Previous Subchapter → 9.3 The Mongush Case
These instances of information warfare resemble the strategies of movements like the 9/11 conspiracy theorists: When they don’t have proof for their theories, they will instead follow a 2 step strategy.
First, ask enough questions to sow doubt in the conventional narrative, second, bombard the viewer with counter narratives.
9/11 Truth Examples:
- The planes were real, but they didn’t really destroy the towers, controlled demolitions did
- The planes were actually UAVs (giant drones)
- The planes were actually missiles disguised by holograms
Castration Video Examples:
- The video actually shows a Ukrainian Torturing a Russian
- The video actually shows a Ukrainian Torturing a Ukrainian
- The whole video is completely fake, and no one tortured anyone in it
The idea is that by creating this doubt, the conspiracy theorists can do something called “shifting the burden of proof”, instead of them having to prove the conventional narrative is false, you now have to prove that it’s true, and if you can’t, you have to accept one of their counter narratives instead.
Even though these counter narratives don’t provide credible evidence, they don’t need to, because the questioning will have undermined your confidence, step 1 compliments step 2. Nothing in this strategy relies on hard facts, only speculation.
Now this isn’t to say that someone asking questions is usually a warning sign, in fact, the opposite is the case, asking questions and poking holes in narratives that might not add up is always good, but if this questioning is used to then sell you on counter narratives that aren’t backed up by the facts, that’s when our alarm bells should start ringing.
To counter this kind of strategy we have to point to one of our media analysis tips, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, conspiracy theories which provide speculation instead of evidence are just that, theories, not facts.
That doesn’t mean they should just be dismissed without looking into them, “conspiracy theory” is often used as a dismissive term to refer to narratives that are unpopular, but the truth isn’t a popularity contest, it doesn’t matter whether the claims come from a fringe outlet or a mainstream one, you should use the same standard of proof, “question everything” is a good line of thinking, “question everything except conspiracy theories” is not.
So when we look at these theories, if there’s no clear facts involved, we have to go off of probability, the logic of Occam’s Razor: The theory that requires the least assumptions is the most likely one.
So let’s think about the Mongush case in this way…
To believe this castration video is a Russian war crime, we simply have to assume that:
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Russian troops are able to commit war crimes and that some of them are willing to do so.
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We also have to assume that someone from these forces would be willing to publish the video, or to send it to someone that would.
To believe these other stories we have to assume:
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That the Ukrainians are willing and able to commit doctored war crimes.
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Then we also have to assume that for some reason they would single out Mongush, closely recreate his distinctive outfit, including his cowboy hat and bracelets, either through dressing someone who looks very similar to him up with copycat fashion, or through sophisticated video editing.
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And if we want to follow the video edit theory, we also have to assume that the FSB has uncovered some really solid evidence of this war crime being faked (solid enough to release a suspected war criminal after only 2 days of investigation) and that they have a good faith reason for not publishing it, even though exposing the Ukrainians for faking a crime like this would be absolutely golden propaganda material for Russia.
As we can see, these Pro-Russian narratives require much more of a mental workout to believe in this case, and there are a lot more questions we have to avoid asking to keep them believable.
Questions like, what actually is a good faith reason the FSB would keep their evidence of this fake hidden, if they really have it? If the Ukrainians really are faking war crimes in this elaborate way, surely it’s in the public interest for everyone to know about it? And why did the Ukrainians choose to fake a war crime like this, when there will likely be some real war crimes which they could point to without the risk of being exposed for their lies?
Without answers to these sorts of questions, or facts and evidence to prove the speculations, conspiracy theories like these aren’t credible.