Russia operates multiple news sites with the aim of spreading fake news and systemic propaganda. These sites are often easily traced back to Russia, where the front-end target is often members of the EU and/or the United States. Since mid-March 2021 Germany has been targeted at least 700 times and France was targeted 300 times with articles containing fake news. Analytics state that South Front, one of the Russian-backed news sites, could have as many as 1.5 million views per month. While this may seem like a small amount, South Front is just one of the hundreds of thousands of Russian news sites. Read more about how to avoid falling for pro-Kremlin propaganda here.
Welt, a German news site, interviewed Holger Frommert, about his work as a volunteer translator for the Russian misinformation site, South Front.
Frommert was a reader of South Front because he wanted to keep up on international news, but believed German reporting was not critical enough. Then he signed up to be a volunteer who translated articles into German and English. He began receiving direction over email from “Rene SF Team,” who sent him more than 100 articles to translate. He no longer works for the website because he was frustrated with their relationship. However, when Welt asked about South Front’s Russian origins, he claimed not to be bothered by it. In fact, he still reads South Front almost every day. Additionally, South Front itself is once again asking for German volunteers.
Find Frommert’s full interview in German here.
