{"id":4523,"date":"2017-03-01T16:58:31","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T22:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/?p=4523"},"modified":"2017-03-01T16:58:31","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T22:58:31","slug":"fighting-fake-news-twisted-history-cyber-trolls-the-247-lithuanian-life-of-linas-johansonas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/fighting-fake-news-twisted-history-cyber-trolls-the-247-lithuanian-life-of-linas-johansonas\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Fake News, Twisted History & Cyber Trolls: The 24\/7 Lithuanian Life of\u00a0Linas Johansonas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandy Baksys.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ruta
Ruta Deg\u016btis president of Lithuanian American Citizens Club (l.) and Linas Johansonas in 2016 in the Gintaras Dining Room at the Lithuanian Club in Cleveland.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If his voice is a little ragged and his words come out rapid-fire, that\u2019s because Linas Johansonas, 57, is simultaneously living two very full \u201cLithuanian lives.\u201d His first life is grounded in Cleveland, Ohio\u2019s 18,000 square-foot Lithuanian Community Center, where Johansonas assists R\u016bta Degutis, president of the Lithuanian American Citizens Club, with publicity and other nuts and bolts of the Club\u2019s daily schedule of events.<\/span><\/p>\n

Johansonas\u2019 second life is anchored in cyberspace: his influential Facebook page LTnews.net, where 24\/7, he vets and posts, in English, the most interesting news from anywhere in \u201cthe Lithuanian world.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Johansonas sees one of his primary missions as educating his followers in Lithuania about the \u201cLithuania abroad.\u201d That \u201cabroad\u201d today includes places as far-flung as Zimbabwe and South Korea. <\/span><\/p>\n

To develop an increasingly informed, patriotic, and united Lithuanian cyber community\u2014the virtual analog of his bricks-and-mortar community-building in Cleveland\u2014Johansonas posts everything from Lithuanian patriotic memes to geopolitical, sports, cultural, and entertainment news. In a medium where information is already instantaneous, Johansonas strives to be first-to-market with credible news that has been filtered and verified and reflects Lithuanian life in every corner of the world. (See sidebar story.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s Propaganda Machine<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin\u2019s anti-Lithuania information war (documented in the 2014 YouTube.com \u201cWar 2020: Russia\u2019s Information Aggression\u201d) inevitably led Johansonas to become one of Lithuania\u2019s staunchest defenders in cyberspace. There is a family tradition here: his father was a World War II Lithuanian partisan, and his paternal grandfather was a colonel during Estonia\u2019s 1918 war of independence. \u201cPatriots have to unite to combat this online Russian propaganda campaign that most people don\u2019t even know about,\u201d adding wryly,\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s a lot less painful than getting hit with a bullet and dying.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

On his LTnews.net portal, which has more than 22,500 \u201clikes\u201d and posts that can individually garner a million views, Johansonas says he sticks to posting and lets other readers, some with \u201ca shorter fuse than I have,\u201d take care of the inevitable Russian trolls. However, in the other two Facebook groups that he administers, \u201cThe Lithuania Group\u201d and \u201cI Love Lithuanian Food,\u201d he often acts directly as a so-called \u201celf,\u201d or troll-fighter. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Elves\u2019 vs. \u2018Trolls\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a legitimate war; I\u2019ve seen it with my own eyes,\u201d Johansonas says, giving the example of the infamous Russian disinformation troll \u201cMagdalena\u201d with multiple accounts photo-profiled by a nun with a machine gun. Johansonas also recalls a fake account mimicking the Lithuanian Embassy in London that had more likes and visitors than the actual embassy portal. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Linas
Linas and the late Vytautas Kernagis in Cleveland, 2003.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe elves, there are a lot of us, and we are starting to know each other on Facebook and work together in secret Facebook groups where we inform on and vet suspected trolls,\u201d Johansonas explains. To be clear, he says, \u201cJust posting a pro-Russian opinion doesn\u2019t make a person a troll.\u00a0<\/span>It could be somebody who just believes what the trolls say. You dialogue with that person online and you try to persuade or convince them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, he explains, when the majority of \u201celves\u201d agree in their secret group that an account does belong to a troll, usually after cyber-sleuthing the account-holder\u2019s real identity and location, the \u201celves\u201d take steps to shut the troll down. <\/span><\/p>\n

If the propaganda is emanating from Lithuania, local law enforcement is called in because disseminating pro-Soviet or pro-Nazi views is against the law there. But, if, instead, the Russian troll is located in England or the U.S., his or her fake accounts are reported to Facebook. Fortunately, Johansonas says, Facebook shuts down fake accounts whether they are cyber-stalking\u2014or purveying pro-Kremlin propaganda. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Career ADD\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Johansonas did not set out to do battle as chief Internet information officer for the Lithuanian world. He describes as \u201ccareer ADD\u201d his zig-zag through multiple kinds of Lithuanian activism after more than a decade immersed in Cleveland\u2019s rock & roll scene as host of a popular radio program showcasing local rock talent\u2014 and longtime promoter of Cleveland\u2019s storied rock & roll venue, the Agora Ballroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Linas
Linas (r.) \u200bwith Jerry Seinfeld in Cleveland in the early 1990\u2019s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the home city of the world-famous Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Johansonas\u2019 work put him in contact with personas such as Jerry Seinfeld and the legendary Steve Popovich of Cleveland International Records, who discovered Boston and Meatloaf, signed the Jacksons to Epic Records, and was ultimately responsible for the release of Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cThriller.\u201d’<\/span><\/p>\n

