'We are living with disinformation. We are not going to eradicate it,' global expert argues

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Disinformation communicated by and on behalf of foreign powers is now part and parcel of digital statecraft in the information age, an expert from Cardiff University has said.

Professor Martin Innes, co-director of the Security, Crime and Innovation Intelligence Institute, gave evidence to two UK inquiries. One was led by the Foreign Affairs Committee, titled "Disinformation diplomacy: How malign actors are seeking to undermine democracy." The other was "The Rycroft Review—Report of the Independent Review into Countering Foreign Financial Influence and Interference in UK Politics."

The recently published report from the Foreign Affairs Committee's inquiry into disinformation diplomacy concludes that, "Russia presents a clear and present threat to the UK, its overseas interests, and Euro-Atlantic security." It adds, "it is vital that the Government ensures the UK and its allies harden their information ecosystems to make them an impenetrable and unattractive target of Russian interference."

Giving oral evidence at the Committee's first hearing, Professor Innes described the scale of disinformation being found online.

"I think the best data we have tracks between 2011 and 2023 and suggests that over 70 countries have been targeted," he said.

"There are multiple countries to which engagement in these kinds of activities has been attributed. The most commonly identified one is Russia, followed by Iran, followed by China."

He added, "It is in pretty much every language that you can think of. Fairly recently, we detected some Russian operations seemingly experimenting with Welsh and Gaelic, which are obviously quite small, niche languages on a global scale.

"But that is increasingly the direction in which they are heading, because one of the things that social media affords is an opportunity to engage in micro-targeting. Whereas previously, propaganda was a fairly mass population kind of effort, you are able to use these tools to target different ethnic groups, different regions and different languages, and that sets up a range of possibilities for you in terms of being able to exhibit malign influence."

The report cites work by Professor Martin Innes and his team which identified that the Russian-backed Doppelgänger network was amplifying conspiracies and disinformation regarding The Princess of Wales' health in the days before she announced her cancer diagnosis.

They detected Doppelgänger network accounts posting replies on X about The Princess of Wales, sharing material denigrating Ukraine, and celebrating President Putin's victory in recent elections among other points of interest to the Kremlin.

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Describing the operation during the evidence session, Professor Innes said, "There are two dimensions to it. First, at the time—it was probably the biggest story on social media on the planet. If you can get into that news cycle and media cycle, you suddenly get a lot more eyeballs on the content. They were amplifying this and then they were dropping in things about Ukraine. There was a content layer to it.

"Secondly, one of the key geostrategic purposes behind this is to undermine trust in institutions. The royal family is a significant UK institution."

Speaking about disinformation spread following the Southport attacks in 2024, Professor Innes said, "What we can see is that the conspiracy rumors occur organically, but there are a group of Russian actors who are monitoring the media space.

"They look at these and they go, 'Right. That one looks like it has traction. We can get behind it. We can boost and amplify that, and that will help us to achieve our geopolitical aims of sowing chaos, discord and all those kinds of things.' That is a repeated pattern that we see happening."

Professor Innes said the issue of how to tackle disinformation was a complex one.

"The impact of sanctions in this area is not really understood. Some of the individual organizations that we have looked at, which have been sanctioned by (the UK), the US and the EU, seem to have taken that as a badge of honor, and it has resulted in them receiving awards for their work in Russia.

"They have secured more contracts, and secured closed contracts, so they are not bidding on the open market. The unintended consequences of some of this are quite significant.

"Personally, I certainly think there is a case for saying that we need to revisit the extent to which platforms are responsible and accountable for the things that are published on their services, out of which they are making considerable amounts of money."

He added, "The bit that has interested me for a while, particularly when we look at what Russia is doing, is the outsourcing and the use of contracted agencies that are more creative and agile in terms of their approach. They are like digital natives. Whatever (the UK puts) together, we need to appreciate that there are different dimensions to this, and it probably transcends the traditional remit of any one single government department."

Professor Innes also gave evidence to "The Rycroft Review: Report of the independent review into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics." Its concluding report says, "This country faces a persistent problem of foreign interests seeking to exert influence on, and to interfere in, our politics."

Among its recommendations, the report states, "There should be clear lead accountability at ministerial and senior official level for leading the work to combat foreign online political interference, with resources commensurate to the challenge this poses to our democracy."

Provided by Cardiff University