EU MONITOR | THREE RESPONSES TO DISINFORMATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Disinformation and foreign interference have been concerns in global politics for centuries, but social media algorithms have made the current threat more dire as they amplify content based on human frailties such as our obsession with negativity and outrage. Russian interference in the 2016 US federal election and other elections and referenda in at least twenty countries between November 2016 and April 2019, including the Brexit referendum, the French and German elections, and the Ukrainian power grid cyber-attacks, have highlighted the potential for foreign governments to alter the results of an election or undermine democracies using social media and other means. Writes Jakub Ferenčík in his last EU MONITOR.

However, the most exposed to Russian disinformation are the Baltic States, arguably because of their proximity to Russia as well as their membership in NATO, the EU, and the sizable Russian minority in their countries. They have thus had to grapple with effective anti-disinformation strategies to counter erroneous narratives.

The whole policy paper is under the PDF button.

Jakub Ferenčík
Research Assistant