EU to launch platform to counter Russian and Chinese disinformation – POLITICO

The European Union will launch a new platform to counter disinformation campaigns by Russia and China amid growing concerns, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said today.

A so-called Information Sharing and Analysis Center within the EU’s foreign services – the European External Action Service (EEAS) – will seek to track the manipulation of information by foreign actors and to coordinate with the 27 EU countries and the wider NGO community.

“We need to understand how these disinformation campaigns are organized … to identify the actors of manipulation,” Borrell said.

An EEAS official said it would be a decentralized platform to exchange information in real time with NGOs, countries and cybersecurity agencies, enabling better understanding of threats and emerging narratives of disinformation. and faster action to resolve these issues.

Almost a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU continues to push back against Russian attempts to manipulate and distort information about the war. Kremlin-led propaganda seeking to blame the EU for a global food crisis because of its sanctions has also spread to countries in Africa and the Middle East.

Borrell also warned of a “new wave” of disinformation of fabricated images, videos and websites posing as media spreading “five times faster than light on social media and messaging services. “.

The EU’s existing disinformation unit, the Stratcom Division, in a very first report, noted that most manipulations of foreign information in 2022 centered on narratives supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian and Chinese diplomatic channels have been particularly involved.