CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Kovacs, Domonkos D |
|---|---|
| Title | Unmasking Maskirovka (in Hungary): A Novel Natural Language Processing-based Detection Method for Information Laundering |
| Summary | Information Laundering is a stratagem of hostile information influence campaigns (HIICs). Information Laundering aims to integrate propaganda into unwitting legitimate domestic outlets, by moving it through a network of intermediaries to produce a loss of origin, thereby lending propaganda a façade of legitimacy. Empowered by the affordances of the digital age, Information Laundering is increasingly deployed by the Kremlin to penetrate and subvert Western media ecosystems. The current state-of-the-art methodological framework for detecting Information Laundering is inherently curtailed by the manual overhead it necessitates, rendering it unfeasible for near real-time detection for entire media ecosystems. To overcome this limitation, the paper develops a Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning-based reusable, scalable, and adaptable methodological framework leveraging Sentence Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers technology, which can be deployed to detect and trace Information Laundering in targeted media ecosystems. In turn, the paper trials the novel algorithmic methodological framework and uncovers a yet unnoticed Kremlin-orchestrated Information Laundering scheme targeting Hungary, which successfully subverted the Hungarian government-affiliated media ecosystem. The investigation finds that in the context of the full-scale invasion, between January 1, 2022, and March 10, 2024, four Hungarian government-affiliated outlets have provided for the integration of 891 laundered propaganda articles, which originally appeared on the columns of RT or Sputnik, and penetrated the Hungarian media ecosystem with the mediation of the Hungarian-language Kremlin-proxy site Orosz Hírek, which worked to mask the origin of the articles. |
| Supervisor | Alexander Etkind |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/kovacs_domonkos.pdf |
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