Parliament is aware of foreign interference – and won’t tolerate it.

On 27th March this year, a Lithuanian court in Vilnius issued its ruling in the so called ‘13th January case’, in which 67 Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian citizens, including former high-level officials of the Soviet Union, were found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their involvement in the Soviet aggression on the 13th January 1991. When Lithuania declared independence on 11th March 1990, the Soviet Union used its military against peaceful independence movement demonstrators. The result was a massacre with 14 deaths and over 800 injured.

The facts in this case are imminent and undisputable. And if you cannot attack the facts – attack the judges. So this is exactly what Putin is doing right now. He is exploiting membership in Interpol to seek bogus extradition charges and information on the judges to use it against them. That is why the European Parliament this week voted on a resolution to condemn Russia’s behavior and to support our judges and our judicial system; and I’m happy we are showing from the beginning – with not only this resolution, but also one of the first one’s this term on disinformation – we are aware of and condemn foreign interferences.

On a related note, as a Czech citizen and European politician I was equally not shocked to learn this week from my national intelligence services that Russian and Chinese agents are targeting my country with varying disinformation and secret influence campaigns. The yearly intelligence report for the previous year showed increasingly hostile and pervasive attempts by mainly Russia and China to bring us out of the European Union and NATO by discrediting our public sphere, academia and corrupting our political class. In short, to divide and rule us.

My generation had the historical fortune to grow up in a time of unprecedented peace in Europe. Maybe that is why we do not seem to acknowledge the scope of the danger of these increasing attacks on our freedoms and security. We need to protect our political system. Fund counter measures, educate and inform people and protect, strengthen and adapt to the new challenges the very institutions that gave me and over 500 million Europeans a safe and prosperous life – so that they continue to do so.

Disinformation and beyond: how the virus of QAnon spread to Europe

Gathering galvanized proselytes on popular image boards and online platforms, the QAnon quasi-religious conspiracy theory has eventually made its way to Europe. But what exactly is QAnon and why should it matter to us?

02.11.2020

From the 50 Cent Party to Spamouflage Dragon: how China conducts online propaganda wars

At the onset of 2010’s, massive protests shook the Northern African and Middle East regions like it hadn’t occurred in a long time. In what would be later dubbed Arab Spring, autocrats trembled at the sight of ferocious citizens demanding decent standards of living and a rupture from the miseries of the past. From Tunisia to Egypt, from Syria to Bahrein, the youth took on the streets to oust long-lived regimes; and it did so by making intensive use of social media.

30.11.2020

Internet is for Porn – and Deepfakes for Manipulation

Facebook: “We will remove misleading manipulated media if it meets the following criteria: It has been edited or synthesized – beyond adjustments for clarity or quality – in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say. And: It is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning that merges, replaces or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic.

13.01.2020