Alexei Venediktov. Photo: Thomas Kern/swissinfo.ch
Evgenia Albats: Alexei, I turn to you as a former school teacher. What should be done about the fact that Russian-speaking YouTube, many channels, and social networks in general have turned into a conglomerate of various conspiracy theories, lies, unchecked facts, and some absolute ignorance and backwardness?
It must be said right away that this is not only a problem of Russian YouTube or the Russian-speaking internet, as internet researchers Ekaterina Zhuravskaya*, Sergey Guriev*, and many others have written in their works. Once it seemed that social networks would be a means of mobilizing people, let's recall the 'Arab Spring' or the protests of 2011–2012 in Russia. But Zhuravskaya and Guriev spoke about the fact that the effect that exists in authoritarian states, such as Russia, is completely different from the one that takes place in democratic states. Namely, as a result of the spread of social networks, people have had the opportunity to express themselves, and along with them, a huge amount of conspiracy and lies have come to the internet. And this has led to the destruction of social ties, associations, and so on. So now the Russian-speaking internet is afflicted with the same disease that is characteristic of social networks.
I would like to talk with you, Alexei, on this topic specifically as a history teacher. What is the cost of what is happening now in social networks? And, by the way, to a large extent in artificial intelligence. I tested both ChatGPT and Claude Anthropic, and so on—and you can't trust a single figure. You have to check absolutely everything: names, dates, etc. What do you say?
Alexei Venediktov: What is there to say? It's correct, but it's not the whole truth. And the whole truth is that we are living in an era of cultural revolution, comparable to the Chinese cultural revolution, when cultural codes are changing. Just as genetic codes can change, so can cultural ones. And the emergence of social networks, including YouTube, is, of course, a story that has turned the cultural code of many upside down.
As the great Umberto Eco wrote, before, a crowd of idiots sat in bars, drank wine, and talked to each other about alien landings, and now they have the opportunity to share this on the internet and involve a huge number of people in it. And you used the word mobilization quite accurately because social networks have become a tool of mobilization for anything: for good, for bad, for nothing... And before, it was impossible to imagine that people of this level would have the opportunity to influence because they got a tool in their hands. It's like a firearm: it's not meant for everyone, it's not meant for minors, psychopaths, etc., but here everything is available to everyone. And this is something we will have to come to terms with.
This is the first part, it concerns all states. And the second part is that authoritarian states understand that this is a tool for mobilizing their subjects for something they need, and they come up with a system of how to use it and invest huge amounts of money in it. Not only, by the way, states, it can also be private companies, but we are primarily interested in states.
So this is already a conscious action. And networks are created, let's call them that, which convince people that black is blue, and blue is red, and red is grayish-brown. And it works because a social network is one-on-one communication. A person is not sitting in a theater hall where there are another 300 people, he is sitting one-on-one with a screen and absorbing what we are saying, denying it, or, on the contrary, accepting it.
A new world has emerged. I repeat, this is a cultural revolution that affects everyone. And in the presence of an authoritarian state that also sets some goals for itself and has opportunities, it simply changes the relationships between people.
Access to Information
Evgenia Albats: We know that in 2016, social networks became one of the factors that brought several tens of thousands of votes to Donald Trump when he was competing with Hillary Clinton. He won the vote in strictly defined states that were needed for him to become president, partly thanks to fake accounts on Facebook** and Twitter.
By the way, Zhuravskaya, who studied and did extensive work on Twitter (now X), showed that there is an option there to avoid network pressure because X Mask, who is a Republican and supports conservative America, can give people more conservative points of view. But there is a way out. If you choose the latest comments, recent, then you kind of avoid the pressure on you.
But what about the Russian-speaking internet? A huge number of Russian-speaking people have left Russia. There is practically no access to sources of information. And here I read the headline of a video by Dmitry Kolezev*, he was the editor-in-chief of a Yekaterinburg newspaper, a very good journalist: 'Putin was informed that a conspiracy is being prepared against him'. Well, how can Dmitry Kolezev in Portugal know who and what was reported to Putin?
