Russian Cyberwar and Propaganda: Workshop

the American social media users, it offers a crash course on goals, strategies and methods used by the Kremlin on the US population as well as simple defense tactics. The 60-minutes class is followed by 30 minutes Q&A session.

WHEN AND WHERE:

San Rafael
December 6-- Rebound Bookstore,
1611 4th St San Rafael, California 94901

Oakland
December 16-- The Octopus Literary Salon,
2101 Webster St @ 22nd, Oakland

San Francisco
December--January--dates/venues pending

Berkeley
December-January--dates/venues pending

Radio Shows
December-January--dates pending

Webinar
December--dates pending

*Multiple events at high school, colleges and companies in the Bay Area as well as New York are currently being discussed. Please check in soon for added events.

**If you want to book our team in your town/venue in the Bay Area or NY please contact Zarina Zabrisky or Olga Tomchin. All events are free and open to the public.

PRESENTER:

Zarina Zabrisky is an award-winning American author of five books published internationally. Zabrisky acquired her knowledge of propaganda and brainwashing techniques while receiving her MA at the Philology Department at Leningrad State University (alma mater of Putin, Medvedev, Sechin and Olgino trolls.) A compulsory combat propaganda course was a part of her English language and literature curriculum. Zabrisky is familiar with US mass media through her work at the CBS News Bureau in Moscow in 1990s and, recently, through providing research support to multiple publications, including Time, WSJ, BBC News, the Guardian and more. Zabrisky analyzed the Russian propaganda attack on the West for two years prior to the US Presidential elections and is the author of over twenty articles on the subject of propaganda and political technology, published in Indivisible Movement, Digital Left, Crossing Genres, Anthropology Now and other publications. She was featured as a top writer in the Psychology and History genres in 2017 and a suggested writer in Politics on Medium. You can find more at www.zarinazabrisky.com and www.artsresisance.com.

FACILITATOR:

Olga Tomchin is a human rights lawyer with a focus on fighting deportations, prisons, and transphobia. In addition to being the Senior Strategy Consultant at Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network (SIREN), Tomchin, a Soviet Jewish refugee, is a major community organizer of progressive Soviet immigrants. Previously, Tomchin worked as the Deportation Defense Coordinator & Staff Attorney at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). She was also a 2013 Soros Justice Fellow at Transgender Law Center where she founded the Immigration Detention project. Tomchin serves on the board of the Pride Law Fund and spent three years on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California before resigning publicly due to ACLU representation of the Charlottesville Nazis. Tomchin completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California and her law degree at Berkeley. Her legal scholarship has been published in the California Law Review and cited by federal courts.

HIGHLIGHTS

1. Role of propaganda in the current political situation in the US
2. Role of Russian propaganda in the US elections 2016
3. Putin’s goals
4. Summary of the Kremlin ideology
5. Propaganda projects in the US and Western Europe
6. Overview of major Russian propaganda outlets (RT, Sputnik, etc)
7. Basic principles, goals and methods of propaganda
8. Examples of visual, neuro-linguistic and psychological manipulations
9. Practical guide to identify Russian propagandists, trolls and fakes
10. Ways of coping with propaganda and psychological defense

PILOT AND REVIEWS

A pilot webinar taught for 4,300 members of Anti-Trump Soviet Immigrants FB group (the advanced audience familiar with the Russian propaganda) got 1,200 views in a week and glowing reviews with requests for series:

"...I had tears in my eyes watching your live video because I felt the passion for our common cause of counter-balancing Kremlin's propaganda. And I salute you for bravery! The things you mentioned in the webinar HAVE TO be shared with our American neighbors - the good spirited people, the keepers of our democracy. Some of the things you revealed in the presentation were surprising to me, too. Especially HOW any information sifted through propaganda manipulation settled down in our unconsciousness to become powerful stereotypes that would drive people to do what they do. It is the power over human minds that the Soviets perfected over a long time. CIA knows it but the majority of Americans don't as that "intelligence" of the intelligence agency is simply not shared with them. At one point in time during your presentation, I felt privileged to be following/watching it. It's as if I was watching secret agents (true patriots of democracy who happened to come from a different country!) divulging in an ever-so-needed disclosure of some very clandestine information. This information must become mainstream common-knowledge for everyone to realize the dangers that come from Russia. Thank you a million times!"

"This needs to be on Fox, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, CNN... We are all being played one against the other. Resistance should be reaching out across the chasm of our beliefs and principles to the other side, trying to find common ground, using our human good side that is in everyone. And we need to find the way to do it outside of Facebook. Otherwise, we are just the other useful idiots for Putin."

"We need to start sharing it as soon as possible!"

"I would love for my husband to watch it. It is a great illustration of Russian propaganda that I am able to spot and understand but not explain to him. He still thinks reason will prevail."

"Great information necessary to be heard by NON-Soviet immigrants."