A group of self-identified 'fake news victims' recently published an
open letter in Avaaz.org to social media giants and their CEOs: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Dorsey (Twitter) and Susan Wojcicki (Youtube). Their plea goes as follows:
"This week victims of disinformation from across the world have come to Silicon Valley to confront social media companies for the first time. The meetings were highly emotional, bringing social media employees to tears, as they came face-to-face with the human cost of the crisis fueled by their platforms. Following their meetings, these victims have issued an open letter calling for urgent action to stop the spread of disinformation and to recognize the deadly damage it can cause."
One of the 'victims' is Finnish mainstream media journalist, Jessikka Aro, who focuses almost exclusively on
bashing Russia and Putin, and 'exposing the trolls in our midst'.
Aro became a visible 'Russia-expert' in Finland after
writing an article in 2015 filled with wild speculations about the St. Petersburg 'Troll Factory', i.e the Internet Research Agency (IRA). In reality the IRA
was revealed to be not much more than a
low-level social media marketing (spamming) company with
zero impact on the 2016 elections. Just as the whole Russia-collusion story has been
proven to be false, the basis of Aro's journalistic career rests on similar outlandish conspiracy theories. Aro has won international awards for her work, and in March this year was set to travel to Washington and claim a $5,000 grant for winning the International Women of Courage Award issued by the US State Department,
until it was rescinded because someone there came across her bashing of Trump as 'Russian agent' on Twitter.
In one hilarious episode, Aro's hysterical Russian troll-themed news reports provoked some level-headed ordinary Finns to create a satirical Facebook group called 'Russian Troll Army'. But Aro's fanatical belief that evil Russians are everywhere meant that she missed the point of the group and
instead took it as further evidence that 'Russian trolls' are out to get her!
Later, when a Finnish mainstream newspaper published an
article critical of her work, she used it as 'evidence' of how ideas made by 'trolls' and 'fake news propagandists' infiltrate into mainstream media (min 31:00 in
this video). Aro seems to really enjoy indulging in self-fulfilling prophecies, and she sure loves to play the victim card. Then again, who knows, maybe 'someone' really did send
those scary messages she says she keeps receiving, just to watch her descend into further fits of hysteria because she's such an easy mark.
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