Obama told a packed audience of more than 600 people in CEMEX auditorium – as well as more than 250,000 viewers tuning in online – that everyone is part of the solution to make democracy stronger in the digital age and that all of us – from technology companies and their employees to students and ordinary citizens – must work together to adapt old institutions and values to a new era of information. “If we do nothing, I’m convinced the trends that we’re seeing will get worse,” he said.

Introducing the former president was Michael McFaul, director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama, and Stanford alum and Obama Foundation fellow, Tiana Epps-Johnson, BA ’08.

Epps-Johnson, who is the founder and executive director of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, recalled her time answering calls to an election protection hotline during the 2006 midterm election. She said the experience taught her an important lesson, which was that “the overall health of our democracy, whether we have a voting process that is fair and trustworthy, is more important than any one election outcome.”

Stanford freshman Evan Jackson said afterward that Obama’s speech resonated with him. “I use social media a lot, every day, and I’m always seeing all the fake news that can be spread easily. And I do understand that when you have controversy attached to what you’re saying, it can reach larger crowds,” Jackson said. “So if we do find a way to better contain the controversy and the fake news, it can definitely help our democracy stay powerful for our nation.”

The Promise and Perils Technology Poses to Democracy

In his keynote, Obama reflected on how technology has transformed the way people create and consume media. Digital and social media companies have upended traditional media – from local newspapers to broadcast television, as well as the role these outlets played in society at large.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the American public tuned in to one of three major networks, and while media from those earlier eras had their own set of problems – such as excluding women and people of color – they did provide people with a shared culture, Obama said.

Moreover, these media institutions, with established journalistic best practices for accuracy and accountability, also provided people with similar information: “When it came to the news, at least, citizens across the political spectrum tended to operate using a shared set of facts – what they saw or what they heard from Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley.”

Fast forward to today, where everyone has access to individualized news feeds that are fed by algorithms that reward the loudest and angriest voices (and which technology companies profit from). “You have the sheer proliferation of content, and the splintering of information and audiences,” Obama observed. “That’s made democracy more complicated.”

Facts are competing with opinions, conspiracy theories, and fiction. “For more and more of us, search and social media platforms aren’t just our window into the internet. They serve as our primary source of news and information,” Obama said. “No one tells us that the window is blurred, subject to unseen distortions, and subtle manipulations.”

The splintering of news sources has also made all of us more prone to what psychologists call “confirmation bias,” Obama said. “Inside our personal information bubbles, our assumptions, our blind spots, our prejudices aren’t challenged, they are reinforced and naturally, we’re more likely to react negatively to those consuming different facts and opinions – all of which deepens existing racial and religious and cultural divides.”

But the problem is not just that our brains can’t keep up with the growing amount of information online, Obama argued. “They’re also the result of very specific choices made by the companies that have come to dominate the internet generally, and social media platforms in particular.”

The former president also made clear that he did not think technology was to blame for many of our social ills. Racism, sexism, and misogyny, all predate the internet, but technology has helped amplify them.

“Solving the disinformation problem won’t cure all that ails our democracies or tears at the fabric of our world, but it can help tamp down divisions and let us rebuild the trust and solidarity needed to make our democracy stronger,” Obama said.

He gave examples of how social media has fueled violence and extremism around the world. For example, leaders from countries such as Russia to China, Hungary, the Philippines, and Brazil have harnessed social media platforms to manipulate their populations. “Autocrats like Putin have used these platforms as a strategic weapon against democratic countries that they consider a threat,” Obama said.

He also called out emerging technologies such as AI for their potential to sow further discord online. “I’ve already seen demonstrations of deep fake technology that show what looks like me on a screen, saying stuff I did not say. It’s a strange experience people,” Obama said. “Without some standards, implications of this technology – for our elections, for our legal system, for our democracy, for rules of evidence, for our entire social order – are frightening and profound.”

‘Regulation Has to Be Part of the Answer’

Obama discussed potential solutions for addressing some of the problems he viewed as contributing to a backsliding of democracy in the second half of his talk.

In an apt metaphor for a speech delivered in Silicon Valley, Obama compared the U.S. Constitution to software for running society. It had “a really innovative design,” Obama said, but also significant bugs. “Slavery. You can discriminate against entire classes of people. Women couldn’t vote. Even white men without property couldn’t vote, couldn’t participate, weren’t part of ‘We the People.’”

The amendments to the Constitution were akin to software patches, the former president said, that allowed us to “continue to perfect our union.”

Similarly, governments and technology companies should be willing to introduce changes aimed at improving civil discourse online and reducing the amount of disinformation on the internet, Obama said.

“The internet is a tool. Social media is a tool. At the end of the day, tools don’t control us. We control them. And we can remake them. It’s up to each of us to decide what we value and then use the tools we’ve been given to advance those values,” he said.

The former president put forth various solutions for combating online disinformation, including regulation, which many tech companies fiercely oppose.

