Protests around the world have things in common, including fake news attacks
One of the biggest questions on everybody’s mind is whether there is a common thread in the massive protests that we’ve seen around the world this year — in places as different as Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Paris, Barcelona, Istanbul, Tehran and Hong Kong.
Recently, I had the rare occasion to talk with the presidents of Chile and Colombia in separate interviews about the demonstrations in their countries. I also talked with officials from other nations that have been rocked by street protests. Based on what they told me, and my own view, here’s my best guess as to what links these protests together.
First, the current social turmoil around the world is taking place amid the backdrop of a global economic slowdown.
With the exception of the United States, which is enjoying a decade-old economic recovery, most countries — including China — have seen their economies shrink this year. Latin America’s economy has contracted from a 1.2% growth rate in 2007 to 0.2% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Amid a slowdown in trade and investments, many countries have had to raise taxes and cut state subsidies for basic services. That has made many people mad and has exacerbated political tensions, leading to angry street protests sparked by a variety of measures — from a hike in subway fares in Chile to an increase in gasoline prices in Iran.
Second, as hundreds of millions of people around the world have gained access to the internet, we have created clusters of common interests that have different agendas.
In the past, when there was social unrest, presidents met with opposition leaders, the military and church authorities to negotiate a way out of political crises.
But today, in this new world of separate digital bubbles, presidents don’t know exactly with whom to talk. Street protests are often started by one group and joined by others, but each of them pressing their own demands. It’s an increasingly chaotic world out there.
Third, there’s an avalanche of fake news being spread from Russia, Venezuela and other dictatorships that seek to weaken or topple democratic governments, as we saw in the 2016 U.S. election.
By stirring up trouble in Chile, for example, Venezuela’s dictatorship tries to show that freemarket economies don’t work and to divert world attention from Venezuela’s own human-rights abuses and humanitarian crisis.
In fact, Chile has reduced poverty more than most countries in the world, from 31% of its population impoverished in 2000 to 6.4% today, according to the World Bank. By comparison, Venezuela’s regime has turned an oil-rich country into one of the world’s poorest and driven more than 4.5 million refugees abroad.
Chilean President Sebastian Piñera, while recognizing that Chile needs to do a better job to prevent “abuses” against the most needy, told me that Chile’s intelligence agencies have looked into “millions” of fake news messages in social media. Many could be traced to Russia, he said.
As an example, he cited a video that was widely circulated in recent days that allegedly showed a Chilean protester being brutally killed by the army. But prosecutors determined that the person was not killed by the army, but by a rival group, he said. Fake news “is something organized and systematic,” he added.
Likewise, Colombia’s President Ivan Duque, while recognizing that his country has long suffered from high rates of inequality, told me that recent protests there were exacerbated by false claims that his government planned to eliminate state-funded youth training programs and to raise the retirement age.
“Those were lies. We had never said that,” Duque told me. He added that many false reports were spread by “Venezuelafunded” fake-news accounts.
Summing up, there are different causes behind the various protests around the world. But a declining global economy, persisting inequality, the spread of the internet and well-organized fake news campaigns — many of them coming from Russia — are among the things that many of them have in common.