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“This is an existential threat to our Western democratic civilization, but who should defend us?”—Dietmar Pichler for Bette Dangerous Podcast, Ep97
If you have not already registered for our upcoming tutorial on Russian disinformation with Dietmar Pichler, please do so here:
In advance of our meeting, I asked the Vienna-based disinformation analyst to break down his latest INSTITUT ZUR VERTEIDIGUNG DER EUROPÄISCHEN DEMOKRATIEN/Defense of the European Democracies (INVED) report from Austria, “Pro-Russian narratives massively spread in Austrian information space”:
The timing of his report is critical, as countries that support Ukraine are currently seeing an acceleration in civil unrest. Denying the accelerant poured on these countries through social media by Russia and its proxies is to deny reality.
Here is a link to the report:
Among his key findings:
About 75% of the comments examined are open or latently pro-Russian
Regardless of this, algorithms keep pouring content from Russian state propaganda into the user feeds
More than 3/4 of the Ukrainians living in Austria are confronted with Russian narratives, perpetrator-victim reversal and hate speech
According to Dietmar:
In addition to an analysis of more than 2,500 social media comments, the report also considers content that was proactively played out by the algorithms of the platforms, as well as the experiences of the Ukrainian community in Austria. In addition, he explores mechanisms, historical framework conditions and channels of Russian propaganda beyond social media. Different actors and communication channels are also considered, through which corresponding narratives find their way into the Austrian information area or are already present.
In the social media postings examined, on average around 75 percent of the reactions were either openly pro-Russian or characterized by hate speech, whataboutism and relativization. The analysis was limited to reactions to selected topics. Social media contributions by politicians and media on the Ukrainian national holiday and the topic of Russian hybrid warfare were examined.
INVED also documented several cases in which users in Austria were proactively displayed content of Russian propaganda through social media algorithms, although they did not follow the accounts in question. This includes, among other things, videos from RT and even contributions that show and praise the Russian president himself.
Another chapter deals with the experiences of the Ukrainian community in Austria. More than three quarters of the respondents were confronted with narratives of perpetrator-victim reversal, relativization and justification that are far from the fact. The report also contains comments from representatives of Ukrainian civil society and diplomacy living in Austria.
The report is rounded off by comments from experts from science and journalism based in Austria.
DOWNLOAD REPORT:
REPORT_ Pro-RussNarrOECOM_SEP2026
As Dietmar explained in our podcast, which was recorded on Tuesday, 13 October 2026:
Dietmar: In 2026, we need to remind people that not only on social media are the problems, but we have these malign narratives by all these dangerous anti-democratic forces, outside of the online world.
And the main question you ask, ‘Why don’t we act finally?’ I think we need we need money on that. We need people. We need education. I mean, this is an existential threat to our Western democratic civilization.
But you always mentioned a horseshoe. Who should defend us? We have a far right who doesn’t give a beep about us, who always wants some kind of revolution, even when they are in power, they speak about killing the establishment, which is totally ridiculous. Then we have also a left, at least a far left, they have also a problem with the West, and I’m not even mentioning the tankies, the Maoists and the Stalinists. We have a left that has a tradition to not defend. ‘Defending’ is not something good.
And then we have people in the middle who don’t care about anything at all. And we need a society who is aware, it doesn’t matter if you are in the middle, center, left, center, right? You need to be a democratic person. You need to believe in democracy and you need to defend your community, your values in a reasonable way, and we don’t do it. And I think we are almost doomed if we don’t react on it now, because people are already so radicalized and polarized, and the center is dying. And we lose the collaboration. Look what happened to the Transatlantic Alliance… This is this scares me totally.
And the politicians, they don’t act, they are afraid of the reactions of the population. The problem is; you demand that we do more. I also, but other people, they don’t even want it. They don’t even see it as a problem. They like it. They want more from this craziness, what we see, for instance, on social media, all this hate and disruption.
Heidi: They won’t like it when they’re in the Gulag…
Please take a half hour and listen to our full interview, and please those of you who are members, join us tomorrow for Part 2 of Dietmar’s tutorial session.
Here is the registration information again:
More about Dietmar Pichler:
Dietmar Pichler is Chief Analyst and Editor at INVED and has extensive expertise in the areas of disinformation, media literacy and foreign influence. He analyzes disinformation campaigns as well as propagandistic influence strategies of authoritarian regimes. In addition to his work at INVED, he works as a freelance media literacy trainer, consultant for strategic communication and disinformation analyst in Vienna. He is Vice President of the NGO Vienna Goes Europe and founder of the Disinfo Resilience Network initiative, which is dedicated to networking experts to detect and classify hybrid threats.
To support Dietmar’s work, you can make a donation here:
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