Nations in Europe, where Germany and France this year hold elections, are erecting defenses to counter possible Russian cyber attacks and disinformation to sway Western politics, but intelligence experts say this might be too little and too late.
The issue of Russian "influence operations" has taken on new urgency after U.S. intelligence agencies released a non-classified assessment that President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to move the U.S. election in favor of Donald Trump.
European nations and NATO are setting up centers to identify "fake news", bolstering cyber defenses and tracking use of social media which target Russian-speaking communities, far-right groups, political parties, voters and decision-makers.
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WNU Editor: I guess these governments and political parties are worried that their servers and computers will be hacked, embarrassing information taken, and then disclosed on Wikileaks and/or on other media sources. We are definitely living in a different age where the truth .... when revealed .... is actually a bad thing. But this push to set up organisations and/or a "Ministry of Truth" to counter alternative news is not a surprise. The main stream media in Europe is even worse than what it is in the U.S. .... and this hunger for alternative news websites from a good part of the European population is troubling those who see themselves as the gatekeepers of news and information. This is especially troubling for places like the Baltics .... who have huge Russian populations that as a voting bloc can swing an election .... and in turn are worrying governments who believe that they cannot match or counter what Russian media says. My prediction .... this European push to monitor news websites and social media is going to fail. The internet is a huge market place for news, ideas, and opinions .... the good, the bad, and the ugly .... and unless these countries start blocking access to websites in other countries (which will not happen) .... this talk about erecting defences to counter Russia's information war will just be talk.
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