The Russian Plot to Control Your Mindfulness

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/mindfulness-propaganda/?utm_source=Tricycle&utm_campaign=5ce1838487-Newsletter_18_10_15_NS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1641abe55e-5ce1838487-308090825

Most people are aware of the Kremlin’s attempts to influence voters in the US and Europe, but the fact that one of the avenues for this influence was mindfulness may come as a surprise.

Among Russia’s many fake social media accounts was a Facebook page called “Mindful Being,” which cleverly mixed legitimate spiritual teachings with material intended to make us more receptive to authoritarianism. Russian operatives deciding that mindfulness, a way to develop greater awareness, could be fertile ground for a propaganda campaign is sobering. However, it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the nature of propaganda and how easy it is for us to be taken in by it. In this way, fact-checking can become a spiritual practice in its own right.

It helps to first understand what we are up against. For years, the St. Petersburg–based Internet Research Agency (IRA) has been working on behalf of the Russian government to manipulate voting in Western democracies. They promoted Donald Trump’s election to the US presidency, had a hand in Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, and—so far with less dramatic success—have been supporting extremist political movements across Europe.

In July 2018, Facebook announced that it had removed 32 deceptive pages and accounts, including Mindful Being, which had been set up to influence the outcome of the 2018 US midterm elections. In the two short months between their creation and their deletion, these fake accounts amassed more than 290,000 followers, created 9,500 posts, and organized 30 events since 2017, the largest of which had “approximately 4,700 accounts interested in attending,” according to a Facebook press release. Although the creators of these pages took pains to cover their tracks, they momentarily slipped up, and for a total of seven minutes one account had a known IRA administrator. Oops!