There was only one thing strong enough to drag Johansonas out of the cradle of rock ‘n’ roll and set him on his \u201cBack to the Future\u201d return to the patriotism of his Lithuanian Saturday school days. <\/span><\/p>\n

That historic catalyst was January 13, 1991, and how the courage of young patriots like Cleveland\u2019s Linas Muliolis made Johansonas feel \u201cjealous\u201d that he wasn\u2019t manning the barricades and standing\u00a0<\/span>in defense of Lithuania\u2019s peaceful struggle for independence. <\/span><\/p>\n

Soon after innocent Lithuanian lives were lost on that \u201cBloody Sunday,\u201d in spring 1991, Johansonas made a life-changing first trip to Lithuania. \u201cI saw the tanks around the Vilnius TV tower, the Lenin statue being guarded by Soviet troops in Klaip\u0117da with people singing across a fence with a sign that said, \u2018If you cross this fence, you will be shot.\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

From Cleveland to Union Pier<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Upon his return to Cleveland, he immediately began injecting a new Lithuanian activism into his music promotions work, first by ordering and selling Lithuanian basketball\u2019s famous tie-dyed \u201cSkullman\u201d jerseys from the Agora theatre, then holding Grateful Dead-tribute benefits there to support the Lithuanian Olympic team. <\/span><\/p>\n

He joined the board of Cleveland\u2019s Lithuanian Community Center, began working for the local honorary consul of Lithuania, and became a correspondent for the Draugas daily newspaper, covering Cleveland Cavaliers player \u017dydr\u016bnas Ilgauskas and other topics. Some of his stories ran in Lietuvos Rytas (\u201cLithuanian Morning,\u201d a Vilnius-based daily paper) and Toronto\u2019s Lithuanian newspaper.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2000, Johansonas finally retired from the Agora. Not long thereafter, at the request of his girlfriend Milda Rudaitis, he moved to Lithuanian vacation haven Union Pier, Michigan. There, he assisted in converting the local produce store into the now-famous \u201cMilda\u2019s Lithuanian specialty foods shop.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Johansonas returned to his Cleveland roots in 2014, Paul Ruk\u0161\u0117nas, LTnews.net website founder, asked Johansonas to launch an LTnews.net Facebook page to help promote the website. Johansonas\u2019 Facebook page became the sole portal for LTnews.net last year when the news website was attacked by hackers. <\/span><\/p>\n

Burning the Soviet Flag at 15<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

An activist at 15, Johansonas remembers burning Soviet flags (stitched by a neighbor) atop the \u201cfree speech rock\u201d in Cleveland\u2019s Public Square, collecting signatures in the city\u2019s downtown Arcade Mall, and marching in its annual \u201cAll Nations\u201d parades in protest of the 1975 Helsinki Accords. These acts came from his realization that\u00a0<\/span>marching silently in candlelight to the Lithuanian church with his elders was not enough. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\u201cMy
\u201cMy first-ever selfie\u201d \u2014 Linas Johansonas with Lithuania\u2019s Foreign Minister Linas Linkevi\u010dius at the Lithuanian Community Center in Cleveland, 2015.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Johansonas, living a \u201cLithuanian life\u201d has always been about finding\u2014and raising\u2014his Lithuanian voice. He explains, \u201cI am a Lithuanian born and raised in a foreign land by two WWII refugees. Everything I am, I owe to my parents.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

His mother, Irena Ancevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117 of the Panemun\u0117 suburb of Kaunas, is the daughter of a Lithuanian colonel. His father, the late Henrikas Johansonas of Kv\u0117darna, was the son of the director of a dairy plant. <\/span><\/p>\n

Before fleeing Lithuania, Johansonas\u2019 dad was a \u201cForest Brother,\u201d then, while a displaced person in post-war Germany\u2019s French zone, a member of an Allied Forces Theater Company called the \u010ciurlionis Ensemble. He supported his wife and children by working 30 years at the Cleveland Twist Drill factory.<\/span><\/p>\n

