the near or distant future, including the following (No. 7):

Governments and the private sector should assign a greater priority to developing methods to combat mis- and disinformation prior to the next pandemic response. Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation. This will require developing the ability to flood media with fast, accurate, and consistent information. Public health authorities should work with private employers and trusted community leaders such as faith leaders, to promulgate factual information to employees and citizens. Trusted, influential private-sector employers should create the capacity to readily and reliably augment public messaging, manage rumors and misinformation, and amplify credible information to support emergency public communications. National public health agencies should work in close collaboration with WHO to create the capability to rapidly develop and release consistent health messages. For their part, media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though the use of technology.

I watched the videos of the discussions that took place during this event, and it is very interesting to observe the intellectual and psychological dynamics at play and how they permeated the debates and contributions. The invisible premise that any dissent from the official government line and the recommendations of the scientific institutions working with the government and the WHO must be misinformation or disinformation is so skilfully placed ‘off-screen’ that it is no longer discussed, indeed, can hardly be discussed, because the narrative structures for it are not in place. It simply doesn’t fit into the framing of the situation, as dissenting opinions and scientific assessments, as well as civil resistance to the measures, are only seen as threats, something to be repelled and suppressed. And this is exactly how it unfolded, like clockwork, when the real pandemic situation was officially declared in January 2020.

The exercise was very cleverly designed to ensure that discussions focused only on the ‘how’ (how do we combat disinformation?) and no longer on the ‘whether’ (is it actually disinformation and who decides that?). You have to give credit to the developers of these methods; it’s a very skillful sleight of hand that has fooled a large portion of leadership and opinion elites. They are only now slowly emerging from the cognitive fog created by this technique, for example, currently aided in Germany by the publication of the RKI leaks (see also the press conference with presentation of the leaked material, dubbed into English)

Pre-Bunking in the Ukraine War

We also see the problematic application of pre-bunking in the context of the Ukraine war. Since the beginning of the conflict, certain narratives have been pre-established by Western governments and media to shape public opinion and discredit dissenting perspectives.

One example is the portrayal of the conflict as a clear battle between good and evil, with Ukraine depicted as the innocent victim and Russia as the sole aggressor. This simplistic view leaves little room for the complex historical and geopolitical backgrounds and the history of the conflict. Voices that point to the West’s role in escalating tensions or consider Russia’s security concerns as legitimate are often dismissed as spreaders (or victims) of pro-Russian propaganda or (in Germany) even labelled as threats to democracy.

How did this structure of the opinion landscape come about, and was it an organic development? I don’t think so. NGOs and other organizations and media projects in Ukraine, generously funded by the U.S. government and private financiers like the Soros Foundation and other foundations in his network, played an important role in preparing these narratives, even long before the change in Ukrainian leadership in 2014.

For example, at an event in December 2013, the then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, boasted that the U.S. government had already invested five billion dollars in Ukraine by that time to ‘promote civic engagement and good governance.’

One has to be quite naïve and uninformed about the realities of U.S. foreign policy to believe that this was purely an altruistic investment in building civil society. That is not to say that it wasn’t also about that — surely there were elements that served the development of civil society, and even more surely, many of the young people working there know nothing about the rather manipulative motives of the financiers behind the scenes (I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory again, but what can you do when you’re describing actual conspiracies?). I myself worked for the Open Society Foundation in Budapest and Warsaw about ten years ago, giving workshops there as skill-building for local NGOs, and at first I also didn’t realize to what extent this was a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing,’ or how much cold geopolitical and economic interests were intertwined with the activities and narratives aimed at introducing a ‘modern, Western, democratic’ society there.

One example of many such activities in Ukraine was the establishment of the organisation ‘StopFake’, funded by the Atlantic Council, Western governments, and philanthropists like George Soros. Nina Jankowicz, who later became known as ‘Scary Poppins’ (due to her rather eerie rendition of a Mary Poppins song about disinformation, also worked there. Jankowicz gained greater recognition in 2022 when she was appointed head of a new ‘Disinformation Governing Board’ in the United States, which critics immediately dubbed the ‘Ministry of Truth’ in reference to Orwell’s novel ‘1984’. In response to the massive wave of resistance this engendered, U.S. President Joe Biden soon distanced himself from the project. Some U.S. media explained this by saying that the ‘Disinformation Governing Board’ had, ironically, been disbanded due to disinformation.

But back to Ukraine in 2014: In February 2014, there was a violent overthrow of the government of Viktor Yanukovych, followed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk becoming the new Prime Minister, strongly supported and likely brought to power by Western powers, particularly the US. We recall the ‘Fuck the EU’ phone call from Victoria Nuland, where she, along with the then U.S. ambassador to Kyiv, decided who should become the new head of government: ‘Yatz is the guy.’

Subsequently, a civil war broke out, and Russia annexed Crimea following a controversial referendum in which a large majority of the population voted for secession. Let’s let TIME Magazine – from a naturally very pro-U.S. perspective – explain what happened next:

‘As the conflict in Ukraine continues, another battle rages far from the front lines—a battle between Russian news sites and a group of Kiev-based journalists who say the sites are misusing, even fabricating, news photographs filed from Ukraine.

