Report
Latvia Weekly: How Outrage Is Fueling a Populist Surge
The previously fringe Union of New Latvians party is now polling to pass the 5% threshold for Riga’s city council. Its leaders Glorija Grevcova and Rūdolfs Brēmanis are generating social media engagement through content which can be described as “outrage porn.” They are stirring up outrage in their audience using charged and even fake topics to provoke strong emotional reactions. Guess the populist political party which gained the most engagements for its posts on Facebook, TikTok and Telegram? It was not Roslikovs, the leader of Stability! party. It was not Ainārs Šlesers, Trump-like leader of Latvia First party. It was Glorija Grevcova and Rūdolfs Brēmanis from the Union New Latvians.
Weekly Reports
Lithuania Weekly: Putin’s interview
Kremlin-aligned media outlets were covering highly scattered topics during this reporting week. Among them, they widely discussed US journalist Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The authors claimed that the conversation touched on important topics such as the threat of war with NATO, the situation in Ukraine, and a possible global nuclear conflict.
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Latvia Weekly: Living standards and train controversies
In the examined week, there was considerably lower production of content disseminating disinformation potentially due to a series produced by investigative journalists uncovering how much content is produced by a leading opposition party “Latvija pirmajā vietā” (Latvia in the first place). The common narrative in this week’s findings was corruption and the low level of living standards in Latvia. Most notably, as in prior weeks, the content has touched upon the controversy regarding the trains. In regard to the form of the content, video format creates the most engagement and significantly more engagement is reached on TikTok and Facebook in comparison to other platforms.
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Estonia Weekly: Navalny and Public Transport
This week, the focus remained on Kai Kallas and the signatures that had been collected that called for her resignation. According to the articles and a survey of 30,000 Estonian citizens conducted by the Centrist Party, two-thirds of the Estonian public supported the resignation of Kai Kallas. There was also a focus on the death of Navalny, with an article claiming that his associates have no way to prove that he died in custody. Other articles focused on the Estonian economy and the massive government spending, as well as claims that a government department wants to remove free public transport for school children and pensioners. Finally, there were articles mentioning the government refusing to give out delays on switching school language of study to Estonian in areas where the teachers still need to be at the C1 level. The articles claim that the Estonian government is more worried about the language switch than the quality of education the students receive.
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Lithuania Weekly: alleged embezzling of millions of euros
During this reporting week, Lithuania focused on one of the most significant financial crimes in recent history: the detainment of former BaltCap equity fund manager Šarūnas Stepukonis, suspected of misappropriating €27 million. In response to the scandal, BaltCap is withdrawing from several high-profile commitments. Notably, the investment fund has handed over the construction of the national stadium to another developer, causing delays and majorly increased costs. Pro-Kremlin outlets covered the Šarūnas Stepukonis case extensively, claiming he was not working alone and naming specific officials who “stood behind all of that”. Kremlin-aligned media outlets again used this domestic scandal to promote an anti-government narrative, accusing the current government of having direct ties with Stepukonis and jointly benefitting from the embezzlement.
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Latvia Weekly: Good Orban and Bad EU
During the examined week, the content primarily surrounded topics relating to China inspired by the visit of a political party from the opposition and corruption. As examined in the prior weeks, there is rarely a focus on international affairs. Nevertheless, during the examined week, a credible Latvian news portal posted an article on the preliminary measures issued by the International Court of Justice in South Africa v Israel. The article was highly discussed on the X platform as it let out significant information from the ruling to portray to be more favourable to Israel. It even included statements made by Israeli officials as well as highlighted the wrongdoings of Hamas but not of Israel.
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Estonia Weekly: Tucker Carlson, Biden and Putin
This week there were many more posts about the Estonian economy and the government being the one causing it because of the way they spend. This week the poverty was blamed on the many officials in the Estonian government. There were several posts about Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin, one in which the poster wondered how an interview with President Biden would have gone, claiming that he would not even be able to understand the questions, much less answer them. There was also a post listing the countries that owe their existence to Russia, which did not follow historical fact, and the poster stated that half of the world owes their existence to Russia and if the Russian government had ideas that were more similar to the west that many countries would join a Russian society of nations.
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Lithuania Weekly: Farmers’ protest takes over in Vilnius
Lithuanian Radio and Television worked with other supporters of Ukraine to launch a second iteration of last year’s successful pro-Ukrainian RADAROM! simultaneously, posts by Kremlin-aligned actors criticising this campaign emerged online, actively diminishing support for Ukraine. Moreover, during this reporting period, a large protest by farmers occurred in the Vilnius city centre. They brought their demands to Vilnius, lining the city’s main boulevard with around 1,300 pieces of heavy agricultural machinery. Kremlin-aligned media emphasised the ignorance and incompetence of the ruling officials. Once again, a large-scale event in Lithuania has become fertile soil for Kremlin-aligned actors to spread anti-government narratives.
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Latvia Weekly: Trains and food delivery
During the examined week, the content primarily surrounded topics relating to China inspired by the visit of a political party from the opposition and corruption. As examined in the prior weeks, there is rarely a focus on international affairs. Nevertheless, during the examined week, a credible Latvian news portal posted an article on the preliminary measures issued by the International Court of Justice in South Africa v Israel. The article was highly discussed on the X platform as it let out significant information from the ruling to portray to be more favourable to Israel. It even included statements made by Israeli officials as well as highlighted the wrongdoings of Hamas but not of Israel.
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Estonia Weekly: High living expenses and rightful actions of Russian Military
This week, posters were mostly focused on the Estonian economy, with posts focusing on taxes and tax brackets, which according to them, impact the average citizen more than the rich. Some posts wrote about the politicians giving the rich people more leniency. There were also many posts about the high electricity bills and cost of living in Estonia, and how this was all caused by Kaya Kallas and her parliament. Finally, the Russian embassy in Estonia shared a post from January which tells about Ukraine’s attempt to have Russia labelled and aggressor state. The post mentioned that this attempt was unsuccessful, and flipped the narrative around, claiming that Ukraine was targeting civilian areas, while the Russian army was only targeting miliary targets.
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