Ukraine War Update EXTRA: Fighting Disinformation in the EU, & Musk's Election Interference
Table of Contents 📖
"If you're flooding the information spaces with just sheer volume of confusion and lies, then it's really difficult to know what's true."
Hello Team
🎦 00:00-00:36⏩
Jonathan introduces today's "Vatnik Soup" extra video about information defence and foreign influence/disinformation, sharing content from two Twitter threads by Pekka Kalinami.
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Trump's pro-Kremlin rhetoric and the US dismantling institutions combatting disinformation
🎦 00:36-01:19⏩
Jonathan explains that the EU can no longer rely on America's help to fight disinformation, evidenced by Trump's recent pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukraine and anti-EU rhetoric, coupled with the US dismantling institutions created to combat disinformation and foreign interference in US elections.
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Examples of US institutions being dismantled
🎦 01:19-02:23⏩
Jonathan provides specific examples of US institutions being dismantled by the Trump administration.
- Staffers working on disinformation and election security advisors at the Department of Homeland Security are on administrative leave.
- The FBI task force to combat foreign influence in US politics from Russia, China and other countries has been dismantled.
- The task force focused on sanctions and targeting oligarchs close to the Kremlin has been disbanded.
Trump's cabinet nominations a cause for concern
🎦 02:24-02:37⏩
Jonathan expresses concern over Trump's cabinet nominations, citing Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel as examples, questioning whether the EU can continue to share intelligence with the US.
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Russia's disinformation campaign against the West
🎦 02:37-03:11⏩
Jonathan moves on to the Kremlin's information war against the West (ongoing since 2013). Jonathan notes that the EU has been "outsmarted and out-resourced" - they have lost. He highlights that the images included in the Twitter thread offer more detail.
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Russia's "Firehose of Falsehood" propaganda approach
🎦 03:11-03:46⏩
Jonathan describes Russia's propaganda approach as a "firehose of falsehood" - similar to Steve Bannon's strategy, he explains, before listing the main features of the approach:
- High volume and multi-channel
- Shameless in broadcasting lies
- No commitment to consistency
- Rapid, continuous and repetitive messaging
- Not designed to persuade, but to confuse and overwhelm
- Assumes and reinforces a low-trust environment
- Number of arguments matters more than quality
- Drown out competing messages through sheer volume.
Scale and cost of Russia's disinformation campaign
🎦 03:46-04:19⏩
Jonathan cites data from Zhenzhen Vilma et al. (2018), stating that Russia was responsible for 80% of information aggression in Europe. He highlights the asymmetry of the situation, stating "They lie, and we desperately try to debunk their BS". He notes the significant funding the Kremlin commits to its disinformation campaign - €2bn annually for national mass media with much more believed to be spent on disinformation and malign influence operations abroad. He concludes by calling Russia a "disinformation superpower" and one of the few nations to truly understand its power.
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EU spending to combat disinformation dwarfed by Russia's
🎦 04:20-04:46⏩
Jonathan highlights how much the EU spends to combat disinformation - it's difficult to estimate, he explains, as each country has their own counter-disinformation efforts. He estimates EU-wide spending to be around €25m annually - a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated billions Russia spends. He concludes that the EU is being overwhelmed.
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Challenges of fighting online disinformation
🎦 04:46-05:14⏩, 05:35-05:54⏩
Jonathan describes the challenges of fighting online disinformation:
- The sheer volume of disinformation
- Discovering the source can be problematic.
- The resurgence of the Russian "Doppelganger" disinformation operation
- Disinformation from the US about Greenland and Canada.
- The MAGA network spreading pro-Moscow narratives.
Short term measures to combat disinformation
🎦 05:54-06:23⏩
Jonathan suggests several short-term measures to combat disinformation:
- Focus resources on debunking and exposing campaigns
- Expose influence networks
- Consider censorship (as a last resort)
- Discuss temporarily closing social media during elections (last resort and likely to attract criticism, although notes that the US was prepared to shut down TikTok due to security concerns).
The power of social media and US influence
🎦 06:23-06:39⏩
Jonathan highlights the power of social media over elections and politics, citing comments from US Vice President JD Vance suggesting that US support for NATO could be withdrawn if the EU attempts to regulate Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter). Jonathan concludes that the US wants to maintain its influence over the EU.
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"Pre-bunking" - effective but limited reach
🎦 06:40-06:55⏩
Jonathan describes pre-bunking (the type of content in the video) as an effective way to combat disinformation, although acknowledges its limited reach, being shared by outlets with a limited audience.
