Social media referrals to pro-Kremlin domains 2022

Facebook and Instagram decreased the number of referrals to domains affiliated with RT and the Rossiya Segodnya media group, which are sponsored by the Russian government, by 100 percent between 2021 and 2022. Interestingly, even though WhatsApp was also owned by Meta, the number of referrals to these domains on the messenger saw an increase over that period. RT and Sputnik were banned in the European Union (EU) in March 2022 over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Number of social media referrals to domains affiliated with RT and Rossiya Segodnya from 2021 to 2022, by platform (in 1,000s)

Characteristic	2021	2022
Facebook	9,714	0
Twitter	7,005.15	2,512.69
YouTube	4,949.93	1,798.21
Vkontakte (VK)	2,702.84	2,621.3
Odnoklassniki (Ok.ru)	722.03	386.24
Reddit	85.04	7.99
WhatsApp	38.36	116.42
LinkedIn	20.2	0
Instagram	10.8	7.79
Pinterest	6.23	0
Disqus	3.78	13.23
Messenger	1.03	0

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Release date

October 2022

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

2021 to 2022

Supplementary notes

The media group Rossiya Segodnya operates Sputnik and other outlets.
RT was formerly named Russia Today.
The source identified a total of 131 websites hosting content in European languages, English, and Russian, of which 86 were functional. Of them, 69 were news sites.

Figures have been rounded.

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