During an discussion organised at the European Parliament by the ‘Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield’ on Monday 17 February, Marc-Antoine Brillant, head of the French government’s Vigilance and Protection against Foreign Digital Interference service (VIGINUM), raised the idea of a European ‘centre of excellence’ to coordinate the fight of States against disinformation operations.
This hearing followed the publication by VIGINUM on 4 February of a report entitled ‘Manipulation of algorithms and instrumentalisation of influencers: lessons from the presidential election in Romania and risks for France’.
The study highlights the massive and coordinated use of the TikTok social network to manipulate public debate during the Romanian presidential election in November 2024. “One of the main harms caused by this campaign was to affect voters’ confidence in the reliability of the electoral process”, the document states.
In response to Swedish MEP Tomas Tobé (EPP), who questioned the need to set up an intelligence agency similar to a “European VIGINUM”, Marc-Antoine Brillant argued that “the protection of each country’s digital public debate is a matter for its sovereignty”.
The purpose of a supranational centre of expertise would be “to support Member States in structuring their response and preparedness capacities in the face of information manipulation campaigns”, he said, adding that “this ‘capacity building’ approach could also contribute to raising awareness in the public debate”.
The discussion also covered the application of the Digital Services Act (DSA). While a number of MEPs have called for the full use of the DSA to combat such interference, Marc-Antoine Brillant has taken a more nuanced stance, stating that “the DSA is a formidable lever [...], but it is not a crisis management tool, it is a risk management tool”.
For her part, Madalina Voinea, disinformation analyst for Expert Forum (a Bucharest-based think-tank), warned of the persistent opacity of data processing by platforms such as TikTok and X: “We urgently need independent research mechanisms to verify their activities”, she defended.
Read the VIGINUM report: https://aeur.eu/f/fjq (Original version in French by Justine Manaud)