(INFOGRAPHICS) Can Perfect TV help sway Armenian election results?

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A case study in how disinformation and deceptive practices have become the mainstay of Armenian political content on YouTube.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent the opinions of the author’s employer.

Perfect TV is one of the most notorious Armenian YouTube channels. Such channels have gained prominence over the past 3 years in Armenian social media circles and currently represent more than 40% of all videos watched. Each such video receives an order of magnitude more views on YouTube than an average news broadcast or political content on the YouTube channels of traditional Armenian media.

Percentage of #Armenian Youtube channel views clustered by affinity, including “suspicious” #fakenews channels. Suspicious + Government + Foreign Funded = 70% of views

YouTube views of Armenian news/politics channels for March, 2021.

Through the use of click-bait titles and shocking/misleading content, Perfect TV has gained prominence as the #2 most viewed Armenian YouTube political channel (in March 2021) and may soon overtake the leader Azatutyun for the #1 spot.

 

Here, we’ll analyze just one of the most recent videos from this channel. It is probably one of the more “tame” videos but can serve an instructional purpose.

The mere existence of such channels and its impact on Armenian society is of grave concern. But now we’re also in an election cycle. Armenia will likely have snap parliamentary elections on June 20 which may end up as the most polarized and divisive in the history of Armenia.

Given the wide reach of Perfect TV (among other similar channels), it singularly has the potential to affect the opinions of a large number of citizens and as such affect the results of the vote.

But first, what is Perfect TV and who runs it?

What is Perfect TV?

Assuming views from Armenian diaspora are negligible, as of April 4, 2021 the channel has a total of 382K subscribers (17% relative to Armenia’s adult population of 2.26 M) and 170M total views. In March, 2021 alone, its 11.7M views translated to roughly 5 views adult.

The channel’s ownership is obfuscated and generally features a single male voice (who doesn’t identify himself) with various images of political actors floating in the background.

The YouTube about page for the channel lists a singular gmail address as contact information:

 

Research by antifake.am concluded that the channel is coordinated by a certain Vigen Sukiasyan.

Perfect TV has been frequently noted in Armenian media as an outlet for disseminating fake news. The content is predominantly political and heavily supports Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and frequently criticizes Armenian opposition. Pashinyan himself has shared their content on his own social media (which has more than 1M followers).

Pashinyan’s Facebook post on September 1, 2019 sharing Perfect TV content. Image Credit: Gegham Vardanyan (media.am)
 

Is Perfect TV alone?

Perfect TV is not the sole culprit in this phenomenon, just the largest one. And these channels combined control and lead the Armenian political narrative today.

Here are the top 10 most viewed shady channels to watch out for:

Special Note on Vardan Ghukasyan

Out of the above list, Vardan Ghukasyan, a former military police who left Armenia after serving jail time, is the only one who clearly self-identifies (though he keeps his whereabouts secret). He is also different in that unlike others above, he’s largely critical of Nikol Pashinyan (especially after the results of the war). Yet, he is more critical of the main Armenian opposition, such as in this video, shaming Vazgen Manukyan’s wife for her looks and more.

Nearly every one of his videos contains an over-use of extremely vulgar language intended to shock the audience. Referred to as “Armenian Wikileaks”, he has been the first to share some sensational documents related to defense procurement. However, most of his content is rather mundane. For instance, he may devote a significant part of his time to verbally abuse a mayor and his family due to the fact that some neighborhoods in their municipality don’t have natural gas service yet. In addition, Ghukasyan has become the go-to person to complain to about ill-treatment in the military or living conditions in jails.

Vardan Ghukasyan has promised to enter the political fight by endorsing a party for the elections.

Case Study: Manipulation of Pope Francis’ Easter blessing and opinions on Kocharyan

We decided to dive deeper into how Perfect TV manipulation works by taking their latest video, concerning Pope Francis’ Easter 2021 Urbi et Orbi blessing, which has a paragraph devoted to war around the world and a sentence mentioning Nagorno-Karabakh:

There are still too many wars and too much violence in the world! May the Lord, who is our peace, help us to overcome the mindset of war. May he grant that prisoners of conflicts, especially in eastern Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh, may return safely to their families, and may he inspire world leaders to curb the race for new weaponry. …
 

Video Title

The resulting video by Perfect TV looks like this:

Screenshot of Perfect TV’s Youtube Video
 

The title in Armenian is “Անիծում եմ քեզ վիժվածք. Հռոմի Պապը ալիևի տունը քանդե” and roughly translates as: “I curse you, you filth. The Pope tore down Aliyev’s house”.

Fact: The sensational title misrepresents that the Pope cursed Azerbaijan’s president Aliyev personally and that his lamentation on the fate of Armenian POWs was much harsher.

3:10 — Russia’s role in the recent Nagorno Karabakh war

 

 

 

Screenshot at 3:12 — Angry Putin

The video then transitions to the “support” of “loyal France” for Armenia. The narrator mentions that during the war Macron tried to call and send Pashinyan multiple letters in order to offer France’s support, which were ignored by Pashinyan.

Fact: The above assertion seems to be based on only one report in Hraparak (reprinted by news.am in English), that doesn’t cite any sources. Even in this report, it is mentioned that “true, Pashinyan replied quickly [to calls and SMS], but not once did he contact Macron on his own initiative and asked for anything.”

The narrator then pivots to criticism of Russia (implying that it betrayed its strategic partner Armenia) and alleges that Russia is staying silent about Armenian POWs still held in Baku.

