By Jurga Bakaitė, LRT.lt.

When a Facebook group dedicated to selling second-hand clothes or home fragrances suddenly starts posting about government scandals and geopolitical conspiracies, most users scroll past without a second thought. That, according to analyst Alfredas Chmieliauskas, is precisely the point.

Chmieliauskas is co-founder of Repsense, a Lithuanian company that has been mapping how pro-Russian narratives spread across social media in EU member states. Its findings, based on monitoring activity in Lithuania, reveal a coordinated and sophisticated operation that reaches millions of people, often without them realising they are consuming propaganda.

Organic debate versus coordinated campaign

The first challenge, Chmieliauskas says, is distinguishing genuine public debate from manufactured narrative.

“Some narratives are organic – stories tied to specific events or topics being discussed in society. These are real issues, so they spread fairly naturally. Such discussions are more chaotic; they mutate. If you imagined the topic as a map, it would be decentralised – lots of different opinions, more noise. Picture a pub where people are just talking.

Inorganic narratives follow a different pattern: clearer scripts, more organised distribution, a smaller group of people working systematically. The spread is more defined in terms of timing. You get the impression that someone is coordinating the process,” he explained.

Read more: LRT.LT