So the same Dmitry Kolezev released the latest ranking of the twenty most popular YouTube channels. I was completely disheartened that among the top twenty—there is, I must say, 'Navalny*** Live', there is 'Khodorkovsky* Live', 22nd place is occupied by 'Live Nail'—but mostly these are either complete chatterboxes or sheer clickbait.
Fictions about the arrival of the CIA director in Russia, about which absolutely nothing was reliably known, but a lot of ridiculous assumptions that various 'experts' passed off as information. Endless stories that the power in Russia is 'a step away from collapse'. Alexei, if your student brought you such an essay, what would you say to him as a school teacher?
The Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation publicly tells a completely fabricated story about Benkendorf and the Decembrists because that is now the general position of the state: Benkendorf is good, Decembrists are bad. I can imagine how children in schools retell this, and teachers don't know what to do with it
Alexei Venediktov: I would send him to indicate the sources of his knowledge. But it's not just social networks, not just YouTube. In its time, even before social networks, among Russian newspapers there was 'Moskovsky Komsomolets' with huge headlines, there was 'Komsomolskaya Pravda' with gigantic circulations, and there were 'Vedomosti', a serious press with moderate circulations, 10 or 100 times less than 'Moskovsky Komsomolets'. This has now been transferred to the electronic zone. There has always been a yellow press, people consume it. They always consume the catchy, the bright.
Especially now, when people themselves create such products. You asked me about history, please, I'll give you an example. The Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation, a solid uncle Konstantin Chuychenko, speaking at a legal forum (and this was spread by all numerous state social networks, YouTubes, RUTUBEs, etc.), tells a story about how during the investigation of the Decembrists case, General Benkendorf gathered these Decembrists and said: 'I freed my serfs in the sixteenth year in Estonia, in the eighteenth year in the Tambov province, and you raise your hands, who of you freed your serfs',—this is allegedly what he said to the arrested Decembrists. I can imagine how children in schools retell this, and teachers don't know what to do with it.
Besides the fact that Benkendorf bought an estate in Estonia in 1827, and in 1818 in the Tambov province the estate was owned by his father. Yes, it's clear why Chuychenko tells this: Decembrists are bad, Benkendorf is good. But who will check in what year Benkendorf bought the estate in Estonia? And why check when this is said by the Minister of Justice, not some street punk. And I know where he read it, I went on the trail, as it should be. On the internet, there is a writer who created a fantasy description of the image <of the head of the Third Department> of our dear Alexander Khristoforovich, Adjutant General Benkendorf. So to speak, a literary work. And the Minister of Justice retold it.
Because that is now the general position of the state regarding the Decembrists. And this happens incessantly with various episodes of history. Now they have <in propaganda> Dmitry Donskoy in connection with the relics, allegedly found. History turns into a servant. But, you see, teachers were still educated differently in the mass. Therefore, everything consciously goes through cinema, through TikTok, through what young people, students use. And history is presented in the form that Benkendorf wanted to see: the future of Russia's history is so magnificent that we cannot imagine it, he said. This is a cultural revolution.
Evgenia Albats: Well, the Red Guards arranged a bloody wheel out of the cultural revolution. They just killed, Mao was cleansing the old party bureaucracy that way.
The level of ignorance of information producers surpasses in its volume the quality information flow. All this has consequences. Decision-makers largely consume the same as we do
Alexei Venediktov: So we also have an intelligentsia being cleansed. Last week there was a secret report from the Ministry of Digital Development to the government and the presidential administration. The Ministry of Digital Development proposed to lift the ban on books by 'foreign agents' and those somehow associated with 'undesirable organizations'. Because if this is maintained, up to 70% of books in municipal libraries will have to be withdrawn—all that is somehow connected with Soros or Yale University. There were joint projects, publications, scientific works—all this is now in the reserves. You can burn it, of course, but for now in the reserves. This is state policy. No Akunin* exists, forget it. No Serebrennikov, no Makarevich*, no Pugacheva. Forget it. And this is in various areas of culture, in cinema, in theater.