In an effort to put a stop to what they see as fraud, the journalists—who are alumni and students at Kiev’s Mohyla School of Journalism—have launched Stopfake.org, a “fact-checking project, which aims to help people separate the truth from the lie in the media,” as the group’s co-founder and editor-in-chief Oleg Shankovskyi tells TIME.’

As I mentioned, Nina Jankowicz worked for this NGO (though one could argue that the term ‘Non-Governmental’ is not really accurate anymore, as most NGOs in this fields, StopFake included, are predominantly funded by state and NATO funds, even if they are foreign states). Later, she would make an interesting statement in our context:

‘The free speech versus censorship framing is a false dichotomy.’

This is interesting. A ‘false dichotomy’ is a logical fallacy where two options are presented as the only possibilities, while in reality, other alternatives exist. It creates an artificial division that does not fully capture the complexity of the situation or the issue. She’s not entirely wrong, but it is fascinating how this leads us towards a relativisation of free speech and how a positive framing of ‘censorship’ is already being prepared (on this shift, see also a previous article of mine).

Of course, it is neither wrong nor reprehensible to combat disinformation and ‘fake news’ from the ‘other side’ – of which there certainly were and are many – in an initially civil war and later a war situation. What is problematic, and where I believe the propaganda and ‘pre-bunking’ by the West begins, is that any information from the other side is per se seen and labelled as a ‘lie’, and that the disinformation and ‘fake news’ on one’s own side are, of course, not investigated or exposed. Not to mention that these organisations were funded by foreign governments, NATO, and foreign oligarchs/philanthropists, which is already highly problematic.

What becomes clear is this: Contrary to the self-descriptions and self-understanding of StopFake and many similar organisations, these organisations and media outlets are not neutral services in the public interest for enlightening the national and international population, but rather classic propaganda work, as has always been the case in wartime. The goal is not to uncover the truth, but to win the battle on the field of information.

This in itself is not that objectionable; it has a long tradition and may be unavoidable in times of war. Where it becomes problematic is when foreign politicians and media, such as the German and all European ones, adopt the information and assessments of these organisations and media as objective and accurate reporting and enlightenment about ‘Russian disinformation’ without critically questioning them. Then we find ourselves in an (information) war before we have delivered a single helmet and the populations of neutral third countries are psychologically made ‘ready for war’.

What is further problematic is that many of these very obviously partisan organisations are recognised by Western, mostly U.S. media companies as ‘objective’ fact-checking organisations and advise them on “content moderation”, which is what censorship is called in our modern times.

And they also very obviously serve as sources for Western journalists, who seem to adopt their statements and assessments too uncritically and unquestioningly.

So, as during the Covid crisis, the countless organisations whose task it is to combat ‘Russian disinformation’ were preparing the ground so that there was no longer any room for possibly true and accurate information from the Russian side or information that contradicts the Western narrative.

The very possibility of dissenting opinions or contradicting facts is thus negated, as is the possibility of errors, more complex interrelations, and also, crucially, of rapprochement, diplomacy, or even, if one is still allowed to utter the phrase, a negotiated peace.

Because that is the problem with this ‘pre-bunking’ and the entire development of ‘moderating’ the information landscape, which we have increasingly been experiencing in recent years: It blocks the process of joint investigation of reality, with differing opinions, narratives, and various pieces of information and facts. These can no longer be exchanged in conversation with one another, thus leading through a process of opinion formation to an acceptable result or compromise. When one side per se attributes bad intentions and lies to the other side and suppresses everything that could offer another perspective, it blocks this ‘organic’ process, leading to a splitting of the information landscape into increasingly isolated and mutually hostile camps.

How do we get out of this? I believe looking at the meta-level, which I have tried to highlight in this article, is very important here. So, it’s not just about talking about the content but also about the methods and structures by which opinions and information are handled today. And we need an even further emancipation of citizens. The more authoritarian and repressive the opinion landscape is shaped and designed, the freer, more diverse, and self-confident we must react – without falling into the trap of merely solidifying our own camp and becoming too rigid in our own narratives ourselves.

The best ‘vaccination’ against disinformation is not a rigid, pre-set narrative but curiosity, openness, and flexibility in thinking and the willingness to form one’s own opinion and be open to change one’s mind – something, which Elizabeth Bennet initially lacks in the novel. But in the end, she does gain this ability and experiences a very happy ending, which I also wish to all of us.

(Featured Image: “Nina Jankowicz on Cyber Security” by usembvienna is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.)

Author

  • Maike Gosch

    Maike Gosch is a communication strategist and former lawyer. She is the founder and director of story4good, where she has led communication and strategy projects for leading NGOs and political entities in Germany and Europe. Her extensive experience includes advising the German Green Party, Wikimedia Germany, the Stopp TTIP Campaign and the European Parliament on high-stakes issues such as Green Energy Transition, European Trade Agreements and multiple election campaigns. Maike's articles have been featured in prominent trade publications such as Politik + Kommunikation. She has taught storytelling and political communication at institutions like Quadriga Hochschule and Hamburg Media School.

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