The war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Gaza Strip have fueled online disinformation campaigns against Spain, especially from Russia. This is highlighted by the latest report, referring to 2023, from the Department of National Security, dependent on the Presidency of the Government, which, although it points to the Kremlin as the main actor in these campaigns that aim to “destabilize and polarize society and undermine its confidence in the institutions”, also points out the role of “the official Chinese media and their propagandists on social networks in Spanish” in favor of Russian narratives.
The document, which emphasizes that this type of maneuver should not be confused with the dissemination of false information (fake news) or the wrong one (misinformation), also emphasizes “the growing diffusion” of this type of campaigns during the elections of May and July 2023, which sought to “create distrust in said processes and in the democratic system.” The report places disinformation campaigns as the greatest threat to national security, with a “very high risk intensity”, with a score of 17.43 out of 25. In the National Strategy against Terrorism for the next five years, which the The National Security Council approved last Tuesday, emphasizing the need to “increase the capabilities of public administrations and the investigation units of the security forces in the face of disinformation campaigns that affect national security and are aimed at terrorists or radicalization.
In the case of the Kremlin, National Security highlights that, on the one hand, “it has manipulated Spain's support for Ukraine to launch disinformation campaigns aimed at introducing doubts about Spain's membership in NATO into the public debate.” But also that it has instrumentalized any support for Israel in the conflict with Palestine to show the West, including the European Union, “as a group that supports actions with imperialist and neocolonialist purposes.” Russia's objective in this case is to present itself as “a reliable ally” in the countries of the so-called “global south” (Africa and Latin America, especially) to “displace Western influence and isolate the bloc from the EU and related countries.” from the rest of the international community.” In the case of Spain, the Kremlin has focused these campaigns on “trying to spread a distorted image of migration in the Mediterranean and the situation in Ceuta and Melilla.”
China's role
At this point, National Security experts also highlight the role played by China in amplifying “many of the pro-Russian narratives,” which has translated into “a confluence of messages, fundamentally based on expressing a rejection of the United States and the current international order.” In this sense, the document emphasizes that “within the framework of the anti-Spanish discourse spread in Latin America during October 12, social networks were used to broadcast messages contrary to Spain and its history.” And the use of TikTok stands out, a social network from the Chinese technology group ByteDance that has more than one billion active users around the world and that has managed to position itself, in a matter of five years, as the sixth most used on the planet. “These contents were amplified through the use of bots [cuentas automatizadas]which shows a coordinated strategy when disseminating this narrative,” adds the analysis.
National Security also focuses on campaigns directed against Spanish military and civil missions deployed abroad, which it considers “common objectives” of these cyber hoaxes. “Spanish military contingents operating abroad are exposed to foreign disinformation campaigns during the development of their missions,” he points out before highlighting that for this reason the Armed Forces are “developing a joint structure to detect, identify and mitigate foreign disinformation.” ” directed against them and that may affect these missions.
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The document also emphasizes that during the elections held in 2023 – the regional and municipal elections on May 28 and the general elections on July 23 – there was an increase in disinformation campaigns that sought to undermine citizens' confidence in the electoral process. National Security recalls that the Ministry of the Interior activated a security coordination network, which had a group dedicated to the fight against this type of cyber hoaxes. Then, Fernando Grande-Marlaska's department ordered the security forces to “search” for these campaigns with the aim of preventing these cyber hoaxes from spreading, rather than acting against the alleged authors given the legal difficulties in acting against those who carried them out. put into circulation, especially when it comes to hackers settled abroad that are sponsored by countries interested in weakening other States with destabilizing propaganda, in reference to Russia.
The Department of Homeland Security raises the need to “address the new challenges associated with communication technologies and artificial intelligence (AI)” that has led to “the use of deep fakes [vídeos falsificados] and of proxies [entidades intermedias sin vinculación aparente] increasingly sophisticated and disconnected from the State of origin of the disinformation campaign.” This has translated into greater difficulty when it comes to attributing the “state origin” of some campaigns, but also “discerning the motivations of the propagandists,” in addition to hindering citizens from detecting the falsity of that information. The document emphasizes that “disinformation campaigns know no borders and on numerous occasions are directed against several States at the same time or against institutions of which Spain is a part”, which is why it considers international cooperation to be “essential” to confront the threat it poses.
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