Cyberpolice launches Brama project to combat hostile fakes

Employees of the Kyiv City Department for Combating Cybercrime announce the relaunch of the Brama social project.

"BRAMA unites citizens from the public and private sectors to counter disinformation and illegal content, cleanse the information space of Russian propaganda, and destroy centers of illegal distribution of illegal and prohibited content. 

The project aims to improve the media literacy of Ukrainians and reduce the impact of propaganda on society.

Reasons for launching the project

The war is not only about territorial integrity, but also about information space. Russian information expansion has intensified since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. That is, Russians are trying to achieve their own national interests by unarmed penetration of the information sphere.

Unconscious consumption of information and insufficient information literacy have become prerequisites for a problem common to all Ukrainians — the dominance of hostile propaganda and fakes. Online disinformation has a negative impact on people's minds and the course of the war in general, so Internet users should always be cautious and be able to recognize fakes, propaganda, and disinformation.

Every day, when we scroll through our social media feeds and messengers, we come across information that cyber police believe to be false or dangerous. A conscious person has a natural desire to remove such information from the media space or block its dissemination.  

The authors of the campaign set the following goals:

• destruction of russian centers on the Internet,

• reducing the level of bullying and harassment online,

• countering drugs and fraud,

• cyber hygiene education and training,

• educating the public about information hygiene,

• engaging and motivating citizens to take an active civic position.

To block a source, you need to send complaints, and the more complaints there are, the more likely it is that the source will be blocked. It is for this purpose that the authors of the project invite users to become part of BRAMA.

What the project authors offer to participants:

1. The ability to report the source of unacceptable content, for further mass complaints by the community and subsequent blocking of such a source.

2. Help to block the source of unacceptable content by joining the mass sending of complaints.

3. Get advice on media and cyber literacy.

4. Be aware of dangerous fraud schemes that are spreading online.

5. To be aware of fakes that are promoted by enemies in our media space.

The team also offers participants entertaining content that will allow them to take a break from their tasks.

Results achieved

Today, the project has a Telegram bot that collects links to sources that need to be blocked, a Telegram channel where links to be blocked by the community are published, a Viber community, and pages on Facebook and Instagram.

Since the start of the project, users have sent more than 140 thousand links to sources that they believe should be blocked.

As of January 2024, community members have blocked more than 26,000 sources of inappropriate content. As can be seen from the statistics, there is still a lot of work to be done, and the cyber police needs the help of new caring and active participants.

What are your plans for the future?

The team is currently working on two websites and a mobile application:

The Cyber Brama website is a special website aimed at increasing the level of online safety among Ukrainian users from different social and age groups. The website will help users identify signs of threatening content or situations on the Internet and provide recommendations on how to respond to them to avoid undesirable consequences. 

The website "Chat rooms online". A website that will combine several areas of activity to increase user interest and engagement. 

The first area of the site's activity will partially duplicate the activities of the Telegram channel with more convenient navigation, as well as the ability to track your progress in blocking. It will allow users to choose the sources they want to block and see the results of blocked sources.  

The second is the educational block, which will contain lecture materials and test assignments for them. Each user will have a personal account to track their progress, and upon successful completion of test tasks, they will receive a certificate of successful completion of a particular module. Currently, 5 educational blocks are planned, which will be further updated and supplemented.

The Brama mobile application, which will function like a Telegram bot, i.e., it will receive and issue links to blocking, but will be more convenient to use. This mobile application may be relevant in case of blocking of Telegram in Ukraine, or for those who, due to their internal convictions, do not want to use the Telegram messenger.

You can join the Brama social project by following the link in Telegram: https://t.me/+w4kxmyvZCBNkYWEy.

According to the Cybercrime Department in Kyiv, on September 1, 2023, the President of Ukraine presented an innovative educational digital project "Mriya" for Ukrainian schoolchildren, their parents and teachers, which aimed to improve media literacy of Ukrainians and reduce the impact of propaganda on society. The project authors decided to rebrand the project with a focus on reducing the media presence of russian hostile content.