https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...brainwash-young-into-opposing-putin-kwdzjnxv7
Russia’s consumer protection agency has launched an investigation into the effect of fidget spinners on children’s health, amid claims that they have been used to rouse opposition to President Putin. The agency, Rospotrebnadzor, said it would examine the “aggressively promoted” toys for “possible negative consequences”.
Fidget spinners usually have three or four arms that revolve around a central axis which can be held in one’s fingers. They were invented in the early 1990s but became a worldwide fad this year. The toys have been banned at some schools in Britain, America and France for disrupting lessons.
Rospotrebnadzor said spinners could be made from harmful materials that could come loose and shoppers should avoid those that gave off a “sharp chemical odour”.
The agency’s investigation comes shortly after Russian state television suggested that the toys could be used by anti-Kremlin activists to brainwash recruits. A programme on the Russia-24 channel called Virus said spinners were “instruments of zombification”, with “authoritative medics” describing them as a form of hypnosis.
Alexei Kazakov, the presenter, said: “Often they negatively affect the psyche and make people susceptible to manipulation.” Referring to opponents of Mr Putin, he added: “It may be far from a coincidence that spinners have started to be sold at protests of the non- systemic opposition.”
Ruslan Ostashko, a journalist, told the programme that the opposition was using spinners, “to attract young people . . . They perfectly understand that this is a simple thing that can be used to control the masses,” he added.
Some spinners are marketed as reducing stress, anxiety or the effects of autism, although there is no scientific evidence for that. Svetlana Filatova, a psychologist, told Russia-24 that spinners allowed users to forget problems. On the other hand, concentrating on a spinner sends people “into a different world” and makes them stupid, she said.
The Kremlin is thought to be unnerved by a surge in support among young people for Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner. In December Mr Navalny, 41, said he would run in presidential elections in March next year, when Mr Putin, 64, is expected to seek a fourth term. Mr Navalny used a spinner in a Moscow courtroom at the end of May, when he was sued for defamation by Alisher Usmanov, a tycoon. Large numbers of high-school pupils, students and other young protesters attended nationwide demonstrations organised by Mr Navalny in March and last month.
