The social network Facebook remains an important source of information among the Belarusian internet audience. According to the media research “Media Consumption of the Belarusian Internet Audience in Belarus and Abroad,” conducted by the Baltic Internet Policy Initiative and the Digital Skills Coalition in September-October 2022, 28.4% of respondents in Belarus named Facebook as a news source among those who get information from social networks, and 79% of those abroad. Among the audience aged 45-54 in Belarus, the share of those using Facebook as a news source is 49%. We explore the image formation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Belarusian Facebook pages.
Using social media analysis tools, 1972 posts were collected on Belarusian Facebook pages mentioning Volodymyr Zelenskyy from October 18, 2021, to October 14, 2022, which had 153,699 interactions (likes, comments, shares).
The graph shows that the most interactions occurred at the beginning of the Russian Federation’s military aggression against Ukraine in February-April this year. The peak was on March 13-19, 2022 – 25.7 thousand interactions. Now it’s less than a thousand per week.
Top three posts that gathered the most interactions:
It can be seen that two of them are from the state-controlled TV channel ONT. In both cases, misleading information (fake or disinformation) is presented.
So what Belarusian state media sources published about Volodymyr Zelenskyy during this period?
- SB. Belarus Today – 160 posts
- TV channel ONT – 110 posts
- BELTA – 92 posts
- ATN: News of Belarus and the world – 21 posts. Almost all posts of these media contain misleading information.
For example, already described in detail and debunked – the fake that a 3D version of Zelenskyy is speaking before the audience. Here is how this publication looked on the page of the largest Belarusian state media – SB. Belarus Today:
On the “Pool of the First” page, associated with the press service of the current head of state, the last post mentioning Volodymyr Zelenskyy dates back to March 17, 2022. In total, there were seven posts mentioning V. Zelenskyy. The page itself has not been updated since early September 2022.
Another 221 posts were made by the dubious aggregator Belnovosti, which does not hesitate to aggregate and publish fakes. For example:
On the positive side, this post had no interactions.
It can be concluded that Belarusian state-controlled media are systematically working to discredit the current President of Ukraine – Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Publication prepared by Baltic Internet Policy Initiative.