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Exposing influence networks and the lack of effective EU tools
🎦 06:56-07:11⏩
Jonathan believes that exposing influence networks is another effective tool in combatting disinformation although the EU lacks effective tools to do so. He mentions Blackbird AI (a US company) as an example of an effective tool.
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Funding civil society and media literacy initiatives
🎦 07:11-07:42⏩
Jonathan believes that the EU should fund civil society initiatives focussed on local influence campaigns, particularly in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova (previously funded by USAID). He also advocates for media literacy and critical thinking to be added to school curriculums (an effective strategy in Finland).
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EU lagging behind US and China in the AI arms race
🎦 07:42-08:08⏩
Jonathan talks about Macron's comments at the AI summit in Paris, highlighting the need for Europe to increase investment in AI in order to compete with the US and China. He reiterates that the EU is behind in the AI arms race and that incentives are needed for companies to remain and operate in the EU. His conclusion - the EU needs to spend much more to fight the information war, warning that Russia may be planning an invasion of the EU and NATO and that information war always precedes conventional war.
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Jonathan's closing remarks (thread 1)
🎦 08:08-08:33⏩
Jonathan reiterates that the EU (and its close allies in the UK and Canada) can no longer rely on the US and should consider "building up those nukes", before moving on to the second Twitter thread about Elon Musk's election interference.
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Elon Musk's election interference machine (EIM)
🎦 08:33-09:03⏩
Jonathan introduces the second Twitter thread from Pekka Kalinami, about Elon Musk's "election interference machine" (EIM). He believes that since Musk and his allies helped Trump win the presidency, the machine has been used to interfere in European elections, specifically mentioning Germany and Romania. He argues that Musk's purchase of Twitter was part of a grand plan to promote "free speech absolutism", tweaking the algorithms to promote political parties that support his worldview.
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Musk, Vance and the freedom of speech argument
🎦 09:03-09:38⏩
Jonathan challenges the freedom of speech argument frequently espoused by the Trump administration, Musk and JD Vance, noting that they blame the EU for limiting free speech with no justification. Jonathan observes that they are silent when it comes to attacks on free speech in China, India and Turkey.
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Musk, Trump and attacks on traditional media
🎦 09:38-10:18⏩
Jonathan questions why, when Musk and Vance talk about freedom of speech, they are referring only to social media. He highlights the Press Freedom Index, pointing out that in reality, the US has much worse press freedom than the EU. He lists examples of how Musk and Trump have tried to silence traditional media outlets:
- Suing people/companies for millions of dollars for criticism
- Firing people who criticise them/question their actions
Jonathan believes they attack traditional media because they know they can't control it, unlike social media.
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Trump's attacks on left-leaning media
🎦 10:18-10:44⏩
Jonathan believes that Trump has been attacking left-leaning media since 2015 to remove its legitimacy and decrease its influence. He lists examples of outlets targeted - CNN, MSNBC, PBS, MBR and CBS, highlighting that they are all critical of Trump, unlike right wing outlets Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, Breitbart, and The Daily Caller, which Trump never criticises.
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The Trump team understand the power of social media
🎦 10:45-11:07⏩
Jonathan states that the presence of Zuckerberg, Musk and Bezos (Amazon owns Twitch) in the front row of Trump's inauguration, demonstrated that the Trump team understand the power of social media. He also mentions Trump's interest in a US buyer for TikTok. Jonathan concludes that Musk has turned Twitter into the EIM.
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How Elon Musk's "Election Interference Machine" (EIM) works
🎦 11:07-12:07⏩
Jonathan explains how Elon Musk's "Election Interference Machine" works:
- Musk's X account is the largest on the platform with 220 million followers giving him the power to boost or bury any account.
- Musk has helped several pro-Trump accounts (Inevitable West, Bill Gray and Ken Akoa the Great) grow their accounts, turning them into "pro-Trump influence operations".
- Musk can drive significant advertising revenue to accounts by retweeting/commenting on them
- Musk allegedly pays women he's romantically involved with up to $20,000 per month.
Jonathan's conclusion - the EIM gives its targets visibility and money. He encourages viewers to look at the supporting images for evidence.
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Musk uses censorship to silence his critics
🎦 12:08-12:29⏩
Jonathan states that the EIM is designed to make X (Twitter) biased, promoting accounts that support Trump and Musk. He argues that despite promoting himself as a "free speech absolutist", Musk silences and censors his critics. He cites examples:
- Removing a BBC documentary about India's Modi at the request of the Indian government.
- Banning critical journalists in India
- Enabling censorship before the elections in Turkey.
