Vatnik Soup by Pekka Kallioniemi

Vatnik Soup by Pekka Kallioniemi and Morten Hammeken – The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation – is a book that needs no introductions for any NAFO reading this review. Pekka is famous with his vatnik soups threads on twitter [x]. He is Finnish and he started writing about people spreading russian propaganda online [vatniks] in 2022, after the full-scale invasion started. His threads were so interesting that he gained an impressive amount of followers – over 183,000 today – and his soups are widely read. The one on Elon Musk has almost 53 million views!

I got this book from an event in London, back in January, when Pekka sold the last copies he had. We went to London specifically to see him, so I’m glad my husband was fast enough to snatch one of the last books placed on the table. The second edition of the book is now in print. I had my copy signed, of course.

This is rather short book for how much information it contains. The first part of the book is a guide to disinformation. That introductory part covers disinformation in general. The second part is about the specificities of russian disinformation – what they are saying and how they are spreading the lies. These two parts, in total, are just under 100 pages. There is enough to make clear what is happening without talking too much. I read these two parts even though I am familiar with both disinformation and the russian narratives.

The third part of the book are over 90 soups. These are the most interesting bits of information. The book covers propagandists from all over the world, including some well known names, like donald trump, Elon Musk, Noam Chomsky, Julian Assange, and Gerhard Schröder. I hope this sparked your interest. If you don’t want to commit to buying the book, check his website and browse through them, you will surely find something interesting there.

Vatnik Soup by Pekka Kallioniemi

Details about the picture: –
My rating: 5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: YES!
Published by: KLE-art
Year it was published: 2024
Format: Hardcover
Genre(s): Politics
Pages: 304

About the author: Dr Pekka Kallioniemi is an expert on social media and disinformation, who has worked as an independent consultant and a postdoctoral researcher on human-technology interaction at Tampere University (Finland). In addition to his academic interest in state-of-the-art technologies, he has also studied Russian online information operations and disinformation. In his current research, he combines these topics, focusing on how online information operations and disinformation may change in the future with the adoption of technologies such as ChatGPT, deep fakes, and generative AI.
Dr Kallioniemi has published the popular Vatnik Soup series since October 2022 and has regularly commented to national and international media on these issues.
Since January 2023, he has also been a columnist for the British newspaper Byline Times. Dr Kallioniemi‘s work has been covered in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Die Welt.
Website & Social Media Links: vatniksoup