This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality

Welcome to the era of total information warfare. Fake news, demagoguery, bots on Twitter and Facebook, hackers and trolls have led to the point where nothing remains of the very concepts of “freedom of speech,” “democracy,” or even the old ideas about “left” and “right” politics. Willingly or not, every day we become carriers and spreaders of propaganda. Is there a way out—and what can our recent past teach us? Peter Pomerantsev, journalist and researcher of propaganda, set off on a round-the-world journey in search of the truth (or what remains of it). He visited the Philippines, Mexico, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom, where he met Twitter revolutionaries, online populists, jihad supporters, bot-farmers, and other barely noticeable people whose actions shape public opinion and our future. “This is not propaganda”—his dispatch from the battlefield for a reliable reality.