How the EIM creates an echo chamber
🎦 12:29-13:18⏩
Jonathan describes how the EIM creates an echo chamber:
- Pro-Trump accounts are grown and promoted, creating a network of large "super-spreader" accounts supporting Trump/Musk's policies
- These accounts are promoted to new users, creating an echo chamber where dissenting voices are present but rarely heard.
- Removing academics' access to analytics tools and hiding likes makes manipulation difficult to detect.
Trump, Russia, the AFD and election interference in Germany
🎦 13:18-14:19⏩
Jonathan claims that the Trump administration has allied with Russia to conduct massive-scale influence operations (both automated and large social media accounts) to promote pro-US and Pro-Russia messages. He gives the example of the German elections:
- Musk and Vance have both shown support for the pro-Kremlin party AFD (Alternative for Deutschland).
- AFD leader Alice Weidel, recently called for the lifting sanctions against Russia.
- An AFD employee helped the FSB to slow down/stop military aid to Ukraine.
- Musk has campaigned for the AFD, even organising Twitter Spaces with Alice Weidel and speaking at their events.
Jonathan believes that Musk and Vance's support for the AFD suggests that their goals are aligned. He explains that Germany, as the biggest economy in Europe would be a powerful ally. Despite this, the plan is likely to fail as the AFD is polling at 20% and other parties are reluctant to work with them.
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EIM and election interference in the UK
🎦 14:19-14:54⏩
Jonathan moves on to the UK, stating that Elon Musk has been promoting Reform UK, citing examples:
- Promoting Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
- Allegedly planning to donate up to £100 million to get Farage elected.
- Their relationship soured after Farage failed to support Tommy Robinson. Musk and his "Dubai cronies" turned against Farage, who now supports Ukraine's membership of NATO.
- The EIM was then used to support Rupert Lowe, one of the main Reform UK MPs.
EIM and potential interference in Romanian and Hungarian elections
🎦 14:54-15:08⏩
Jonathan speculates on where the EIM will be used next:
- Romania where the first round of elections were annulled due to an alleged influence campaign by Russia.
- Hungary in 2026, where Viktor Orbán has been losing support.
Trump administration censorship
🎦 15:08-15:23⏩
Jonathan states that the Trump administration are increasing their own censorship efforts, citing the following examples:
- Banning journalists who refuse to use the administration's terminology.
- Banning certain words in government projects.
EIM - a summary
🎦 15:23-15:38⏩
Jonathan summarises how the EIM works:
- Get rid of traditional media (lawsuits/threats)
- Remove guardrails and safety measures.
- Promote and fund Elon's allies.
- Silence critics
- Play the algorithm.
- Blame any resistance as "censorship".
The impact of Elon Musk and the decline of support for Ukraine in the US
🎦 15:38-16:13⏩
Jonathan believes that Elon Musk is playing a significant role in driving support for the Russian narrative, leading to a decline in support for Ukraine and Zelensky. He believes that Fox News is also guilty (regurgitating Russian talking points).
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The rise of populism and the erosion of trust
🎦 16:13-17:14⏩
Jonathan believes that truth and accuracy are no longer valued, arguing that populist movements lack integrity, using lies to gain and maintain power. He states that the current trend for eschewing institutions, norms and rules leads to lack of trust, creating an environment where people are distrustful of everyone and everything (especially established institutions and politicians) which, ultimately, erodes the checks and balances required for a functioning government.
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How Russia's "firehose of falsehood" paves the way for extremist populist leaders
🎦 17:14-18:09⏩
Jonathan describes how Russia's "firehose of falsehood" strategy creates an environment ripe for exploitation by extremist leaders:
- The volume of lies and confusion makes it difficult to know what is true.
- Lack of trust in institutions and politicians creates a "survival of the fittest" mentality.
- Populist leaders exploit this, offering simple solutions to complex problems, appealing to people who are distrustful of everyone and everything.
The myth of "draining the swamp"
🎦 18:09-18:48⏩
Jonathan acknowledges that political elites and lobbyists are problematic for free and fair democracies. However, he argues that populist leaders offer a false promise to "drain the swamp" by removing guardrails and checks and balances that prevent autocracy, rather than getting rid of those who present a problem for democracies.
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Populist leaders exploit the conditions created by Russia's disinformation campaigns
🎦 18:48-19:29⏩
Jonathan concludes that populist leaders who offer simple solutions to complex problems are able to gain traction because Russia's disinformation campaigns have created the perfect conditions for them to flourish. He reiterates how valuable Pekka Kalinami is as a resource and thanks him for his work.
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Wrap Up
🎦 19:29-19:34⏩
Jonathan thanks viewers for watching, adding that he hopes it was of interest.
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