Russian Propaganda Outlets Are Obsessed With 'No Kings' Protests
Russian propaganda outlets turned their attention to the No Kings Marches held across the United States on Saturday, seizing on the opportunity to amplify domestic dissent to further their own goals.
Sputnik News, RT, and TASS News Agency all featured coverage of the protests on their websites and social media accounts, as well as affiliate stations in Asia, South America, and the Middle East. Coverage was multilingual, with articles published in English, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. (Note: I am not linking to individual articles and social media posts here because I will get dinged for that. Content can be verified through the screen grabs below).
Meanwhile, pro-Kremlin voices like Kirill Dmitriev, President’s Special Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries, weighed in via social media.
“Russian propaganda outlets turned their attention to the No Kings protests over the weekend, seizing on the opportunity to once again interfere in U.S. domestic politics.”
“Communist NYC,” Dmitriev commented on X, above a tweet showing footage of protests in New York City. He followed that up with another tweet that featured a screenshot of a Fox News article baselessly alleging that the No Kings protests were funded by a China-linked network of 500 organizations associated with communism and socialism.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors