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.
The authorities have accused Temirov Live, a respected investigative outlet, of inciting mass unrest, and jailed nearly a dozen of its current and former employees. A palpable sense of fear has descended on this country, once known as the freest in the region.
Our children will be taught to have sex and become gay at school. Minors will have their sex changed without their parents' consent, and the people enforcing the Istanbul Convention will remove children from their families. In the second half of 2023, the scaremongering about what disinformation spreaders describe as “gender ideology” returned to the political scene in Latvia.
All they wanted was fast cash, but what they got were prison terms. In recent years, the number of Lithuanians and Latvians arrested for illegally transporting migrants has risen sharply. This trend does not look likely to slow down.
Whether their goal is to amass a following, oppose environmentally friendly policies, or resist what they perceive as “totalitarian global control”, a diverse group of disinformation spreaders has shifted its focus to the topic of climate change. Who comprises this group? Where do they source their talking points? And have they successfully deceived the Baltic population?
By banning Kremlin's TV and online propaganda in the Baltics, the access to such resources has become more challenging only for those whose primary source used to be television. Now social media platforms have taken up that space, among which "Telegram" stands out because it does not share data with governments and does not moderate disinformation and lies.