EU: Russians influenced elections via social media

The European Union has released a report on disinformation, accusing ‘Russian sources’ of influencing the European elections. They would have wanted to influence the turnout in the elections with campaigns on social media.

The report was put online on Friday and describes recent developments in the field of disinformation. It mentions, among other things, that ‘Russian sources’ have mounted disinformation campaigns, with the aim of undermining the legitimacy of the EU, and stirring up discussions on certain topics, such as migration. In doing so, they tried to influence the recently held European elections. Incidentally, the EU does not establish a direct link with the Russian state: according to the report, no evidence has yet been found.

In the days leading up to the European elections in May, about 600 groups were found on Facebook engaged in spreading fake news. Those groups targeted France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland and Spain, among others. Collectively, all these pages had about 763 million views, increasing disinformation according to the EU. One of the examples mentioned is the fire of Notre Dame in Paris: it is said to have been used to illustrate the decline of Western values.

In response to the findings, the report makes a number of recommendations, such as better communication of EU policies and greater capacity to counter disinformation. Citizens should also be better trained in ‘digital literacy’. The EU also wants social media such as Twitter and Google to do more to combat disinformation.