Is Putin Losing The War In Ukraine?

In a post-social media world, Russia is now faced with a population that will stoke revolution from behind a keyboard, not by taking to the streets. Most troubling for those in power are these subversives are not so easily identified, despite their decades old surveillance infrastructure. You can’t spy on everyone. The narrative can’t be controlled by executing the ruling class in a basement anymore, but more by reinforcing the echo chamber that is supposed to resonate with unchallenged strength.

Like with China and North Korea, Russian online propaganda feeds on the outrage and pre-existing prejudices that the algorithm craves to feed you more of the same. Sowing discord like seeds. But unlike in the pre-Soviet era, citizens have more access to information that, regardless of the state’s wishes or intentions, they can access anyway with tools like the dark web. A tool used effectively in the series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world, known as the Arab Spring.