“The question is not whether there will be attempts to influence the elections, but when, how and who will be targeted.” This is what Minister of the Interior Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) said after the National Security Council. They met on Wednesday morning to consider the risk of disinformation in an important election year. In concrete terms, this concerns the spread of fake news via social media and attempts at bribery and interference from abroad.
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Foreign interference is of course not a new phenomenon. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) points out that Russia is already waging a “hybrid war” with Europe. For example, the Russians tried to shake the prime minister’s chair through online influence. In 2022, the hashtag DeCrooMustGo circulated on social media. It was shared en masse by Russian accounts to influence public opinion. A year later, at the launch of the new sex education curriculum (EVRAS) in Wallonia, the security services again detected attempts to spread disinformation from Russia. In the controversy surrounding the curriculum, online messages from Russian bots also emerged warning of “the moral decay of the West”.
In addition to Russia, China is also known for online influence. “It is no secret that there are active démarches from China to influence representatives in our parliaments,” the prime minister said. He points the finger at Vlaams Belang. This week, ringleader Filip Dewinter again came under fire for his contacts with the Chinese spy Shao Changchun. Previously, his former party colleague Frank Creyelman was also exposed as an informant for China.
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Awareness raising
With the elections approaching, the federal government wants to step up the fight against disinformation and interference from Russia and China, among others. A task force of security services, including the crisis center, State Security and the Center for Cybersecurity, will closely monitor the threat. In addition, there will be an online awareness campaign to make citizens resilient.
“Schools also have an important task in this,” says Minister Verlinden. She emphasizes that special attention must be paid to young people throughout this story. Especially now that 16 and 17 year olds are also required to go to the polls for the European elections. For many of them, the Chinese platform TikTok is their most important, sometimes even only, information channel. “We must make it clear to them that the information appearing on TikTok can be controlled by foreign governments. Some of those countries have very different ideas about democracy and elections than we do,” the Minister of the Interior said.
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