An analysis by the Disinformation Situation Center, an association of NGOs, shows that content under the heading 'Z' supporting Russia's war of extermination in Ukraine is widespread on Facebook and YouTube, even though the propaganda clearly violates the terms of use.
Posts with “Z” tags on Facebook and YouTube were analyzed over a period of just under a month.
There were 921 videos on YouTube, which ran on 534 channels.
In addition, 8363 comments from 6242 users were examined.
For the analysis on Facebook, 1191 posts were examined.
For data collection, 4367 comments written by 1592 commenters were also analyzed.
The frightening result: only 5.54 percent of the propaganda posts on Facebook and YouTube were deleted.
Overall, only 2.45 percent of the examined Facebook profiles and 1.31 percent of the profiles on YouTube disappeared.
YouTube is quite successful in reducing propaganda by Russian state media in the EU and pro-Kremlin posts in Ukraine, but there is a lack of moderation of pro-Putin channels in the EU.
Of 72 channels, only eight were blocked, which had a total of 26.5 million subscribers.
There are too many systematic vulnerabilities on YouTube for effective control.
An example is the blogger Yuri Podolyaka.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, he has been spreading "military reports" consistent with Kremlin propaganda.
He had more than three million subscribers on his three official YouTube channels.
Two channels were blocked on April 7th, the third on April 12th.
Nevertheless, Podolyaka's videos can still be found on the platform.
His blogger colleague Mikhail Onufrienko encourages users to copy videos and put them on other channels.
Such backup channels are a common tactic used by Kremlin propagandists, writes the Disinformation Situation Center.