Social media companies have failed to stop “large-scale” Russian disinformation campaigns since the invasion of Ukraine, the EU has said.
The EU Commission’s report said the “reach and influence of Kremlin-backed accounts” had grown further in 2023.
Russian disinformation has increased on X, formerly Twitter, since Elon Musk bought the company, the report added.
The BBC has approached Twitter, Meta, TikTok and YouTube for comment, but has not received a response.
The study, published on Wednesday, looks at attempts to deal with Kremlin-backed disinformation and suggests the rise has been “driven in particular by the dismantling of Twitter’s safety standards”.
The BBC has previously reported that accounts belonging to official Kremlin social media accounts have propagated false information about the war in Ukraine.
“In absolute numbers, pro-Kremlin accounts continue to reach the largest audiences on Meta’s platforms. Meanwhile, the audience size for Kremlin-backed accounts more than tripled on Telegram,” the report found.
The study also concluded that no platform consistently applied its terms of services in several eastern European languages.
Michael Castellon 