Twitter

The X platform (formerly Twitter) might not be the most popular platform in the CEE region, but posts regarding a European Parliament committee’s visit to Hungary in May 2023 gained attention nevertheless. An analysis revealed that the posts about the visit were targeted by suspected inauthentic accounts in an attempt to discredit any perceived opponent of the Hungarian ruling party.

In this episode, Leszek Jażdżewski talks with Maciej Kuziemski about the recent takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, its implications for liberal democracies, and the future of social media.

Creating robotic Twitter accounts which generate automatic content on a selected topic became one of the most useful tools in the Kremiln’s disinformation propaganda. Over 80% of Russia-language tweets and almost half the English-language tweets on the NATO presence in Eastern Europe is created by pro-Kremiln robotic accounts.

We like, we share, we comment. And hence we feel that we did something good. Online activity and social media instead of encouraging being more active in real life, became a substitute of real action. Meanwhile, those who rule our countries will not get scared because of our “likes”.