What I disagree with Zhuravskaya about is that initially social networks were a tool, and you can dodge a tool. But now it's no longer a tool, it's a habitat. People live inside this. It's a lifestyle. We live in this now.
The same story with elections, general voting often elects not very good people, that is, there are costs. And what other option is there? Who decides who to allow, who not to allow? And the same with social networks. You used the right word: the level of ignorance of information producers surpasses in its volume the quality information flow. All this has consequences. Decision-makers largely consume the same as you and I do. This is a habitat, and how it can be corrected, I don't know. I would now have to fight ignorance, backwardness in every lesson.
Evgenia Albats: But there is a wonderful historical channel by Tamara Eidelman*, there is a channel by Anton Dolin*, he is one of the best film critics, they are real experts, but these channels don't even come close to the top twenty. Why do expert channels lose to clickbaiters?
Alexei Venediktov: I already said that the newspaper 'Vedomosti' lost to 'Komsomolskaya Pravda' in circulation. Well, there are also yellow channels, they just aren't called that now. It's a sphere of consumption, it's business. In our time, business was different, we traded in truth, and here they trade in guessing—what the audience wants. The audience is waiting for the bloody regime to collapse. And we will tell them that the CIA chief came to take Putin away. And the one who stayed is his double. That's how social networks function. Moreover, they throw you what you want to see, that's how the algorithms are made.
Kushner and Vitkoff came to Moscow. What do experts write? That nothing is known. What did they agree on? It will become known in a few days, they will first go to Kyiv. And what do the yellow channels write? 'Vitek and the son-in-law' ate at the 'Aurora' restaurant, paid 40 thousand rubles. They went in a car with an antenna that caught everything. And this is watched and read. And we are boring, we need to wait a week for Trump to announce that according to the results of the visits, it seems that Ukraine and Russia agreed not to hit energy facilities. But what is remembered is not this, but the chebureks they supposedly ate. This is a matter of consumption, it's for the public's amusement, 'bread and circuses'.
How to Talk to Fascists
Evgenia Albats: Our former colleague Alexander Plyushchev* did an interview with a representative of the 'Alternative for Germany', which won in only one land, but very powerfully, gaining more than 40%. Military observer of the 'Breakfast Show' Yuri Fedorov* publicly stated that he would no longer cooperate with the channel. There is a big debate on this topic: should a representative of a far-right party with a pro-fascist reputation have been invited to the channel or not. Was it ordinary journalistic work or providing a platform for an odious politician.
I watched this interview carefully. My opinion is that it was indeed providing a platform. The questions to this Schmidt were about the AfD program. Not about why they have a former Stasi operative on the list or a person with Nazi beliefs, and not about how they plan to implement their populist program? How are you going to let gas back in from Russia, and how will your gas go, and what will happen with the Ukrainian channel, etc. You supported this interview, said that on 'Echo of Moscow' they represented everyone's point of view. Okay.
But when talking to Mikhail Yuryev (one of the authors of the anti-liberal collection 'Fortress Russia'. — NT) you put me. And before that, I had two courses at Harvard University, I studied the mechanisms of the transformation of the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich and was very closely engaged in fascism. You put Olga Bychkova against Prokhanov, who just made a clown out of him with her questions.
Explain to me why suddenly a channel broadcasting from Vilnius to a Russian-speaking audience, knowing what right-wing radicals are for Germany and how it ended twice in Europe, suddenly invites some Schmidt and gives him a platform. Do you still think this is right?
