Author: Karolin Schwarz.
Editor: Saman Nazari.
This Flash report was made possible through the Counter Disinformation Network.
Summary
- The German-language branch of the Russian-sanctioned media RT set up a new X account in January and started posting on January 13.
The account was banned by X on the 17th of January but restored on the 21st of January - The account has accumulated 17.3 thousand followers, being accessible to European Audiences despite the sanctions.
- On January 15, RT DE also published an article promoting the account.
- The article claims it is testing if Elon Musk will deliver on his promise of free speech and mocks the EU and sanctions.
- The account should be sent to X and EU for enforcement.
Incident
In January, RT DE set up a new X account and started posting on January 13 (1).
Image 1: RT account on January 22.
On January 15, the outlet also published an article on its website, claiming the purpose of the account, aside from publishing RT DE content, was to test Elon Musk’s promise of free speech (2).
Image 2: Google translated from German to English. RT article claiming the purpose of the account is to test Elon Musk’s promise of free speech.
The article mocks EU sanctions and anticipates reactions from the EU, stating “We can already hear the howls of the Brussels bureaucrats about ‘unauthorised electoral interference’”. The article claims that RT DE is promoting free speech, that sanctions are useless and will be tested, and that the EU is censoring free speech.
On the 17th of January, the account posted a tweet promoting the other social media channels of RT DE and their circumvention domains (3).
Image 3: Google translated to English from German. Tweet promoting sanctions circumvention tools.
On the same day, the account got suspended from X.
Image 4: RT DE’s account being suspended.
On the 21st of January, the account was re-enabled. Following the re-activation, the account published a tweet thread celebrating the unblocking, claiming that “Your voice has shown that freedom of expression counts, especially on a platform like X”. The thread also acknowledges that the account visibility to European audience violates EU sanctions. The thread also linked to the previous tweet that promoted the sanctions circumvention methods (4).
Image 5: Google translated from German to English. Tweet celebrating the restoration of RT’s account.
The tweet also contained an article, claiming that the re-activation of the account followed RT DE filing an objection towards the suspension (5).
Image 6: Google translated from German to English. RT Article celebrating re-activation of X account.
As of January 22, the account has accumulated over 20 thousand followers, posted over 380 tweets, started live-streaming RT DE programs and paid for a verified check-mark (6, 7).
Financial transactions between RT and X violate sanctions against RT. Furthermore, X making RT DE content available to EU audiences has also been clarified as a violation of the sanctions regime. Read more about this in our sanctions report (8).
Impact
While the real impact of the account is hard to measure at the moment, here are some numbers:
The X account has over 16,500 followers accumulated over a very short amount of time.
A post on X from January 15 sharing the RT DE article was reposted over 1.300 times and has amassed over 5.000 likes (9).
DISARM
The DISARM Framework provides a common language to describe disinformation actors’ use of manipulative behaviours and TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures). Below are a limited number of core TTPs that were used in this influence operation.
Objective: Smear – Smear the EU and sanctions
Objective: Encourage – Call for subscriptions and shares
Paid Account Asset – RT DE set up a new X account and paid for the blue check mark.
Domain Asset – RT DE is posting links to their articles using an alternative domain: rtde[.]online.
Actions Taken
We have flagged the account to European Governments and X (17/01/2025).
The account and its actions are likely violations of EU sanctions against RT.