Eesti Elu / Estonian Life No. 49 | Dec 6, 2019

Nr. 49

EESTI ELU reedel, 6. detsembril 2019 — Friday, December 6, 2019

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EKN nominations deadline is extended to January 14, 2020

New! Candies for Kadri and Mart

December 1, 2019

English-language supplement to the Estonian weekly “EESTI ELU” Tartu College Publications Founding Chairman: Elmar Tampõld Editor: Laas Leivat 3 Madison Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 2S2 T: 416-733-4550 • F: 416-733-0944 • E-mail: editor@eestielu.ca PDF-/Digital: www.eestielu.ca

Trolls, Trump and Russian wrath Jessika Aro was for a while a victim of the Russian Trolls wrath. But she hasn’t submit­ ted to their intimidation and has engaged them in battle for the truth.

Aro, born in 1980, a Finnish journalist, began investigating Russian internet Trolls in 2014, seeing them as “a threat to Finnish people’s freedom of speech”.

After interviewing people working in the ‘Troll factory’ in St. Petersburg who were using fake on-line accounts and creating fake news, she experienced abusive vindictiveness including a phone call in which pistol shot was heard and a text message from her dead father ­ indicating he was watching her.

Russian nationalist websites claimed she was working for Western intelligence services.

The Trolls claimed she had been a “NATO drug dealer” because at the age of 18 she ­ had ben convicted of drug ­possession.

Not surprisingly, a fellow Finn, pro-Putin Johan Backman, a willing useful idiot for Russia, falsely accused her of being employed by the Estonian and US security agencies.

In 2016 she won the Bon­ nier’s Award for Journalism.

However a prestigious US ­honour was denied her for petty political reasons. After being informed by the US State ­ Department in 2019 that she would be a recipient of the International Women of Courage Award, officials discovered that she had been critical of Donald Trump in social media. She was told just before the awards ceremony by the State Department that the selection of her had been a “regrettable error”. The White House had intervened.

The Washington Post commented: “Ms Aro deserved the award. She should hold her head high for courage, unlike those who denied her the honour.” Thanks to Trump’s ­ White House, the Trolls won that particular battle.

One might assume ask that Donald Trump has taken a page out of the Trolls’ play book in using social media by demeaning, belittling and trying to discredit individuals who criticize or oppose him? The goal is the same – harassment by intimidation! But he hasn’t totally followed the Trolls’ tactics. While

Trumps attacks against out-offavour individuals are cruel, they still resemble the immature mean spirited bullying of a fourth grader.

The Trolls on the other hand display some sophistication in many of their distortions and fabrications. But both are still meant to humiliate and put their targets in public disrepute. While the Trolls get their marching orders from the Kremlin. It’s ­ said that Trump is spurred, not necessarily anger but by very low self-esteem.

Aro, in her 2018 book, “Putin’s Trolls – real tales from the front lines of the Russian information war”, details many other cases of Westerners who have been targeted by the Trolls for exposing the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign. They have been the victims of Russian hostilities aimed at them personally. The on-line attacks have not only originated from Russia but also from Russian compatriots in the West – collaborators – through false social media accounts. Some also have originated from Toronto.

A classic example is the case of Liz Wahl who worked as a news anchor for Russia’s RT TV network from 2014 to 2017.

Her sin was to state on-air that she could no longer be asso­ ciated with a Russian-funded network, whose main goal was to sanitized Putin’s activities.

Wahl: “I am proud to be an American who believes in disseminating the truth. For this I will submit my resignation at the end of this broadcast.”

Aro’s book describes how the Trolls have attacked Lithuanina diplomat Renatas Juska, a Ukrainian writer using the alias of Roman Burko, Norwegians Thomas Nilse, Atle Staalsen and Trude Pettersen, Swede Nartin Kraagh, Serb Jelena Milic and Bellincat’s founder Elliot Higgins.

Russian hate campaigns in the social media had not gained much attention until Aro’s book was published. One is bound to be on the receiving end of ­cyber intimidation by exposing and opposing Russian expansion in its global influence ­activities.

Do Russian Trolls have any effect on the recipient of social media? The University of Tennesse-Knoxville studied the 2016 US presidential election

Toronto – The Estonian Central Council in Canada (EKN) is extending the nomi­ nation period deadline for its upcoming national elections until January 14, 2020.

All interested individuals who wish to become a candidate for EKN 2019-2020 Elections to help advocate on behalf of our Estonian Canadian community, must submit the required form online by not later than 11:59 p.m. (or 23:59) of that date, if they have not ­already done so. Candidate Submission Forms can also be mailed to EKN, but must be received by EKN by no later than the deadline date.

