November 5, 2021 | Tagesschau
Russian state propaganda fuels COVID-19-related conspiracies among German social media
Our research on Russian state-controlled German-language broadcaster RT DE’s influence on YouTube and how it became an integral part of the COVID-19 sceptic online community is laid out in this article by Tegasschau. ISD Germany followed RT DE’s activity before the YouTube page was officially closed on September 28, 2021. While the page was eventually blocked, we found that many of its most popular videos, frequently pushing misleading narratives related to COVID-19 and Western democracies, reached over 100,000 views– the most popular reaching 1.2 million views. Furthermore, we found that RT DE was one of the most popular sources among COVID-deniers.
