And as there’s heigtened tensions in Catalonia today, here’s something to bear in mind
Julian Assange is rallying behind Catalan separatists — and Russia has taken notice
uk.businessinsider.com/julian-assange-catalonia-independence-movement-and-referendum-spain-2017-9?r=US&IR=T
Excerpt:
Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange has been actively supporting Catalonia's push for independence
- The Kremlin has seized on Assange's support for Catalonia in an effort to destabilize the EU
- Edward Snowden, along with other anti-globalization groups, also support Catalonia's independence
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has seized on a historic independence referendum set for Sunday in the Spanish region of Catalonia, using his Twitter account to pump out a pro-separatist narrative aimed at villainizing the Spanish central government and celebrating Catalan nationalism.
Assange, for all intents and purposes, has become the independence movement's chief international spokesman. The vast majority of his tweets this month, in many cases written in Spanish and Catalan, have centered around promoting Catalan secessionism and "self-determination" as a bulwark against Madrid's "repression."
Russian news agency Sputnik has helped, too - and has taken notice of Assange's tweets.
The outlet posted 220 stories about the Catalan independence movement between September 11 and 27, according to The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, most with false or misleading headlines and a clear pro-independence bias. The outlet's headlines gave "more prominence to Assange" than either Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont or Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
"Catalan" was the third highest-trending hashtag among Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations as of this article's publication, according to Hamilton 68, a digital platform that aims to track Russian propaganda in real time.
It is unclear how many of those users are bots. But a swarm of these automated accounts has also been promoting and parroting Assange's accusations of misconduct and oppression by the Spanish central government.
"A significant part of the early amplification" of Assange's most popular tweet about Catalonia came from automated accounts, The Atlantic Council reported. The pattern has extended to his other Catalonia-related tweets, including one where he compared events in Catalonia with those on Tiananmen Square in Beijing and another where he referred to Madrid as a "banana monarchy."