1st EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats
EU • Feb 7, 2023
Key quote:
“We have to focus on foreign actors who intentionally, in a coordinated manner, try to manipulate our information environment. We need to work with democratic partners around the world to fight information manipulation by authoritarian regimes more actively. It is time to roll up our sleeves and defend democracy, both at home and around the world.” —Josep Borrell, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Summary
This report is the first of its kind. It looks at 100 incidents of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) from October to December 2022. The European External Action Service (EEAS) developed a new framework to analyze these incidents.
- It found that Russia was behind most of the activity. 33 incidents were directly targeting Ukraine. Russia also used diplomatic channels to support their operations. Impersonation techniques were used to target Ukraine.
- Chinese actors were involved in 17 incidents. In 5 cases, Russia and China worked together. Different languages were used in the incidents.
- Russia and China mostly wanted to distract and distort. Images and videos were the most commonly used formats.
- The EEAS created this report to help the FIMI defender community share insights quickly and come up with a collective response to FIMI.
Source
The report was sourced from EUvsDISINFO.
