Reports
Estonia Weekly: Voting rights and economic depression
This week, there were many posts claiming that the Estonian government wants to remove the voting rights of Russians and Belorussians and change the constitution to be able to do that.
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Latvia Weekly: Russia and European Parliament elections
In the examined week, content primarily surrounded themes of corruption mainly relating to the former prime minister and current foreign minister Krisjanis Karins and Russia concerning potential threats from Russia, trade with Russia, and communication from the government regarding these issues as well as the treatment of Russian diaspora in Latvia. The narratives of corruption and harmful treatment of the Russian diaspora in Latvia have been present in the prior examined months, whereas the argument on Latvia to retain some form of economic cooperation with Russia resulted from an initiative in the parliament to ban all such activities. When comparing the audience's response regarding similar content concerning the treatment of the Russian diaspora in Latvia on different platforms (Facebook and Twitter), the engagement reached on Twitter is noticeably more critical, calling out the author's logistical inconsistencies and misrepresentation of facts.
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Latvia Weekly: Media and Trump
During the examined week, the content primarily surrounded previously mentioned narratives, such as the need to support Donald Trump, corruption within the coalition government, the Istanbul Convention, and potential threats by Russia. A video published on Tiktok regarding a German warship in Riga garnered 740k views and 1,5k comments. The opinions expressed in the comments show two things: first, there is trust in the effectiveness of NATO and second, there is a brief that Russian threats might materialise shortly. Regarding the form of the content, TikTok remains the platform that creates the most engagement and reaches a larger audience. Some of the examined content creators are increasingly more active on Twitter, and engagement is not as high as in TikTok, but it is now comparable to that of Facebook.
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Latvia Weekly: Public Transport and NATO
In the examined week, the content primarily surrounded domestic issues relating to alleged corruption, the potential invasion by Russia, and the inability of NATO to protect the Baltic states. Such narratives have been employed by highly nationalistic content creators claiming to be supporters of Ukraine and those more aligned with the Kremlin narratives. The premise of the claim is that NATO is either ineffective not have the capability to protect the Baltic states or will not be willing to protect the Baltic states in the case of an invasion.
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