Belgian information services on guard ahead of the European elections

Information services try to detect the spread of manipulations of information organized from outside the European Union.

This is the mission of the analysts, who operate discreetly in the Belgian intelligence service.

Tom -not his real name- is an analyst cyber defense and security of the General Information and Security Service of Belgium: “What we seek to detect are anomalieswe can call them that, therefore a sudden increase in the number of publications o retweets or “like”, on a very particular topic or the appearance of new actors“.

Analysis of an ultra summit in Brussels

An example of their work: in April, there was a summit of the right and the extreme right in Brussels. The Belgian foreign intelligence service then examined the posts on network cloud graph.

They look for attempts by Russia and China to launch campaigns to manipulate public opinion. They try to make shield against misinformation organized.

Tom presents in the video you can see above, “The whole Gray area, which represents most of what we see on screen, relates to a discussion or discussions related to the political conference that took place in mid-April here in Brussels. While the actors who are in the blue zones They are actors who are controlled daily for the simple reason that they come from the pro-russian movement. And it seems clear that interfering in a political conversation that has its physical headquarters here in Belgium undoubtedly has the objective of amplify chaos or polarization existing in connection with this conference”.

Psychological warfare from behind the screen

In an environment that increasingly resembles the period ofCold War information services assert their ability to identify interference campaigns from outside the European Union.

In Polanda parliamentary commission has begun to investigate traces of influence Russian y Belarusian in the country.

Additional sources • Enrique Barrueco (Voice-over)