Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell issued a stark warning about misleading information spread from abroad. But much disinformation — be it on Ukraine, the climate or migrants — comes from EU politicians themselves. With a bumper year for elections worldwide, including June polls for the European Parliament, European Union officials tasked with monitoring disinformation are on high alert. A dedicated EU task force investigated 750 incidents of deliberately misleading information being spread by foreign actors last year, published in a new report. As in previous years, Russia was the primary source, "trying to justify its war of aggression against Ukraine," the authors of the European Union External Action Service (EEAS) document wrote. Ukraine was the number one targeted country, followed by the United States, Germany and Poland. Close to 150 institutions, including the EU, NATO and media outlets like Deutsche Welle, Reuters and Euronews, were affected. In its second annual disinformation report, EEAS wrote of continued "intentional, strategic and coordinated attempts to manipulate facts, to confuse, and to sow division, fear and hatred." A notable trend in the past year was anti-LGBTQ or gender-based disinformation.   Not a 'bomb' but a 'poison' Presenting the findings, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell, a frequent target himself for disinformation, according to the report, described it as one of the biggest security threats of our times. "[It] is not about not about a bomb that can kill you. It's about a poison that can colonize your mind," Borrell said Tuesday evening in Brussels. Underlining his point, he cited a recent example from France. Three weeks into Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip after October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Parisians woke up to see blue Stars of David spray-painted onto 250 buildings, Borrell said. "This reminds us of the worst days of the Holocaust," Borrell said, with images spreading quickly on social media. Some commentators immediately blamed the Muslim community, but a week later, French authorities identified it as a potential Russian destabilization campaign, he continued. In November, the French Foreign Ministry condemned the Russian network Recent Reliable News (RRN) or Doppelgänger for "the artificial spreading and initial distribution on social media of photos" of the incident. Seven Russian individuals linked to RRN were placed under EU sanctions last July. Investigations by French authorities into the spray-painting incident continue, seeking to determine whether a foreign backer was involved. Monitors from EUvsDisinfo, a project EEAS set up in 2015, have identified Doppelgänger as "a multi-faceted online information operation originating from Russia [that] has targeted multiple countries worldwide," often by impersonating western authorities like the French Foreign Ministry or media outlets. Elections as 'prime targets' Disinformation "has always existed," Borrell acknowledged. "But now we are much more vulnerable to this threat because information circulates at the speed of light." With 50% of the world's adult population eligible to vote in some 60 elections this year, Borrell said many would "become the prime targets for malign foreign actors." This was the case in the EU last year, like in Spain. "Russian agents, once again, imitated the official website of the Regional Government of Madrid two days before the elections," he said. These actors warned falsely "that (defunct Basque separatist terrorist group) ETA was coming back and was having a plan to attack the polling stations." Disinformation is also a homegrown threat In a separate report published last November by the European Digital Media Observatory, another EU-funded project, fact-checkers identified disinformation related to the electoral process in all 10 European countries it assessed, most of them in the EU. "False narratives often aimed at delegitimizing elections through unfounded claims of voter fraud, foreign influences and unfair practices," they concluded. But while Borrell and the EEAS were focused on Russia, such incidents also frequently come from domestic sources. "We see a lot of disinformation coming from internal actors of the EU," Tommaso Canetta from Pagella Politica, an Italian fact-checking organization, told DW. "Disinformation is particularly harmful and dangerous when politicians and traditional media start spreading it." Canetta pointed out that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the two EU countries with the highest vaccination rates, Portugal and Ireland, saw media and politicians stand firmly united around scientific evidence. The two with the lowest, Bulgaria and Romania, witnessed intense political polarization that affected public discourse. While Ukraine is a frequent target, Canetta said fact-checkers also flag a lot of content linked to climate topics or migrants and refugees. For example, in his native Italy, many erroneous claims are spread about electric cars, such as that they are more likely to catch fire than combustion engines or get stuck in winter. In Ireland, disinformation linked to refugees and housing shortages fueled recent riots in Dublin, Canetta said. Where does it all go? Borrell struck an alarming tone on Tuesday, referring to a "battle of narratives" that must be won and to Russian disinformation as a "full-fledged instrument of war." But the EEAS report also warned it was crucial not to inflate the potential risk. Quick detection and proactive tackling of disinformation played a role, as did improved public media literacy. Ahead of the EU-wide election of parliament, which in any case is regarded as less important than national elections by many citizens, Canetta said the risk wasn't so much that we would see "what happened in the United States or Brazil." Violence and disorder followed recent elections that removed Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro as presidents of their respective countries. "I'm more concerned about disinformation ahead of the elections attacking EU recent actions like the Green Deal or the pandemic plan," he said. "The more significant risk is that extremist forces could gain the consensus changing the EU's stance on certain issues."

Suspicious videos that began circulating in Taiwan this month seemed to show the island's leader advertising cryptocurrency investments. President Tsai Ing-wen, who has repeatedly risked Beijing’s ire by asserting her Taiwan's autonomy, appeared to claim in the clips that the government helped develop investment software for digital currencies, using a term that is common in China but rarely used in Taiwan. Her mouth appeared blurry and her voice unfamiliar, leading Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to deem the video to be almost certainly a deepfake - an artificially generated spoof - and potentially one created by Chinese agents. For years, China has pummeled the Taiwanese information ecosystem with inaccurate narratives and conspiracy theories, seeking to undermine its democracy and divide its people in an effort to assert control over its neighbor. Now, as fears over Beijing’s growing aggression mount, a new wave of disinformation is heading across the strait separating Taiwan from the mainland before the pivotal election in January. Perhaps as much as any other place, however, the tiny island is ready for the disinformation onslaught. Taiwan has built a resilience to foreign meddling that could serve as a model to the dozens of other democracies holding votes in 2024. Its defenses include one of the world’s most mature communities of fact-checkers, government investments, international media literacy partnerships and, after years of warnings about Chinese intrusion, a public sense of skepticism. The challenge now is sustaining the effort. “That is the main battlefield: The fear, uncertainty, doubt is designed to keep us up at night so we don’t respond to novel threats with novel defenses,” said Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s inaugural digital minister, who works on strengthening cybersecurity defenses against threats like disinformation. “The main idea here is just to stay agile.” Taiwan, a highly online society, has repeatedly been found to be the top target in the world for disinformation from foreign governments, according to the Digital Society Project, a research initiative exploring the internet and politics. China was accused of spreading rumors during the pandemic about the Taiwanese government’s handling of COVID-19, researchers said. Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island as US speaker of the House last year set off a series of high-profile cyberattacks, as well as a surge of debunked online messages and images that fact-checkers linked to China. For all of Beijing’s efforts, however, it has struggled to sway public opinion. In recent years, Taiwan’s voters have chosen a president, Tsai, from the Democratic Progressive Party, which the Communist Party views as an obstacle to its goal of unification. Experts and local fact-checkers said Chinese disinformation campaigns were a major concern in local elections in 2018; the efforts seemed less effective in 2020, when Tsai recaptured the presidency in a landslide. Her vice president, Lai Ching-te, has maintained a polling lead in the race to succeed her. China has denied interloping, instead saying it is the “top victim of disinformation”.   Source: CNA