Change of mood in Russia?
Citizens are probably questioning the Kremlin's propaganda more and more
Created: 10/30/2022 20:04
By: Victoria Krumbeck
Russia exposes its citizens to propaganda.
However, an analysis of search engine queries shows how the mood of Russian citizens is changing.
Munich/Kyiv — Those who live in Russia are confronted with Russian propaganda every day.
Independent reporting on the Ukraine war is hardly possible.
Therefore, many are left with no choice but to believe what they hear and see.
An analysis by the Google search engine in Russia shows that the mood in Russian society has changed.
This is said to be due, among other things, to the partial Russian mobilization and the danger of a nuclear war.
Russia: Internet data shows changing mood in society
As a Russian citizen, it is difficult to get independent information.
Reports in Russia are about a "special military operation" in Ukraine and not about a war.
The evaluation of the most frequently searched words in the Russian "Google Trends" should show that people are slowly questioning the reporting.
The most searched word in the last 12 months was “mobilization”.
"Ukrainer", "Ukraine state in Europe" and "VPN" were also frequently searched for, as the Ukrainian newspaper
Kyiv Post
reported.
The evaluation of Google search queries shows the mood in Russia.
© Beata Zawrzel/IMAGO
The term VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, which encrypts Internet traffic on unsecured networks and hides the IP address.
A VPN connection makes it possible to access websites that are blocked in Russia, for example, but are freely accessible in other countries.
The user is protected because his data is protected from third parties.
The growing number of VPN searches shows that some people in Russia want to do their own research.
They could use it to obtain information from international media and circumvent censorship.
In particular, social networks such as Instagram, which is blocked in Russia, can be accessed.
Analysis of search engine queries in Russia shows changing mood
In an interview with the
Kyiv Post
, Kyiv-born British journalist and author Peter Pomerantsev said that statistics on search engine queries are the most reliable indicator of Russian society's opinions.
Pomerantsev deals with the topic of propaganda in his work and wrote, among other things, the book “This is not propaganda”.
He stressed that it would make more sense to take such indicators more into account.
These could say a lot about Russian society.
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Yandex, the search engine most frequently used in Russia, could also say more about public sentiment.
Yandex statistics show that searches for "mobilization" in Russia increased sharply from mid-August, reaching more than 50 million queries in September.
The term "nuclear war" reached half a million queries in the same month, hitting the all-time high during the Ukraine war.
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Russians are increasingly searching for the term “retreat”
Searches for the words “denazification” and “demilitarization” fell in Russia, according to Google Trends and Yandex analysis.
Google queries for these two terms increased rapidly in early 2022, peaking in the first week of the invasion.
From May, search queries for the words fell sharply.
For example, searches for “demilitarization” hit 1.5 million in mid-February before falling to 69,000 in September.
At the same time, Russians are much more interested in “retreat” and “how to surrender”.
But unlike the Russian population, Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn't want to hear about it.
He continues to use harsh threats and harsh words against the West.
(vk)