A journalist is told who to invite, on what occasion. He didn't ask the right questions? Well, invite whoever you think is necessary and ask those questions
Alexei Venediktov: Of course. Firstly, I do not share your assessments, I also watched this interview. Secondly, I want to note that the front pages of all newspapers, British, American, Lithuanian, French, were given to the victory of this party. Of course, I have questions for these guys, and if I had the opportunity, I would, of course, invite Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD, and ask her questions that I consider important for all of Europe. But I do not think it was a bad interview. Moreover, it was not about the quality of the interview, but about the fact of the invitation. A journalist is told who to invite, on what occasion. He didn't ask the right questions? Well, invite Alice Weidel and ask those questions to her.
I don't understand, for example, what they call remigration. And when Merz says that this is expulsion, ethnic cleansing in Europe, it makes me shudder. I want to ask this question to Weidel, but I can't do it. And you invite. And Sasha <Plyushchev> let him invite. 'Grem' let him invite, I don't care.
German journalists do not ask about remigration, nor about educational programs, whether they will change them. And you need to ask. For this, you need to invite them. When they laughed at Prokhanov that he was a clown, they didn't hear the threat, and now his ideas are taken up in Russia. The story is about this.
Evgenia Albats: I just can't understand, after all, you could have put someone next to him who could competently respond to this Schmidt. Plyushchev gave him the opportunity to talk at length about what the AfD's economic program is. Why is this?
Endless chasing after clicks leads to not having time to properly prepare for an interview. If you can't prepare yourself, find a journalist who knows the topic. Otherwise, it's promoting ignorance
Alexei Venediktov: I answer you. A study of the electorate in this land showed that economic issues were in the first place.
Evgenia Albats: Of course, but you need to understand, Alexei, that the most important thing there is: this is the east of Germany, the former GDR, the poorest regions of Germany now, but the growth of the Nazi movement there is connected with the fact that they did not go through denazification. You see, I'm talking about the fact that endless chasing after sensations, after clicks leads to not having time to properly prepare for an interview. If you can't prepare yourself, find a journalist who knows the topic. I'm talking about the fact that this is the same promotion of ignorance.
Alexei Venediktov: I don't think so. I, of course, would have conducted the interview differently, and you would have conducted it differently. But at the same time, I can imagine a voter who is led by such parties. You need to talk to their leaders to understand why now in France, for example, Le Pen is winning against any presidential candidate seven months before the election.
Why does Farage's 'Reform Party', completely disgusting, in my opinion, gain as much as the Labor Party, and the Conservatives—less. Why did Trump win? This is a good question. Why did Meloni win in Italy? Why are the far-right rising sharply in Spain? This is not only related to the war. When Alice Weidel says that if they come to power in Berlin, Germany will no longer provide financial and military assistance to Ukrainians—this is Trump, this is Trumpism, which is coming to Germany with the AfD. And you need to understand this, not label it.
I do not agree with you linking this to clickability. The competition among Russian channels abroad is much greater, naturally, than the competition among Russian independent channels within the country. There are practically two of us: 'Novaya Gazeta'* and 'Live Nail'. Everyone has already been eaten, and we will be eaten. Of course, we can also be yellow, but we don't want to. And for us, say, inviting Valery Dmitrievich Solovey is not the norm, but an exoticism once a month. People cannot perceive everything with deadly seriousness all the time.
I was chasing Vitkoff and Kushner with a small hope because I knew there would be no press conference, and I sat in the next restaurant and waited for them to eat to jump out and ask a question. But there was a good Secret Service and a good FSO. I was recognized but not allowed. But I was chasing because witnesses are needed.
There is much more trust in you when you see something with your own eyes and learn from first-hand sources. And after Vitkoff and Kushner's visit between Moscow and Kyiv, I received a little information that there was a nod. Now, I think, we need to wait for what will happen in Kyiv. If there is a nod there too, it means we are moving. We moved. We moved!
Evgenia Albats: Do you think the process has started?
Alexei Venediktov: The process has started, it is quite obvious because exactly a year ago the Ukrainians said that there would be no trilateral meetings. And now a decision was made to resume meetings almost in October.
