I am not seeking to defend the Putin regime. There is much in Russia that is not perfect. I was a member of the Council of Europe delegation to the presidential elections, and I know it is
not a perfect democracy, but let us keep a sense of proportion. So much progress has been made, and Russia is an infinitely freer and better place than it was under the Soviet Union. It is not perfect, it is not pleasant and it is not our sort of democracy, so I do not defend the Putin regime, but I want to get a sense of proportion in this debate.
Let us look at the evidence from the Oxford Internet Institute, which is part of Oxford University. It investigated more than 100 Russian-linked Twitter accounts and their activity in the run-up to our EU referendum. The results of the investigation are worth noting. It found that
“(1) Russian Twitter accounts shared to the public, contributed relatively little to the overall Brexit conversation, (2) Russian news content was not widely shared among Twitter users, and (3) only a tiny portion of the YouTube content was of a clear Russian origin.”
The fact is that the majority of the UK population—to a significant extent—is not on Twitter.