Moscow’s little helper?

MEP Ždanoka's emails indicate that her assistant in the European Parliament was put forward by her contacts in Russia's security service.

MEP Ždanoka's emails indicate that her assistant in the European Parliament was put forward by her contacts in Russia's security service.

Latvia's social media users recently encountered an unprecedented attack of bots. During it thousands of accounts suddenly started to speak rudimentary Latvian and defend hockey players who had played tournament in Russia despite the ban. This was the first operation of such scale in one of the Baltic languages and has led to speculation that it could be a test-run before European Parliament elections.

Many people in Latvia believe so, but Re:Baltica found no evidence that content moderators on Facebook would consciously delete posts showing support for Ukraine. But there is another problem—its content policies are designed in a way that it is practically impossible to express negative emotion when speaking about the war. The Kremlin only benefits from this.