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Graduate student Mary Blankenship picked through the UNLV Lied Library’s collection of 14 million Twitter posts about the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting on the Strip, hundreds of thousands of which contained false claims about the tragedy.
Blankenship, who is working toward a master’s in chemistry but also does research for Brookings Mountain West, jumped into further research on disinformation and misinformation, both of which relate to the spread of false information, with disinformation specifically disseminated with the intent to harm. She explored other topics, including COVID-19 and claims of election fraud. She uses a program called Twarc, an open-source command line tool, to collect and analyze the Twitter data.
Her focus is now collecting Twitter posts of misinformation about the ongoing crisis on Ukraine, where she was born and lived until she was 8 — and where her family and friends in central Ukraine are setting up refugee centers for citizens fleeing eastern cities like Kiev.
“The history of Ukraine and then the history of the Ukrainian relationship with Russia is very complicated,” Blankenship said. “Disinformation and misinformation have the most success of spreading when it perpetuates the feelings of fear and anger against another group.”
Since she first discovered the library’s archives, Blankenship has collected an additional 500 million Twitter posts spanning the four topics, with COVID-19 misinformation comprising the largest slice, she said. Meanwhile, she said she had continued to stay in touch with her Ukrainian family members, all of whom thus far have been safe, through Facebook Messenger and Instagram direct messages.
“I’ve never been more proud to be Ukrainian right now because (of their) strength and courage and just resolve despite them being terrified of, like, what is possible,” she said. “I think with many Ukrainians abroad and Ukrainian Americans, there’s also sense of guilt that you’re not there to help them out, and, you know, you feel pretty helpless here.”
In her research on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Blankenship said she has categorized disinformation from the Russian government in two ways: through political angles, which motivated the invasion, and military angles, which validate the conflict.
The messaging from the Kremlin through televised comments, government-backed news outlets and doctored videos was often to delegitimize Ukrainian sovereignty, she said, as well as strip all optimism from Ukrainians. But Blankenship says President Vladimir Putin of Russia, in infiltrating Ukrainian land, displayed how little he understands Ukrainians — and how they fight back for their fellow citizens.
“I think right now is a very dangerous moment within the conflict because, well, Russia didn’t expect such resistance,” she said. “I’m personally I’m really worried that despite the peace talks, Putin is just going to do something like release a nuclear weapon or continue just increased bombing.”
Twitter users that see false information and think it is true will sometimes share the post because they want to make others aware, Blankenship said. Videos on TikTok about the crisis have also gone viral, racking up millions of views on videos posted recently but truthfully filmed years ago.
Independent fact checkers and news organizations have attempted to assuage this flow of misleading or harmful information, writing articles or creating videos about the flummoxing issue to show viewers, readers and social media users how to differentiate real news and videos from fakes.
Paul Werth, a professor of history at UNLV, said that across social media platforms, journalists and other fact-checkers have ample opportunity to find and analyze misinformation and disinformation regarding the crisis.
And Werth is quick to point out that, “I’ve heard people say, you know, this is sort of the first war being fought with TikTok, among other things.”
“Previously, we would have been largely dependent on military authorities to describe the situation, but in every case, or in most cases, now, we have the opportunity to call into question or at least potentially to verify what sort of established authorities, military authorities, whether they’re Ukrainian or Russian or whatever, ... what they’re actually telling us,” Werth said.
This week, a wave of tech companies blocked Russian state media’s channels from their platforms. The affected platforms include TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Still, Blankenship recommended individuals who see false information on social media do not engage with it.
“Do not repost it, do not like it, do not comment that ‘This is fake’ because the algorithms, they only see that you’re interacting with this post,” she said. “They don’t see that you’re disagreeing with it or not. I think, in my research, that’s what I’ve noticed, especially, is that people don’t realize that.”
Ukrainian Kristina Marchenko, a volunteer research assistant at UNLV, also noticed an uptick in misleading footage on social media. Since hearing about Russia’s attack on her home country, Marchenko said going about her day-to-day routine has been taxing, especially with family and friends in Konotop, about 160 miles from Kiev.
In addition to speaking with family members through WhatsApp, Marchenko eyes Ukrainian news outlets like the Kyiv Independent for updates. She recalled her days spent as a 6-year-old with her grandparents in Konotop, including the beekeeping they did in their yard and the traditional, ribbon-laden hairstyle her grandmother would fashion from her long hair.
“I kind of try to stay away from social media in terms of Twitter and Instagram for information in regards to what’s going on right now,” Marchenko said. “It’s been really difficult mentally to kind of be able to go to work, talk to multiple people and have that on my mind just because that’s such a big part of who I am and where I come from.”
Marchenko met Blankenship when they were on the debate teams at their respective high schools. After having trouble finding European friends when she was younger, Marchenko said meeting Blankenship, and speaking with her in Ukrainian and Russian, was a respite from struggling to connect.
“It made my communication and my culture and my skills so much easier because I had somebody to share that with and, it finally didn’t feel like a story that I had to tell anybody but something that I could like live through with Mary,” she said.
Recalling her own time in Ukraine, Blankenship described the culture as “warm and hospitable.”
“There is a Ukrainian culture, first off,” she said. “Some of them are really not well-off. They’re struggling to make it, and even despite that, they’ll offer and buy you food and will give you a dinner and will welcome you into their home. It’s so, so beautiful.”