Sammelthread: Influence Ops around the world, brave new world of Fake News and Hybrid Warfare Einstellungen

[Nite]

Im Rahmen der Proteste in Neukaledonien (Teil des Collectivité d'outre-mer Polynésie française) spielt sich derzeit ein hin und her der Vorwürfe und Zurückweisungen zwischen Frankreich und Azerbaijan (!) ab. Konkret wirft Frankreich Azerbaijan vor zu versuchen, sowohl in Frankreich selber als auch in Neukaledonien, durch Fake News-Kampagnen Einfluss nehmen zu wollen.
Hintergrund soll azerischer Unmut über französische Waffen-Deals mit Armenien [politico] sein.

THE BAKU CONNECTION
How France became the target of Azerbaijan's smear campaign
What do the absence of French observers at Azerbaijan's February 7 presidential election, a group denouncing "French colonialism" and an online campaign targeting the 2024 Paris Olympics have in common? They are three facets of a new offensive strategy adopted by Azerbaijani diplomacy towards France. FRANCE 24 investigated this shift with the Forbidden Stories consortium and other media outlets as part of "The Baku Connection" project.
[...]
Outrage over ‘French colonialism’ by the Azerbaijani state
In November 2023, a video highly critical of the organisation of the 2024 Paris Olympics emerged, sparking a media stir in France. According to VIGINUM, the French government agency for the defence against foreign digital interference, it was an influence campaign linked to "an actor close to Azerbaijan".

In its technical report, seen by FRANCE 24 and Forbidden Stories, VIGINUM concluded that the operation, amplified by fake sites and accounts on social media, is "likely to harm the fundamental interests of the nation".

On another, parallel track, Azerbaijan is promoting the claims of a new structure called the "Baku Initiative Group". Its members, independence fighters from French overseas territories and regions such as French Guiana, Martinique, New Caledonia and Guadeloupe, have been denouncing France's "colonisation� and “neocolonialism�, and have been calling for “decolonisation�.
[..]

France 24

France Accuses Azerbaijan Of Interference In New Caledonia Riots
By AFP - Agence France Presse

[...]
"This isn't a fantasy... I regret that some of the separatists have made a deal with Azerbaijan," Darmanin [frz. Innenminister] told broadcaster France 2, while adding that "even if there are attempts at interference... France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better".
[...]

afp via. Barrons.com

Azerbaijan weist die Vorwürfe natürlich zurück:

May 16 2024 12:53:18
Azerbaijan rejects 'baseless' French claims of interference in New Caledonia
BAKU

Azerbaijan on Thursday rejected French accusations of "interference" in New Caledonia, the Pacific territory hit by deadly pro-independence riots in recent days.

"We completely reject the baseless accusations," Azerbaijan's foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said. "We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan."
[...]

Hurriyet

[Nite]

Fotos der Proteste in Neukaledonien von azerischen Websites (ohne Einordnung, lediglich zur Dokumentation:





“There is a Chinese curse which says, ‘May he live in interesting times.’ Like it or not, we live in interesting times …�
- Robert F. Kennedy

Der Beitrag wurde von Nite bearbeitet: 16. May 2024, 12:01

[Merowinger]

Ich kann mir nicht helfen: Aserbaidschan bekommt von mir einen Punkt für Kreativität.

Der Beitrag wurde von Merowinger bearbeitet: 16. May 2024, 12:12

[Glorfindel]

Aserbaidschan ist auch ein Land (zusammen mit Katar und Kasachstan), welches versucht in Europa, auch in der Schweiz, Politiker für Lobby-Arbeit zu kaufen.

[Merowinger]

Nochmal die Frage: Tut Kasachstan dies weiterhin seit dem Wechsel an der Führungsspitze des Landes?

[Glorfindel]

Denke nicht oder nicht mehr so offensichtlich wie zuvor

[Nite]

A REUTERS INVESTIGATION
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic

The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk.
[...]

reuters

//Edit:
"What shall we do against the Chicoms?"
"How about we do exactly what enemy propaganda always says we do and also kill innocent civilians in a third country in the process?"
"Great idea, go for it!"

Im nächsten Schritt kann man in westlichen Hauptstädten dann wieder nicht begreifen warum der globale Süden auf Äquidistanz setzt.

Der Beitrag wurde von Nite bearbeitet: 21. Jun 2024, 16:39

[Nite]

Etwas älter:

GRAPHIKA REPORT
Tuesday December 15, 2020

More-Troll Kombat
Graphika & The Stanford Internet Observatory

French and Russian Influence Operations Go Head to Head Targeting Audiences in Africa
On December 15, Facebook announced that it had taken down three separate networks that it had discovered for “coordinated inauthentic behavior� that targeted communities across Africa. One, centered on the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali, was linked to individuals associated with the French military. The other two, centered respectively on CAR and Libya, were connected to the business and influence operations of Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, founder of the mercenary organization Wagner Group and the Internet Research Agency “troll farm.� The French and Russian operations in the CAR tried to expose each other, and repeatedly clashed in groups, comments, and cartoon wars.
[...]
The operations showed significant differences, notably the Russian operation’s reliance on local nationals (wittingly or unwittingly) and the French operation’s avoidance of electoral topics. However, when they clashed in CAR, they resembled one another. Each side trolled the other with insulting videos and memes; each side made false accusations against the other; each side used doctored evidence to support their accusations. Some Russian assets posed as news outlets, while some French ones posed as fact-checkers. Both used stolen profile pictures (and in the case of the French network, AI-generated profile pictures) to create fake personas for their networks.

This underscores the key concern revealed by Facebook’s latest findings. To judge by its timing, content and methods, the French operation was, in part, a direct reaction to the exposure of Prigozhin’s troll operations in Africa in 2019 by Facebook. However, its tactics were very similar. By creating fake accounts and fake “anti-fake-news� pages to combat the trolls, the French operators were perpetuating and implicitly justifying the problematic behavior they were trying to fight.

This is damaging in (at least) two ways. For the operators, using “good fakes� to expose “bad fakes� is a high-risk strategy likely to backfire when a covert operation is detected, as noted in a ground-breaking 2018 French diplomacy report on information manipulation. More importantly, for the health of broader public discourse, the proliferation of fake accounts and manipulated evidence is only likely to deepen public suspicion of online discussion, increase polarization, and reduce the scope for evidence-based consensus.

Covert influence operations like those that targeted CAR are a problem for the health and credibility of democratic debate. Setting up more covert influence operations to counter them is not a solution.

graphika

Full Report (.pdf)