Disappearing ink, fake polls and voter fraud: EU fears as Russian propaganda ads target Euro elections

11 comments

1. The stories are doom-laden, laced with vitriolic sneers about Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ursula von der Leyen. Ukrainians are “ready to depose” their leader, Macron is breaking French “rules” with aid to Ukraine, an “uncontrolled influx” from the east is “seriously harming the Germans”.

   According to new research, these are just a few examples of a vast pro-Russian propaganda campaign washing over Facebook accounts of French and German citizens, before the European parliament elections next month.

   The adverts – collected by tech expert Paul Bouchaud and shared with the Observer – all ran on Facebook during the first 13 days of May. According to Bouchaud, none were labelled as political advertising, which they see as a clear breach of Meta’s rules and a “possible breach” of EU law. In April, the EU executive opened an investigation into Meta over suspicions that it was failing to prevent the dissemination of deceptive ads and disinformation.

2. The beauty of election conspiracies is there is no way to dispel them, because the conspiracy is one of infinite size. Everyone can and will be in on it. And the only solution is to make it harder for non-conservative leaning demographics to vote. The more inconvenient and arduous it is for college students and urban residents to vote, the more western civilization will be safe.

   As we speak a flotilla of migrants is on their way from Florida to Brussels to destroy western civilization. They are ninjas who can vote 1000 times each without getting caught. Act before it’s too late.

3. Why would they even care about EU elections? Do european voters seriously care about the MEP candidates? Do they even know them? They are mostly unelectable second-rate politicians who are interested in a secure brussels high-wage do-nothing posution (for most european countries 100K salary is sky high) .

   You don’;t affect nothing by affecting MEP voting. In my country the PM has flat out said that MEP elections are “national elections”, and it’s similar all over europe.

   So, why the FUD?

4. This constant blaming of others for our own leaders ineptitude is getting a bit cringe isn’t it.

5. Well many people have been warning about the Russian disinformation campagns but it has been willfully ignored. Facebook, Whatsapp groups, Instagram are full of Russian bullshit and people are falling for it. People laughed about Americans falling for the nonsense but we are just as dumb if not even dumber as we had all warnings and still didn’t do shit.

   The only good thing is that Europe has many languages so their efforts are watered down a little but still

6. Euro elections are a joke in my country. I guess if the turnup is big we can be sure of a russian interference 

7. Maybe an excellent opportunity to finally regulate social media?

   In my country and neighbouring countries the “traditional” media is heavy regulated.
   For example sources needs to be disclaimed. While with social media anyone can post anything.

   Those platforms needs to have some basic ruling in order to fight misinformation…

8. That’s okay you spineless bureaucrats. You can just send strongly worded letter

9. Facebook, Twitter and other shitty social networks should be shut down in EU.

   We don’t need to be influenced by American societal problems or culture, nor russian propaganda and bullshit.

   IMO the whole social media along with Reddit and these should shut down as they are aswell 🙂

10. Couldn’t countries like Germany, Poland and France give an Ultimatum to Russia “It’s a few months before the elections. If we find any evidance of fraud cinnected to Russia durring or after the election we will do this and this”
    I would say go fight in Ukraine with boots on the ground to defend Ukraube but I know that’s not so realistic unfortunatly.

11. Russian propaganda i believed in: Russia won’t invade Ukraine.

    Western propaganda i believed in: Putin has cancer, weapon X will change the course of the war, Russia in desperate need of ammunitions, soldiers stealing washing machines, sancion number Y is going to cripple russia, the missile on the market, nord stream sabotage.