If what Trump said is confirmed, this is a huge deal, if this was brought by Vitkoff and Kushner, agreeing with Putin and Zelensky not to shell energy facilities. If this is so and if it is observed, then this is the first substantive long-term truce that shows that you can move in parts. Well, okay, not all at once. But we see this.
And Zelensky will now go to Washington to talk to Trump based on what Vitkoff and Kushner did. You can laugh at them as much as you like, but let's measure by the result. It didn't work out before, but I don't understand people who are happy that they don't succeed. The alternative is to bomb, shell, kill.
Of course, it's hard to get information. There is no information, people make things up. This is not only a story in Russia, this is a story around Gaza, around Armenia with Azerbaijan, in the war with Iran. And it's very hard to clear this up. You want to spit and say: let's also come up with something, tell that Trump is actually a disguised woman, and everyone will click on us like crazy. When this comes from people who came to social networks without journalistic experience, everything is clear. But when former journalists do this, you can't say they are unskilled. But they deceive their audience in this way. Not even for money—for clicks, for fame, to be quoted.
And people expect not a political position from experts, but honest expertise. Why do voters vote this way and not otherwise? What did they fall for? What did they believe in? What are they missing? This is what an expert should do, in my opinion. But, as always, there is little demand for an expert. It's better to tell that aliens came to ruin and conquer us.
Lies and Hatred
Evgenia Albats: That's what I'm talking about—about responsibility for the words spoken. Look at how the anti-Semitic wave has spread around the world. This despite the fact that, it would seem, it is known what happened in southern Israel on October 7. It will be three years. I was there, I traveled all the kibbutzim, talked to survivors, to parents whose children were killed, to forensic experts.
And yet people, seemingly sane, seemingly able to read, with some kind of fury try to prove that what happened was not like that or was completely made up. A monstrous anti-Semitic wave is going on. At the same time, they say: 'No, we are not against Jews, we are against Zionists.' This is a terrible story. We see how a populist wave is being spun, how people are being killed in the street, how Jews are being beaten in New York, in the UK, in the Netherlands, and so on. I'm talking about the price of a word spread by the internet into the ears of people who have completely forgotten or are not even trying to seek information, and if they are looking for information, they turn to artificial intelligence, which often gives out complete nonsense.
Alexei Venediktov: You see, firstly, this is the environment now. Secondly, why is this happening after October 7 in developed countries, in educated countries? Because everyone fixes it, but no one studies it.
People absorb what is toxically spread in the air, it becomes the essence of a person
Evgenia Albats: They study it. In particular, at Harvard, they studied where such an anti-Semitic wave specifically within Harvard came from. And it turned out that large sums of money from Qatar were purposefully going to departments dealing with Middle Eastern issues. It is known that Qatar invested very large sums in propaganda primarily in the UK, in the United States, etc. So some things are known. Well, it is known how anti-Semitism developed in Germany under the Nazis.
Alexei Venediktov: I just want to say that the genesis of the struggle against Jews, like the genesis of the struggle against Israel, like the genesis of the struggle against someone else should be understood at least by educated people. This is a matter of education and enlightenment, which can only go against conspiracy theories.
And you need to understand that people absorb what is toxically spread around you in the air, it becomes the essence of a person. He becomes toxic in views, behavior, decisions made. This is not a tool, this is an environment, these are the molecules you breathe.
People on the internet communicate with a huge number of unfamiliar people with an unknown, incomprehensible background. Journalists had a responsibility to the audience. And here it is not journalism, not even publicism. This is such a show, sometimes circus-like. Sometimes very high-quality, sometimes very low-quality, poisoned, rotten, but even more people flock to the rot because the smell is sharper.
Evgenia Albats: As a former school teacher, tell me, I'm seriously asking you, how to deal with all these conspiracies, with the fact that people don't want to know the truth, it's easier for them to wrap themselves in a flag of free Palestine and say they are fighting for freedom. Whose, what, where, how—knowing nothing and not wanting to know. What would you do as a school teacher?
