Member of the team “Rule of Law Crisis in EU” professor Nuria Hernández García, during her one month research stay at the European University Institute, she had attended to the “Countering Foreign Interference” event that was held 24th and 25th of June at the School of Transnational Governance in Italy. The project objective is to strengthen EU Common Security and Defence Policy capacities against Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI).
The multi-million EU funded project, which was launched on 1 January 2023, is led by the European Union Institute for Security Studies. In implementing the project there is the University of Antwerp, the University of Milano – Bicocca and the European University Institute – School of Transnational Governance which was hosting the event. The session named CFI Dialogues comes along halfway through the length of the project being the second of a series of Dialogues and revolving about addressing nexus between evolving hybrid domains such as disinformation as a security threat.
There, through different panels’ assessing diverse topics professor Nuria Hernández García would like to focus on some thoughts that she has been chewing over.
We know that in the current geopolitical context, there are numerous ways a State can destabilise a society. We refer to this foreign interference, which is far removed from conventional military tactics, as hybrid threats. Indeed, the European Commission defines them as “when, state or non-state, actors seek to exploit the vulnerabilities of the EU to their own advantage by using in a coordinated way a mixture of measures (i.e. diplomatic, military, economic, technological) while remaining below the threshold of formal warfare”.
One of the most challenging to combat is disinformation, precisely due to the complexity of its definition, but also because of the need to contextualise it alongside other elements and values shared by European societies.
Within the framework of this event, which focuses on the European Union and its strategic interests, it is logical that the actors accused of engaging in FIMI are mainly China and Russia. Indeed, the disinformation that States like Russia promote through their networks (media, websites, organisations, spies, etc.) in regions as crucial for the EU as the Sahel transforms the theatre of operations into something beyond the conventional land deployment, forcing EU missions (The Common Security and Defence Policy) to deploy in more hostile environments due to the new and altered informational landscape that they need to be aware of. This project seeks precisely to enhance resilience and prepare CSDP missions and EU’s allies for also combating in these new environments. It is for this reason that the EU examines FIMI not merely as a threat to societies by contributing to their disinformation, polarisation, and democratic erosion, but as a threat to their security, thus necessitating exploration from the perspective of security and defence. This is where several structural issues arise, according to professor Nuria Herández.
First, and going straight to the point: how do we balance tackling disinformation while protection freedom of expression and plurality in our societies? We know that freedom of expression, even if its not absolute, is one of the fundamental rights and pillars that sustain our democracies. We also know that pluralism is essential to democracy, given that the opposite, would place us in a world of single thought characteristic of totalitarian regimes. How can we defend our societies from FIMI without endangering the core values of the European Union? In this conference, a very serious proposal was to turn off the internet. This solution arises from the observation that the problems are structural and systemic and that hostile actors are taking advantage from them. It is not a very promising solution, though. Another proposal was to regulate and limit how audiences can be targeted, but again, the algorithm supposedly shows what users are more interested into, and also algorithms cannot distinguish the quality of the information they refer to.
In the case of the Ukraine war, the EU banned the Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik within European territory, and they managed to adapt and establish hundreds of mirror pages that reproduced the same information. Such action, although understandable in a security and defence context, might be even justifiable, but is it equally justifiable when we take out the security and defence phrase? Should institutions– in these case Europeans – decide what can and cannot be read in our societies? Should they establish a list of good information and other of bad information? Would they tackle the information itself or would they list the platforms, or digital media, or even specific people? Would it be enough to call someone a “spy” or a “pro-Russian” if speaks their opinion which differs from that of the institutions? Who would watch over us to see if we are being informed in an adequate matter or on the contrary, we are being disinformed? Would they tell us what is true and what is false? Could it lead to monitoring what we consume and even think in the name of our security? Is this not what George Orwell envisioned in his dystopian 1984? If we shut down the internet, there would be no way to communicate with Oceania and know whether it is allied with Eurasia or at war with East Asia. We will just believe what we are being told.
As far as this Orwellian picture might seem, we should start getting worried at least when a PM has a list of good journalists and bad journalists, or when his or her government refers to the media they don’t like as factory of fake news. In this regard professor Nuria Hernández García shares a recommendation that has been made in the event: the lecture of “On Bullshit” by H. Frankfurt where the author poses that we should not get used to the bullshit as it is more dangerous than lies.
To sum up, we shouldn’t stop asking these questions. It is not an easy dilemma that we have on our hands. Again, towards which will point the EU? One of securitization or one of freedom? It is true that traditional non allies of the EU have developed other kind of weaponry to destabilize our societies. They even might use precisely our freedoms and rights to do so. Yes, they take advantage of our systems and we have to know where we are getting into. However, our identity values should be guiding the whole process, and we have a precise list of what these values are in article 2 of the Treaty on European Union: democracy, human rights and rule of law.
