Content Creator in Uniform
Belarus’s “Genocide” Campaign on YouTube
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Social media platforms are potentially a powerful propaganda tool for autocrats. In Lukashenka’s Belarus, the General Prosecutor’s Office is spreading a historical-political narrative of the “genocide of the Belarusian people” on YouTube. Video series about the war crimes committed by the German occupiers build a bridge to the present. The aim is to prove that the enemies of the Belarusian people of yesterday are returning today in the form of “NATO aggressors”, “Ukrainian fascists”, and “traitors”. But these series have failed to mobilise the public.
(Osteuropa 1-3/2025, pp. 451–458)