[ad_1]
Published on
25.05.2019 at 09:54
by
AFP
New actors are exploiting the anarchy on the internet to disrupt democracy in this week's European elections, says a new report that points to far-right populists and cyber militias.
During the vote that took place from May 23 to May 26, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) investigated the role of secret digital propaganda in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland.
"New players are taking advantage of the anarchy of the Internet, often aligned with hostile states like Russia, as well as American interests, but are also creating their own pan-European campaigns," the report released on Friday said.
Populist parties, right-wing cyber-militias and religious groups "are adapting the tactics most notoriously used by states," said the London-based think tank.
– 'Out of the Poutine Playbook' –
The clandestine Kremlin campaigns in the 2016 US elections may have inspired European actors who "took a few pages from Vladimir Putin's book and use deceptive and automated Twitter accounts to reinforce their causes and attack their opponents."
The connection with political parties was often opaque and kept at a distance sufficient to maintain denial.
"We also see … personalized attacks and intimidation of opponents … an element of a more and more consistent and populist right-wing game book to win and keep power, to confuse undermine confidence in independent democratic institutions and promote extremist attitudes.
Fearing a wave of misinformation, the EU's External Action Service has set up an early warning system, consisting of about ten staff members, which closely monitors social media and warns risks of interference.
But European officials told AFP this week that there had been no disruptive activity yet to justify a pan-European alert, and that it was not necessary to have a pan-European alert. There was no indication of flooding of false information or misinformation.
In Spain, the ISD has set up a "coordinated network of Twitter accounts reinforcing anti-Islam hashtags and reinforcing support for the right-wing VOX populist party".
This included robots and inauthentic accounts, with more than 4.4 million messages in the past year regarding VOX, which negates the links with the swarms of accounts that boost its campaign and attack critics.
In Britain, support for most major parties was boosted by suspicious robots on Twitter.
"Forty-two percent of the most active accounts supporting Twitter accounts of official parties are showing signs of hyperactive, robot-like display rates," he said.
"However, the Brexit Party is well ahead in regard to the benefit of an alleged inorganic amplification."
In Poland, ISD has identified an "alleged network of coordinated Facebook pages, accounts and groups used to promote the Konfederacja Nationalist Party and to amplify antisemitic and pro-Kremlin content".
In Rome, the American campaign group Avaaz published 23 pages in Italian, totaling more than 2.46 million followers, which broadcast "false information and controversial content" on topics such as migration and vaccines, as well as l & # 39; Semitism.
– "Election against hate speech" –
In Germany, the far right AfD dominates the conversation on Facebook around the elections thanks to hyperactive levels of engagement. The report pointed out that the AfD described the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg as a "child manipulated by" eco-fascists ".
ISD also found concerted attacks against professional media in Germany and France.
The 2019 vote has been called a "hate speech election". Digital discourse is "a weapon … of online crowds incited by one party against another – with evidence of automated digital militias specially programmed to broadcast anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic messages."
The ISD has identified more than 365 pages, accounts and groups on Facebook, more than 1,350 accounts on Twitter and more than 100 YouTube channels and videos promoting hate speech, misinformation or extremist content.
Common models have emerged that "go beyond the copy of the latest electronic tactics and which together constitute a" playbook "for a large-scale campaign against constitutional democracy."
Technology companies are struggling to keep up, he added, despite the adoption by the EU and member states of new regulations to combat viral deception and hate speech.
They "failed in their many promises to preserve the integrity of elections."
Facebook has removed nearly 80 pages spreading false information or using tactics to unfairly influence the vote, reported Wednesday an NGO.
Avaaz said he alerted Facebook about more than 500 pages and suspected accounts fueling misinformation campaigns.
The ISD, which "seeks solutions to extremism," used social media mapping, online coverage reporting, media monitoring, and policy badysis to track campaigns.
[ad_2]
Source link
