Kremlin is not alone. Most autocratic regimes lie.
Most autocratic regimes lie to their own people and to people in other countries.
Spoiler: This is the second post about disinformation this year. In my previous post I focused on the kremlin. The kremlin is not the only regime that lies systematically. Many more lie, most of them are autocratic. Some countries that are victims of disinformation from abroad, are angels, i.e. do not lie about foreign governments themselves. Latvia and Taiwan are the obvious examples. On the other hand, some governments systematically lie about other governments even though no other governmetns lie about them. muscovy is of course among those governments.
Autocratic regimes are liars.
Though one of the most frequent and pathetic of liars, putin is not the only lying dictator. And the kremlin is not the only lying dictatorship or autocratic regime. Since this is an election year in the EU and the US, we will experience a lot of disinformation and lies in social media. Media controlled by autocratic regimes will be full of it. Unfortunately, some of the disinformation will be repeated in independent media since many editors are too lazy to perform simple criticism of the sources.
Anyway, as in this and this post about desinformation, I will use data from Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) in this post. The database allows you to show which governments that lie most frequently to its own and other countries’ citizens, but also which governments that are subject to lies from other governments. Some countries, like muscovy, also use its political parties to lie.
So, which countries are the most frequent liars about other countries? The indicator from V-Dem ranges from 0 to 4 where 0 (dark red below) indicates systematically lying and 4 (dark blue below) indicates that the countries’ governments have other things to do than lie. As shown in the previous post already, the kremlin was one of the worst liars about other countries in 2023. A graph in the post shows that the kremlin is the world champion in lying to its citizens.
Other liars were Belarus, China, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar. Most of these are of course sympathetic to kremlin.
Governments’ lies in 2023.
Source: Varieties of Democracy.
Autocrats lie to everyone, everywhere, and all of the time.
Regimes that lie to and about foreign governments probably lie frequently to its own citizens too. Plotting governments’ lies to foreign citizens together with governments’ lies to its own citizens in the same graph yields the graph below. It displays a pattern with red dots occupying the space from origo moving upwards and to the right (around 2.5, 3.0). Since a value of 0 indicates that the country’s government in question lies frequently, liars are found in the bottom left of the graph. And since a value of 4 indicates that the country’s government never or almost never lies to its own or foreign citiziens, non-lying governments are found in the top right corner of the graph. Red dots indicate autocratic governments and blue dots democratic governments according to V-Dem’s classification.
Let us see who the liars are. Filtering the bottom left by selecting values of “Lying to its own people” < 0.5 & “Lying to foreigners” < 0.5 yields the following countries: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Eritrea, Myanmar, Nicaragua, North Korea, muscovy, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. As expected, the list is mostly made up by the kremlin and its allies.
Doing the opposite to find out which countries have governments that do not lie, located in the top right corner of the graph, results in a list of 22 countries. The list includes the Baltic and Nordic countries, eight more European countries, three American countries, two African, and one Oceanian country. We can also find two autocratic regimes in the neighbourhood which seem to be reasonably honest. The autocratic regimes, red dots in the upper right (>3.5,>3.0) are Papua New Guinea and Benin.
Most autocratic regimes are liars. Only a few democratic governments lie.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Note: Note: The indicators range from 0 to 4. For lying to foreigners or its own citizens, a 0 indicates that the regime lies extremely often about all key political issues, a value of 1 that it often lies, a value of 2 that it lies about half the time, a value of 3 that it lies rarely, and a value of 4 that it never or almost never lies. Autocrats and democrats are categorised following V-Dem’s categorisation. Autocrats = Closed autocrats + electoral autocrats. Democrats = Electoral democrats + liberal democrats.
Which governments are angels and which are devils of disinformation? If one by angels define governments that are not only victims but also refrain from lying about other governments, the V-Dem database can help me to find out. And it can also help us point out those governments that can be defined as devils, i.e. perpatrators that are not subject to lies from other governments but cannot stop lying about other governments.
Victims and perpetrators
Replacing the x-axis with an indicator which shows victims of other governments’ disinformation yields a different pattern. The upper right corner is still dominated by democracies indicating that foreign governments seldom lie about them or to their citizens. Not all democratic governments are so lucky. The one in the upper left corner are subject to disinformation from foreign governments. By selecting values of foreigners lie < 1.5, & lying to foreigners > 2.5, we get a list of ten countries: Armenia, Israel, Latvia, Moldova, Montenegro, Qatar, Taiwan, Ukraine, United States, and Kosov. Eight of these are democracies, and Ukraine and Qatar are autocracies. As mentioned in previos posts, V-Dem’s classificatio of Ukraine as an autcracy is a consequence of introducing martial laws following the kremlin’s full-scale genocidal war against her.
Some autocratics governments are lucky in the sense that few foreign governments disseminate disinformation about them and their policies to their citizens. Focusing on the bottom right corner of the graph, we find the perpetrators of disinformation that are seldom targets of disinformation from other countries. By selecting values of foreigners lie > 2.5, & lying to foreigners < 1.5, we get a list of ten countries: Afghanistan, Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Guatemala, Guyana, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Philippines, Russia, and Zimbabwe.
The disinformation war. Democracies are targets and autocracies are perpetrators.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Note: The indicators range from 0 to 4. For Foreigners lie. 0: Extremely often. Foreign governments disseminate false information on all key political issues. 1: Often. Foreign governments disseminate false information on many key political issues. 2: About half the time. Foreign governments disseminate false information on some key political issues, but not others. 3: Rarely. Foreign governments disseminate false information on only a few key political issues. 4: Never, or almost never. Foreign governments never disseminate false information on key political issues See above. Autocrats and democrats are categorised following V-Dem’s categorisation. Autocrats = Closed autocrats + electoral autocrats. Democrats = Electoral democrats + liberal democrats.
Political parties in muscovy serve one purpose: to lie.
muscovy also uses its political parties, especially United Russia, to disseminate lies. The chairperson is Dmitry Medvedev, known for threatening Ukraine with annihilation and the West with nukes. This means that the kremlin of course has full control over the party, it is not an independent entity. Graphing both muscovy government and party dissemination of false information at home and abroad proves that point.
Lies, lies, lies.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Note: See above.
But facts have not prevented the kremlin’s representatives from making fools of themselves.
A hypocritical, pathetic, and pathological liar.
Source: The muscovy department of lies and bullshit.