Fact: Armenia suffered a disastrous defeat in the recent war and Azerbaijan is truly using the POWs as hostages (categorizing them as criminals and not POWs) in violation of the trilateral ceasefire. Due to Armenia’s weak bargaining position the head of the peacekeeping forces deployed after the cease fire, Gen. Rustam Muradov, is personally handling the negotiations. As a result there have been nearly 50 prisoners released so far, but Azerbaijan is believed to be holding nearly 200 more hostage. Russian ambassador to Armenia, Kopyrkin, underscored Russia’s position again two days ago that the captives must be released.

5:15 — Former Presidents, Putin, Kocharyan, and Constitutional Court

Screenshot at 5:17 — Robert Kocharyan

Considers it “odd” that first the former presidents (Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan) met, then afterwards Putin called Pashinyan, and immediately following that the Constitutional Court of Armenia decided to strike down section 300.1 of Armenia’s criminal code, under which former president Robert Kocharyan is currently being tried.

Fact: This insinuation of the inter-connectedness of these events is not supported by any facts. Yes, Putin has been cited as considering Robert Kocharyan a personal friend and has supported the jailed former president by repeatedly publicly congratulating his birthdays and holidays (rare to do so) and meeting with former first lady Bella Kocharyan (while he was behind bars). However to assert that the Armenian Constitutional Court follows the instructions of foreign leaders or even Armenian former presidents is frankly obscene. The petition on the constitutionality of section 300.1 of the Armenian criminal code has been in progress since July 2019 based on the request from lower courts. In fact, the decision to consider section 300.1 followed a lengthy saga that involved a successful attempt to affect the make-up of the court (with Pashinyan being able to unseat the president of the court and remove 3 of the 9 judges) and a request to the Venice Commission to get an opinion on the matter, which according to Kocharyan’s lawyers supported their argument (see podcast link below).

5:52 — Robert Kocharyan trial

At 5:52, the narrator says “it turns out that according to the Constitutional Court, violation of constitutional order is unconstitutional.”

Screenshot at 5:52 — Angry Kocharyan

At 6:13, the narrator says that “No one expected that after 3 years, the criminal case against Robert Kocharyan around the events of March 1 would end like this. Three years later, the Constitutional Court decides that this is an unconstitutional investigation.”

The narrator laments that while Kocharyan is still under trial (due to the 2nd “illegal enrichment” charge in the case), the main charge of violating constitutional order is gone.

Screenshot at 6:39 — Charismatic Pashinyan

At 6:45, the narrator claims that “recently, everyone was happy that the Robert Kocharyan case was going to go into the main trial phase and soon there would be a verdict on the Robert Kocharyan case. But that verdict didn’t happen because they were able to prevent it ahead of time.”

Fact: The Kocharyan case is only just now entering the main trial phase. There are hundreds of witnesses and Robert Kocharyan’s legal team has estimated that even if every witness is given 30 minutes to testify during the court hearings, the case may take more than 5 years from this point forward.

Side note: Here’s an episode of the Groong podcast with one of Kocharyan’s lawyers. Granted, the opinions expressed are one-sided but it may serve as useful for your understanding of the case.

7:05 — Money talks in Armenia, Kocharyan’s plan for elections 

Screenshot at 7:30 — Empty jail cell.

At 7:05, the narrator says:

“This is the style of such people. If you can’t buy something with money, then you can buy it with even more money. This has become the motto of Armenia many years ago.”

Fact: There is no evidence of bribery of the judges. In fact, the court now includes 3 judges that were appointed during Pashinyan’s premiership and approved by a parliament fully controlled by Pashinyan’s My Step faction. The decision itself was unanimous (with 1 judge recusing themselves).

At 7:24, the narrator says:

“Robert Kocharyan naturally won’t be tried for illegal enrichment. Robert Kocharyan already sees himself as a free man and soon wishes to consider himself as the leader of Armenia. This is what Nikol Pashinyan allowed. He allowed for the formers to come back, and to come back more rabid and in a more satanic style.”

Fact: The allegation of “illegal enrichment” is weak, politically motivated, and based solely on a single testimony that doesn’t even implicate Kocharyan directly, according to Aram Vardevanyan. According to recent polls, Robert Kocharyan is one of the most favored candidates from the opposition and as such may be seen as a potential threat by the Pashinyan team.

7:50 — All former Armenia and Artsakh presidents organized March 1

Screenshot at 7:50 — Serzh Sargsyan — Ending Frame

At 7:50, the narrator says:

“And the people will bear the brunt of all of this. And they gather and discuss the situation and say that Serzh, Kocharyan, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, former Artakh presidents are people who effectively organized March 1.”

Fact: The only former president being tried currently is Robert Kocharyan. Meanwhile, Nikol Pashinyan is the only Armenian leader (former and current) who was sentenced and served jail time for his role in organizing the wide-scale riots of March 1. Although the court case was considered controversial and his sentencing as too severe, it has never been overturned.

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Videos of the nature analyzed above are published every day by anonymous YouTube channels of shady provenance. They already have had a great role in affecting public opinion, societal divisions and displacing objective news content. But now this type of misinformation and disinformation runs the risk of affecting the upcoming elections on June 20.

 

Author` Hovik Manucharyan

Համաձայն «Հեղինակային իրավունքի եւ հարակից իրավունքների մասին» օրենքի՝ լրատվական նյութերից քաղվածքների վերարտադրումը չպետք է բացահայտի լրատվական նյութի էական մասը: Կայքում լրատվական նյութերից քաղվածքներ վերարտադրելիս քաղվածքի վերնագրում լրատվական միջոցի անվանման նշումը պարտադիր է, նաեւ պարտադիր է կայքի ակտիվ հղումի տեղադրումը:

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