Education must be put first because after all the tragedies we are experiencing now, we will have to heal, and we will have to heal. We are all sick. We are all poisoned by propaganda, poisoned by hatred
Alexei Venediktov: A school teacher has 30 children. When you have 30 children, or 15, or even 30 different ones every hour—you reach each one, you choose a language. I'll give you an example now. In the fourth grade, we had a history of the USSR, more precisely, stories about the history of the USSR. And in the seventh grade, history began. And both there and there is the Battle of Kulikovo. And my lesson on the Battle of Kulikovo in the fourth grade was not like the lesson in the seventh grade. A different language.
You have 30 children, and you need each one to understand. You are constantly in a live active with these thirty people. This is hard work for a farmer. Because children also come not empty. Education is an exchange of information, emotion. It's a performance. School teachers are a piece of work. This is work with each one, not with everyone. Working on a YouTube channel is working with everyone, and school teachers work with each one. That's the difference.
And I think it would be 100 times harder for me now. I know from the example of my own son. They are used to the internet, they don't read textbooks. If I returned to school (but I can't as a 'foreign agent'), I would try to take some fifth grade—start with ancient Rome, talk about the moral qualities of Emperor Tiberius, Emperor Nero.
Children loved this very much, about the people of that time. They always try on themselves, want to be either great heroes or great villains—because the great ones are the main ones. And you can build on this. There is a lot to talk about with children in history so that they start thinking.
And now history is a tool. This new textbook... there is no particular lie there. There are just some facts missing. Just a cut-off history, truncated, and therefore untrue. Just like in Soviet times. In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, for example, in the second edition, there was an article 'Trotskyism', but there was no Trotsky. How is that possible?
Education must be put first because after all the tragedies we are experiencing now, we will have to heal, and we will have to heal. We are all sick. We are all poisoned by propaganda, poisoned by hatred. Some have relatives who died, some have friends, somewhere families have broken up because of all this.
I had a very interesting conversation with Father Alexei Uminsky about this. I say: 'Do you understand what you will have to do later?' 'Yes. Comfort and heal.' Comfort and heal, and we can only shout and set each other against each other now. This again to your topic. What is valued now in the public sphere, in the media language? To set against, to bully, to shout. And we don't know how to comfort and heal. We have forgotten how.
We are all—both those on this side of the microphone and those on the other. So then, when it all somehow ends, we will have to remove these poisons, we will have to create prostheses. A conscience prosthesis will be oh-so not easy. It's much easier to fight.
I think many people think that it's easier to fight than not to fight. And look at your families or your close friends. It doesn't matter where you live. I am categorically against division, I have no division into those who left and those who stayed. For me, it doesn't matter at all, to be honest.
It's like a class. Children come to you from different homes, with different upbringing, with different levels of education, with different families. And who will you refuse comfort to? And when the children of SVO fighters will sit and already sit at the same desk with the children of 'foreign agents'? And when they will fall in love and get engaged, and already fall in love and get engaged. Hello, parents, are you going to arrange Montagues and Capulets for the whole country here?
There will be such, without any doubt. I always laughed at this article about inciting hatred. The article, of course, should not be, but when I see endless setting one against the other, with relish, with taste, I think: do you understand what you are doing? You are doing this for yourself. You are poisoning yourself. You don't produce poison, but first, you swallow it.
But it's popular, there's nothing you can do about it. Hatred is easier than love. Love is a complicated thing, and hatred is simple.
Video Version
* Evgenia Albats, Alexei Venediktov, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, Sergey Guriev, Dmitry Kolezev, Alexander Plyushchev, Yuri Fedorov, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Tamara Eidelman, Anton Dolin, Boris Akunin, Andrey Makarevich, the online publication 'Novaya Gazeta' in Russia are declared 'foreign agents'.
** Facebook (Facebook) belongs to the company Meta, declared 'extremist' in Russia.
*** Alexei Navalny is on the list of 'terrorists and extremists'.