GROUPS FROM KREMLIN ATTACKED THE EU ELECTIONS WITH FAKE NEWS

EU fights Russian sources of disinformation

Disinformation spread by Russian groups through portals, web-pages, and social media strongly influenced the elections for the European Parliament. This claim is made by analysts from the European Commission and the diplomatic service of the European Union.

The aim of these specially designed digital tactics is to challenge the Union’s democratic legitimacy and to provoke public anger. This conclusions are stated in the last report by the European Commission prepared after the elections.

“The evidence collected revealed a continued and sustained disinformation activity by Russian sources aiming to suppress turnout and influence voter preferences”, it is stated in the report.

Disinformation covered a broad range of topics, ranging from challenging the Union’s democratic legitimacy to exploiting divisive public debates on issues such as of migration and sovereignty.

The finger points at “Russian sources”

The pointing of the finger at “Russian sources” is an exception, and this shows just how serious is the problem that the EU is facing, taking into consideration how careful the EU is in naming foreign countries when issuing public comments or reports.

The press-release of the European Commission from 14 June 2019 contains the results from EU’s fight against disinformation. It is stated that the EU undertook a comprehensive and coordinated action for protection of, as they say, the European values and fundamental rights.

In the joint statement by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Feederica Mogherini, the Vice-President of the EU Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, the Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Věra Jourová, the Commissioner for Security Union, Julian King, and the Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel, the following is stated: “The record high turnout in the European Parliament elections has underlined the increased interest of citizens in European democracy. We are confident that our efforts have contributed to limit the impact of disinformation operations, including from foreign actors, through closer coordination between the EU and Member States. However, much remains to be done. The European elections were not after all free from disinformation; we should not accept this as the new normal. Ahead of the elections, we saw evidence of coordinated inauthentic behavior aimed at spreading divisive material on online platforms, including through the use of bots and fake accounts. So online platforms have a particular responsibility to tackle disinformation, with our active support.”

This reaction by EU is only the last in a series of remarks towards Kremlin, since Russia is deemed responsible for the last year’s digital attack on the international institutions in Hague, and there has been also a serious doubt expressed by the Western countries that Russia is behind the hacking of the EU diplomatic mission in Moscow, an incident that has been revealed some 10 days ago.

A lot of domestic groups and politicians have also used, or, to state it better, adopted the tactics of the Russian sources, spreading disinformation about the EU elections on social media – it is stated in the EC report – in order to create strong division and to promote extreme views of some politicians and groups in the political debates ahead of the elections.

The EU mobilizes against fake news

It is still early to tell whether and how these digital campaigns had influenced the elections and the voters, but this aspect is also being investigated.

“Given the increasingly sophisticated nature of disinformation activities, and the difficulties of independent researchers to access relevant data from the platforms, a conclusive assessment of the scope and impact of disinformation campaigns will take time and require a concerted effort by civil society, academia, public actors and online platforms”, it is stated in the EC report

Increased public awareness makes it harder for malicious actors to manipulate the public debate, so the EU action is focused on four complementary strands:

1. Strengthening the capabilities to identify and counter disinformation, via the Strategic Communication Task Forces and a Rapid Alert System to facilitate the exchange of information between Member States and the EU institutions.

2. Cooperation with online platforms and industry to increase transparency of political communications and prevent the manipulative use of their services.

3. The Commission, in cooperation with the European Parliament, helped increase awareness and resilience to disinformation within society, through various programs for media literacy.

4. The Commission has supported Member States’ efforts to secure the integrity of elections and strengthen the resilience of the Union’s democratic systems. The establishment of election networks at EU and national level, with links to the Rapid Alert System, improved cooperation on potential threats.

The fight goes on

However, this is a long and hard struggle. Disinformation and the groups that spread them often share ideas and strategies without direct coordination, and therefore it is almost impossible to relate one online campaign with another, and it is even harder to track where the idea for that campaign came from.

“Disinformation and the campaigns for spreading fake news are smartly and subtly designed, focusing on those issues which the voters and the public are most interested in”, says Chloe Colliver, Digital Research Unit Lead at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue from London, that is focused on extremism on digital media and that participated in the preparation of the EC report. “Those groups are pretty efficient and it is almost impossible to track where their tactics and ideas come from”.

Addressing the concern that social media don’t do enough despite their commitment in the fight against digital extremism, Facebook went even further. During the European elections, the so-called “War Room” was established in the company’s office in Dublin in order to fight spreading of fake news.

The fight is uncertain and long, the analysts say. It also unclear what measures should be undertaken. However, one of the conclusions in the EC report is that the way of access and the activity on the online platforms will be assessed. Should the results of the assessment show that the social media do not have sufficient control over extremism and fake news, “undertaking measures of regulatory nature” is not excluded, it is stated in the report.