English functions both as the primary language of Western public discourse and as the lingua franca of global digital circulation. Producing content in English maximizes algorithmic visibility and allows messages to travel seamlessly across platforms and borders.

Accounts that frame conflicts in the Middle East as civilizational struggles, or that blend culture-war rhetoric with foreign policy messaging, now circulate widely on X, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. A significant portion of this content overlaps with political narratives originating from or aligned with networks in India, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates. Its reach is further amplified when extremist ideological networks in Europe and the United States reproduce these messages verbatim and simultaneously, dramatically increasing their speed and visibility.

Some of these narratives claim, for example, that converting to Christianity in Muslim-majority countries routinely results in long prison sentences, while others depict almost the entire Muslim population in Europe as a “potential threat.” Prominent European Muslim intellectuals who criticise the regimes mentioned above are targeted through these smear campaigns. At the same time, authoritarian actors accuse European democracies of being weak or naïve, while lending support to anti-democratic political forces within them.

At first glance, this strategy appears puzzling. Many of the claims are easily disproven; they are stripped of legal and historical context or openly exaggerated. For users with access to reliable information, such content is not persuasive but rather crude and off-putting.

If the goal is to influence public opinion, why invest so heavily in messages that are so obviously flawed?

The answer lies in a misunderstanding of what contemporary propaganda is designed to achieve.

In the digital age, propaganda is no longer primarily about persuading large audiences to believe a single falsehood. The core objectives are volume, repetition, and framing. The aim is not persuasion but saturation, to fill the space.

Emotionally charged content, especially when aligned with populist or identity-based narratives, is rewarded by platform algorithms. As a result, complex, evidence-based discussions, on war crimes, international law, or accountability, are crowded out by reactive, polarising discourse.

Moreover, the target audience is not limited to the “general public.” Journalists, policy advisers, think-tank researchers, and civil society actors all inhabit the same digital environments. When certain narratives are repeated endlessly, when some states are framed as embodiments of “stability” and “modernity,” and others as inherent threats, a subtle but consequential shift occurs in the background assumptions of policy debates. Universal belief is not required; internalised premises are enough.

For this reason, the apparent superficiality or low quality of such content can be misleading. Even with limited persuasive power, algorithmic propaganda succeeds by trapping attention in perpetual reaction, reducing the visibility of substantive issues.

Yet strategies that fail to generate legitimacy inevitably produce long-term erosion of trust. Over time, the very intensity and one-sidedness of these narratives invite greater scrutiny, encouraging the organic emergence and strengthening of counter-narratives. In this sense, algorithmic propaganda ultimately reshapes the public sphere against its own architects.

Our task, then, is clear: to support and amplify those who continue to produce serious, high-quality content, even when it is less noisy, less viral, and less immediately rewarded.

Ahmet Said Aydil