The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, called, on Tuesday 7 February, for more ambition in the fight against disinformation.
“We need to be more ambitious in building resilience against authoritarian regimes that try to create disinformation and manipulate information”, he stressed at the European External Action Service conference on foreign information manipulation and interference.
While Mr Borrell recalled that disinformation was not new and already existed during the Second World War, what was new was the “intensity, the will and the instruments”. And the High Representative believes that action is needed.
He also announced the creation of an Information Sharing and Analysis Centre. “We will create a new central resource for gathering information on threats stemming from disinformation and foreign information manipulation. This will promote the sharing of information between all stakeholders about root causes, incidents and threats, and sharing experience, knowledge and analysis”, he explained. According to Mr Borrell, it is necessary to understand how disinformation campaigns are organised, in order to be able to organise the EU’s response and identify the actors of this manipulation. “We need a standardised and interoperable way of sharing analysis within the community that tackles information manipulation”, he added.
The High Representative also announced that he was exploring the possibility of a better and more strategic regional presence of experts in strategy and communication. “All our delegations will be staffed with experts in the fight against disinformation in many parts of the world so that our voice is better heard”, he revealed.
Mr Borrell also presented the first ever Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats, which is based on 100 analysed incidents (https://aeur.eu/f/58r ). The report highlights Russia’s role in disinformation and information manipulation.
The High Representative denounced the “industry “ of Russian manipulation and disinformation. “Russia invests in disinformation and manipulation as an industry, massively, much more than we invest in the fight against disinformation”, he said. And he added: “They are masters at it, they invest a lot, they use thousands of people and they do it in a systematic, permanent and industrialised way - like a weapon”.
Mixing “legislative and non-legislative actions”
Present at the conference, European Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová stressed the importance of combining “legislative and non-legislative actions” to counter disinformation.
She stressed the relevance of the revised ‘Code of Practice on Disinformation’, “which sets out voluntary commitments by industry and other relevant stakeholders” in this regard. A “soon” to be published report in this framework on “baseline reports” of the major platforms, she said, reveals pitfalls, in particular the lack of dedicated staff to moderate such content in less common languages or in Eastern and Central European countries.
Ms Jourová also renewed her ambition to launch a “Radio Free Russia”, similar to the “Voice of America” during the Cold War. This would provide a platform for exiled Russian journalists supporting democratic ideals. “I want to support those who are already active [...] so that they can produce more content and distribute it more widely without any editorial interference”, she added.
Finally, she recalled that the ‘Defence of Democracy Package’, due in May, will contain a legislative initiative to “to protect our democracies from entities funded by or linked to third countries and exercising economic activities in the EU that may impact public opinion and the democratic sphere” and a revision of the ‘European Action Plan for Democracy’. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant and Hélène Seynaeve)