The EKN Candidate Sub­mission Form for 2019/2020 is available online at: candidate.estoniancouncil.ca Candidate submission forms will also be available in Toronto at the Estonian Community Christmas / Rahva jõulupuu on December 7, 2019, between 12–4 p.m. at the Toronto Estonian House.

As EKN is converting toward a more digital environment more time is needed to expand electronic pre-registration by all Estonian-Canadians in preparation for e-voting on EKN’s new online voting system for the upcoming election. The extension will also accommodate the o­pportunity for an increased ­national presence by allowing for more candidates to be nominated.

The EKN Election Com­mittee believes it is important to allow extra time over the holiday period to ensure that all who wish to become candidates can do so. This includes making paper and PDF forms available during the extended nomination period for submission by internet or mail.

All Estonian-Canadians are highly encouraged to pre-register online for e-voting for the EKN election, which electronic pre-registration can be found at: election.estoniancouncil.ca In view of the nomination extension, the EKN election voting period has been re­scheduled to run from January 21, 2020 until February 24, 2020.

MATTI PRIMA Chair EKN Election Committee 2019-2020

Party ratings: Support for EKRE continues to fall ERR, December 2019 Support from the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) continued to fall last month while support for the Social Democrats (SDE) and Isamaa has risen, a survey by research firm Norstat shows.

The results show 35 percent of the eligible citizens support the Reform Party, 24.1 percent the Centre Party and 13.8 percent support EKRE. While the support of the Reform Party and the Center Party remains stable, EKRE’s support has been falling for three weeks.

The SDE received 10.2 percent of respondents support and Isamaa 7.2 percent. For both parties, this is an increase in

results and came to a tentative, but cautious conclusion. The research was published in a ­ peer-reviewed academic journal and has not been discredited.

The study analyzed 770,005 tweets as well as corresponding data from an archive of multiple polling outlets. It’s conclusions: Every 25,000 retweets of Rus­ sian accounts correlated to a 1% increase in Trump’s poll numbers one week later. Re­ tweets did not have a similar effect on Hilary Clinton’s poll ­

support.

The combined support of opposition parties, Reform and ­ SDE, is 45.2 percent and support for coalition parties is 45.1 percent. The last time coalition support was higher than opposition was in August.

The combined results of the surveys carried out in cooperation with the NGO Institute of Social Research and the research company Norstat Eesti AS cover the survey period from Nov. 5 to Nov. 29 and polled 4,009 Estonian citizens of voting age by phone and face-to-face interviews.

To ensure the representativeness of the results, sample data are weighted according to a proportional distribution of eligible citizens based on key ­ socio-demographic characteristics. There is a statistical margin of error of +/- 1.55%.

Well, it has finally happened.

Kalev confectionary company in Eesti began producing both Hallowe’en AND mardiand kadri/päeva (St. Martin’s and St. Katherine’s Day) kommi/segu, candy mixes this fall. Pictured here are the latter, good for use on 2 täht/ päevad (celebratory days) and unisex at that. This makes it somewhat easier to hand out treats to kids on Estonia’s two traditional masked holidays of “running” as beggars, well-wishing, singing, dancing and fortune telling on the eve before mardi/päev (9. nov.) as dark, lurking-in-the-shadows boys and on the eve before kadri/ päev (25. nov) as snow-white girls. The third similar “feast day” (literally) is the new, scary, masked, with tons more dress-up-variation tradition of Hallowe’en, which has reached all shores thanks to social globalization. Do Estonians know when to open their doors to feverish pounding in the fall? 31. oktoober, 8. november and/or 24. november? The first one is the most unexpected for older folks. And in our apt building in Tallinn, our neighbours of Rus­ sian descent seem shocked and surprised on the other two evenings as well. Location, location, location... (Asu/koht, asukoht, asukoht.) I currently find it just as confusing knowing which bins and bags to put out on garbage day in Toronto.

Photo: kalev.eu;

Text: Riina Kindlam

Minister of Defence: What the Russians want, we cannot give them BNS, ERR, December 2019

Correlation does not imme­ diately suggest causation. But despite protests by the White House, the Russian disinformation campaign was successful in influencing the 2016 elections.

What about 2020? Will Trump benefit once more?

Minister of Defense Jüri Luik said he is sceptical about French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for increased dialogue with Russia and believes heads of NATO mem­ ber states should stop making “colorful hyperbolic” re­­marks.

Speaking on Monday evenings Valisilm foreign affairs TV show he said: “Having been [Estonia’s] ambassador to Russia, I imagine that this dialogue does not carry much ­ added value for the Russians.

They want to get something out of it. What the Russians want to have, we cannot give them,” Luik said.

LAAS LEIVAT

(Continued on page 16)

numbers. The study also concluded that 91% of the first retweets of known Russian bots were non-Russian bots suggesting that propaganda spread into a network of real US citizens.