DISINFO: Mein Kampf is more popular than Harry Potter in Latvia
SUMMARY
Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” is more popular in Latvia than Harry Potter.
RESPONSE
This plays into the recurring narrative that the Baltic states are leaning towards Nazism euvsdisinfo.eu/and-you-are-a-nazi-too/, Zvezda based its conclusion solely on the rankings of a single Latvian website, iBook, referencing a widget in the left bottom corner of that website reading: “The Most Current Books in 7 Days.” According to Polygrapg.info, iBook is a small online platform for individuals to sell and exchange their used books. The website describes itself as a “portal for book exchanges, sales and purchases.” Polyraph.info ran the site through SimilarWeb, a tool for measuring site traffic, and found that iBook ranks 338th in Latvia in terms of popularity, and 219,504th in the world. It is Latvia’s 149th most popular shopping site. Therefore, it is not even close to the top in any category. “Alexa,” the Amazon-owned web tool, ranks ibook’s Web traffic even lower – 878th in Latvia and 407,609th in the world. 6.6% of the sites recent traffic came from Russia -- possibly due to the fact that TV Zvezda linked to the site in its story. The four copies of “Mein Kampf” featured on the website are used 1995 editions of Hitler’s book, and are being sold by individual users. Further debunking by Polygraph.info www.polygraph.info/a/factcheck-harry-potter-hitler-latvia/29166375.html,