Research: RT en Español is the third-most shared site on Twitter for Spanish-language info about Russia's invasion and in March saw a boost in Facebook likes
Associated Press : Tweets: @alirogin , @eliothiggins , @abcpolitics , @nickknudsenus , and @razhael Tweets: Ali Rogin / @alirogin : Fascinating, and scary: Russia is focusing its disinformation efforts re: the war in Ukraine on Spanish-language social media: https://apnews.com/... Eliot Higgins / @eliothiggins : Just a reminder that Twitter still tolerates the Russian government using its social media accounts to spread disinformation about war crimes in Ukraine. When does it get grotesque enough for Twitter for action to be taken? https://twitter.com/... @abcpolitics : Disinformation about Russia's invasion of Ukraine is surging in Spanish, as stories crafted for a Latin American audience gets a boost from the Kremlin https://abcnews.go.com/... @nickknudsenus : Putin is targeting anti-Ukraine / anti-US disinformation about biolabs and nazis toward Spanish-speaking nations where there is already significant distrust of the US. That disinfo will seep into America through apps like WhatsApp. #DemocracyNotAutocracy https://apnews.com/... Raphael Satter / @razhael : This @AP piece gets at what I've seen others saying: Russia may be struggling to get its narrative across in English, or in Europe, but audiences further afield may be more receptive to the story Moscow is selling. By @DavidKlepper & @AmandaSeitz https://apnews.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The research lands on a gap platforms have been warned about before: back in the [[a:959675|2020 election, Facebook and Twitter were already flagged for overlooking Spanish-language disinformation aimed at US Hispanic voters]]. What changed with the invasion is scale and intent — researchers now find the Kremlin's own outlet, RT en Español, ranking third among most-shared sites on Twitter for Spanish-language information about the war, with a visible lift in Facebook likes during March.
This is also consistent with Moscow's documented playbook rather than a new tactic: investigators previously traced a decade-long health disinformation campaign run through RT and social media, and researchers noted last year that as networks tightened English-language enforcement, Russian propaganda migrated into news comment sections and other low-friction channels. Spanish-language social media appears to be the current low-friction channel.
First-order effects
- Twitter and Facebook face immediate pressure over an enforcement asymmetry: Eliot Higgins publicly presses Twitter on why Kremlin accounts spreading war-crimes disinformation remain active, while the same research shows RT en Español content circulating widely in Spanish.
- Latin American audiences and Spanish-speaking communities in the US are the direct targets, with reporting indicating Moscow has deliberately redirected its disinformation effort toward Spanish-language social media.
Second-order effects
- Both platforms must either build Spanish-language moderation and labeling capacity comparable to their English operations or accept that RT en Español's share-of-voice advantage persists — a choice made harder because Russia has already restricted its own citizens' access to Twitter and Facebook, insulating the domestic audience from reciprocal scrutiny.
- WhatsApp, named among the channels in play, becomes the next battleground as shares migrate off moderated feeds into encrypted forwarding, where platforms have even less visibility.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, influence operations will systematically concentrate in under-moderated language markets, making per-language enforcement parity — not just per-platform policy — the metric regulators and researchers judge platforms by.
- State broadcasters like RT function less as news outlets than as reusable infrastructure across campaigns, from health disinformation to the invasion, which strengthens the case in Western capitals for treating them as instruments of state information policy rather than media organizations.
The trend: Russian state information operations are shifting toward non-English, lower-moderation language markets as English-language platform enforcement tightens.