From a Long Line of Patriots<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The original 1, 5, and 20 Litai currency issued in 1922 bear the signature of Johansonas\u2019 great-grandfather, Ipolitas Jazdauskas, Senior Inspector of Credit Bureaus and Cooperative Inspection Units in the first Lithuanian Finance Ministry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Johansonas draws inspiration from his \u201clong line of Lithuanian patriots.\u201d And the longer he does battle in the information wars, the more he realizes that these roots are a blessing, \u201cbecause you come across a lot of people who, though not exactly trolls, upon research into their Lithuanian ancestors, discover things that weren\u2019t heroic. Then from the guilt and the shame of having a Soviet ancestor who, for example, sent thousands to their deaths in Siberia, the individual tries to lessen the crimes of the Russians by making what the Germans and the Nazis did worse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Holocaust Hazing\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In Lithuanian Facebook groups like \u201cAll Things Lithuanian\u201d and Johansonas\u2019 \u201cThe Lithuanian Group,\u201d mere assertions of Lithuanian ethnicity by descendants of the Lithuanian \u201cDP\u201d generation can be met with relentless Holocaust hazing. In extreme cases, \u201cHolocaust hazers\u201d in the groups attack the very existence of Lithuanian ethnicity, much like trolls spewing Russian propaganda.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The need to fight back online drives Johansonas\u2019 work with the Cleveland Lithuanian Community Center\u2019s archives. He is also about to embark on a fundraising drive to help publish a book in English by Augustinas Idzelis, president of the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, Chicago. According to Johansonas, Idzelis\u2019 book contains important research on the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) founded by military officer and diplomat Kazys \u0160kirpa. The LAF formed a provisional government that existed briefly in 1941 and declared Lithuania\u2019s independence from the Soviets. <\/span><\/p>\n

This critical period relates directly to the Lithuanian Holocaust and the often incomplete and politically compromised information that has been circulated for more than 50 years about collaboration by named Lithuanian officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Bad Information Piled on the Lithuanian Nation\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI see a lot of bad information that\u2019s been piled on the Lithuanian nation,\u201d Johansonas says. \u201cA lot of that is because the other side, those promoting the negative, pro-Soviet view of World War II-era Lithuanian nationalism, have had a 50-year head start on getting their views out. For too long, they\u2019ve been able to write the history of our people with little dissenting information.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Linas
Linas with Ian Hunter in Oct. 2016 in Cleveland. Hunter was lead singer of Mott The Hoople and famous for the songs \u201cCleveland Rocks\u201d\u00a0 and \u201cAll The Young Dudes.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He explains that even those who cite Lithuanian historians don\u2019t realize that \u201chistorians in Lithuania don\u2019t always use all the resources available to them from the diaspora, for example, the archives in Putnam, Conn., and transcripts of the Congressional hearings that were held after WWII on what happened in the Baltics.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The result, today, he contends, can be seen in some hostile, vocal efforts to try to force Lithuanian authorities to remove monuments to some of Lithuania\u2019s anti-Soviet heroes. After a street in Vilnius named for Kazys \u0160kirpa came under attack, Johansonas helped publicize a previously unknown 1941 news clip from Draugas reporting an order by \u0160kirpa against the persecution of Jews in Lithuania. <\/span><\/p>\n

He expects that as more of the Draugas archives from 1941 are searched, additional information will emerge that helps nuance, defend or redeem the reputations of some of the leading Lithuanians who have been attacked. <\/span><\/p>\n

Defending Lithuania by Correcting, Defending Its History<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Johansonas hopes other discoveries will help him promote the importance of understanding all the factors behind the Lithuanian Holocaust, which, because of its massive scale and a 50-year absence of independent Lithuanian perspectives and research, has become a kind of anti-Lithuanian \u201cdeath star.\u201d He contends, \u201cFor too long, the Holocaust has been used, propaganda-style, to condemn the entire Lithuanian nation. It\u2019s also used to conflate the legitimate drive for new documentation, new voices, and new research on that historical period with what everyone agrees is totally illegitimate Holocaust denial.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Johansonas doesn\u2019t believe that being a Lithuanian patriot in these times of fake news and twisted history by necessity means becoming an online information \u201cwarrior\u201d like him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut with the Internet, the stakes of true versus false information have never been higher. There are an unlimited number of people who can be influenced.\u201d He adds, \u201cWhile we\u2019re alive, Jon Platakis (founder of the National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame) and I are on a mission to correct as much misinformation as we can about Lithuania\u2019s history.\u201d The two are currently researching the proposition that the vast medieval Lithuanian nation, the largest in Europe, was an empire, not a grand duchy, and that many of the so-called Lithuanian \u201cgrand dukes\u201d who followed King Mindaugas were, in actuality, also kings. <\/span><\/p>\n

While working part-time in local rock promotion to support himself, Johansonas resists \u201cpeople I know trying to drag me back into the music scene. With the time I have left, I want to live a Lithuanian life.\u201d He explains, \u201cWe live in an important time in our country\u2019s history. I feel as a tribe, a people, we have this opportunity. I think about what the Lithuanian history books someday are going to say about us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"Linas
Linas (second from left) \u200bwith Deborah Harry of Blondie (center) and Agora co-workers in Cleveland in the mid 1990\u2019s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sandy Baksys. If his voice is a little ragged and his words come out rapid-fire, that\u2019s because Linas Johansonas, 57, is simultaneously living two very full \u201cLithuanian lives.\u201d His first life is grounded in Cleveland, Ohio\u2019s 18,000 square-foot Lithuanian Community Center, where Johansonas assists R\u016bta Degutis, president of the Lithuanian American Citizens Club, with publicity …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,122,135,70,71,64],"tags":[111],"class_list":["post-4523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-culture","category-diaspora","category-geography-regions","category-history-1900","category-history-before-1900","category-politics","tag-baksys-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4544,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4523\/revisions\/4544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}