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You’ve probably never heard of the Slovenian right-wing TV network and website Nova24TV, but some of its defining features may sound familiar.
Launched in 2015, Nova24TV is closely tied to the nationalist Slovenian Democratic Party and its leader, the former Prime Minister Janez Janša, whose 2018 campaign bid was built on a promise to “drain the swamp” along with anti-immigration sentiment. In 2017, the network aired an interview with Bernard Brščič, a Holocaust denier who called the Holocaust “a perfidious Jewish design to restrain the German mind.” It also regularly runs hit pieces against the Slovenian Democratic Party’s political enemies, with headlines like: What’s going on with Violeta Tomić? She doesn’t powder her eye-bags anymore.” (Violeta Tomić is a left-wing member of the Slovenian parliament.)
If Nova24TV sounds like the Slovenian version of a number of American far-right sites, it’s probably not surprising that it often references sites like Breitbart, Infowars, and, from time to time, the Daily Caller. But Nova24TV isn’t just a European knockoff of far-right American media outlets, it also provides a useful window into how far-right disinformation is shared and distributed throughout Europe.