From marginality to mobilization: the emergence of a pro-Russian digital community in the Spanish speaking sphere

Abstract

This study examines the formation of a Spanish-language digital community on YouTube aligned with Russian narratives during the Ukraine war, following the March 2022 EU and YouTube bans on RT and Sputnik. We focus on eight channels that presented themselves as independent alternatives to mainstream media narratives about the conflict. Through computational analysis of 909,913 comments from 226,038 users (February 2022–February 2025), we document this community through three converging lines of evidence: substantial subscriber growth from minimal prior audiences, significant cross-channel audience interconnection, and discursive alignment supporting Russia while expressing hostility toward Ukraine, Western allies, and mainstream media censorship. The findings suggest platform restrictions may have inadvertently strengthened this community by providing mobilizing persecution narratives. Notably, Spanish functioned as a transnational bridge, enabling European-based creators to reach both restricted European audiences and other Spanish-speaking viewers worldwide, undermining the geographic specificity of content bans and amplifying the reach of these narratives. This research illustrates challenges of content moderation in multilingual, globally connected digital ecosystems.