cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/8668881
Russia is deploying disinformation and propaganda campaigns on Canadians to advance its geopolitical and military interests, and Ottawa is not doing enough to combat the problem, warned a Senate report released on Thursday.
The Senate committee on national security studied the impact of Russia’s disinformation on Canada and found that Moscow is deliberately disseminating false information in attempts to push pro-Russian narratives to Western audiences, particularly to justify its war in Ukraine. The committee said Russia’s efforts are an attempt to undermine the NATO alliance and to destabilize Western democracies.
Witnesses, made up of government officials, academics and representatives from civil-society organizations, told the committee that this disinformation campaign has been weakening the Western response to Russian aggression and they linked it to declining support for Ukraine. They also said that Canadian politicians have previously been subject to false narratives coming from Moscow, pointing to cases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The report points to Russia’s use of artificial intelligence and Western influencers to roll out overwhelming amounts of disinformation and exploit social or political divisions.
“This is part of this very complex strategy that Russia is pushing, to get democracies, to weaken them from within, so that they won’t be able to stand up to the threat that Russia poses to the rest of the world,” [Senator Stan] Kutcher said.
To strengthen Canada’s response, the report notes that the government needs to promote media literacy and critical thinking skills, including through increased collaboration between governments, communities, civil-society organizations and academic institutions.
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The senator said that civil-society organizations have demonstrated they have the capacity to address incoming disinformation, and that Canada should adopt and fund measures similar to those used in Finland and Ukraine.
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Mr. Kutcher called this Canada’s “modern Gouzenko moment.” In 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, defected and exposed a massive Soviet spy ring in Canada.
“What we really need to do, primarily, is to wake up that this is happening,” the senator added.