The study “Yandex’s Top-5 News as a Tool of Russia’s Propaganda Abroad: A Case Study of Belarus” by Daria Kravets from Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation looked at how the algorithms of the Kremlin-controlled search engine were biased to disseminate Russian propaganda.

Previous research on Yandex’s algorithmic bias has mostly focused on web and news search algorithms rather than the popular top-5 news recommender apart from one study by Daucé and Loveluck (2021). The potential of the top-5 news recommender to shape a country’s news agenda is significant, as news editors tailor their content to appear there. 

Here, a systematic longitudinal audit of Yandex’s top-5 news algorithm in Belarus from 2010 until 2022 is conducted. Belarus is a post-soviet country that has, after the breakup, maintained close economic and political ties with Russia under the autocratic leadership of Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Yandex is also popular in the country, starting its Belarussian version on April 14 2010, with a market share of 16-38%. 

It was found out in this study that the majority (52,2%) of Yandex’s top-5 news in Belarus came from sources with explicit connections to Russia’s ruling elites, and a significant portion of the  news was political. In addition, there was a pronounced presence of news featuring Russia and Russian actors. There was also a notable decline in Kremlin-critical news sources over time, such as a complete disappearance of Western and Russian opposition sites in 2018-2019 and Belarusian opposition sites shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

The implications are discussed. It does demonstrate how Yandex is a propaganda tool of the Kremlin, and further, the biases in Yandex’s algorithms may not be limited to Yandex’s search algorithms. Further research is needed in contexts other than Belarus, as the focus exclusively on Belarus was an acknowledged limitation. Also, the author self-criticizes the reliance on the Wayback Machine.

The article “Yandex’s Top-5 News as a Tool of Russia’s Propaganda Abroad: A Case Study of Belarus” by Daria Kravets is in The International Journal of Press/Politics. (Open access).

Picture: The national flag of Belarus by engin akyurt

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