“Here in the United States, we have a long history of regulating new technologies in the name of public safety, from cars and airplanes to prescription drugs to appliances,” Obama said. “And while companies initially always complain that the rules are going to stifle innovation and destroy the industry, the truth is that a good regulatory environment usually ends up spurring innovation, because it raises the bar on safety and quality. And it turns out that innovation can meet that higher bar.”

In particular, Obama urged policymakers to rethink Section 230, enacted as part of the United States Communications Decency Act in 1996, which ​​stipulates that generally, online platforms cannot be held liable for content that other people post on their website.

But technology has changed dramatically over the past two decades since Section 230 was enacted, Obama said. “These platforms are not like the old phone company.”

He added: “In some cases, industry standards may replace or substitute for regulation, but regulation has to be part of the answer.”

Obama also urged technology companies to be more transparent in how they operate and “at minimum” should share with researchers and regulators how some of their products and services are designed so there is some accountability.

The responsibility also lies with ordinary citizens, the former president said. “We have to take it upon ourselves to become better consumers of news – looking at sources, thinking before we share, and teaching our kids to become critical thinkers who know how to evaluate sources and separate opinion from fact.”

Obama warned that if the U.S. does not act on these issues, it risks being eclipsed in this arena by other countries. “As the world’s leading democracy, we have to set a better example. We should be able to lead on these discussions internationally, not [be] in the rear. Right now, Europe is forging ahead with some of the most sweeping legislation in years to regulate the abuses that are seen in big tech companies,” Obama said. “Their approach may not be exactly right for the United States, but it points to the need for us to coordinate with other democracies. We need to find our voice in this global conversation.”

 

En octobre 2020 se tiendra en Guinée une élection présidentielle cruciale, qui déterminera si le Président Alpha Condé poursuivra son mandat pour une nouvelle décennie, ou si le pays connaîtra le premier changement de régime démocratique de son histoire. L’élection a aussi d’importantes implications économiques pour les investisseurs étrangers en Guinée.

Dans les mois précédant l’élection, nous avons identifié un réseau de 94 Pages Facebook qui relaient, de manière coordonnée, des publications favorables à Condé et à son parti. Ces Pages, qui comptent au total plus de 800 000 abonnés, publient des textes et des images pro-Condé, et promeuvent des vidéos qui proviennent de médias affiliés au gouvernement. Un faisceau d’indices – des événements relatés dans la presse, des pratiques de publication spécifiques, d’autres éléments encore – permet d’établir un lien entre ces Pages et le parti de Condé, le Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen (RPG). Plus spécifiquement, il établit un lien avec son équipe de “volontaires communicants” (“Volcom” en abrégé), en réalité salariés du RPG. Les administrateurs des Pages du réseau dissimulent leurs véritables identités sous de faux noms comme « Alpha le Démocrate ». Les Pages ne révèlent pas les relations formelles, voire salariées, de leurs auteurs avec le RPG. 

Nous avons partagé une version de cet article, ainsi que les données associées, avec Facebook. Facebook a estimé que les Pages et comptes de ce réseau ne constituent pas une « action inauthentique concertée », et le réseau n’a pas été suspendu. Bien que les activités que nous avons découvertes ne suffisent pas à justifier une action répressive de la part de Facebook, comme la suppression des comptes, ou l’étiquetage des Pages, il nous semble que ces activités ne favorisent pas une vie politique transparente ou des élections équitables. Le cas de la Guinée soulève des questions plus larges : où et comment faire la distinction entre une campagne électorale moderne et des « actions inauthentiques concertées » ?

Contexte

Alpha Condé est le premier président démocratiquement élu en Guinée et a servi deux mandats de cinq ans depuis sa prise de pouvoir en 2010. En mars 2020, il a tenu un référendum pour approuver une nouvelle constitution qui prévoit, entre autres changements, de fixer de nouvelles limites pour les mandats présidentiels. Sous cette nouvelle Constitution, Condé pourrait demeurer au pouvoir pour douze ans supplémentaires. Des manifestants sont descendus dans la rue dans les mois menant au référendum, parfois réprimés par la force. Ils ont également échangé leurs points de vue sur Facebook, le principal réseau social de Guinée, qui compte deux millions de comptes pour environ treize millions d’habitants. Le parti au pouvoir et l’opposition utilisent tous deux Facebook comme la principale plateforme de diffusion de leur communication politique. Cela fait de Facebook un forum clé pour influencer les électeurs et créer l'illusion de soutiens spontanés.

Le réseau des Volcom du RPG

Le réseau de Pages du RPG n’est ni petit, ni discret. Nous avons identifié deux des principales Pages de ce réseau, parce qu’elles sont parmi les seules à placer des publicités politiques en Guinée (comme cela est consigné dans la bibliothèque de publicités de Facebook, la Facebook Ad Library). Il nous est vite apparu évident que des dizaines d’autres Pages et Groupes interagissent avec ces Pages, de façon coordonnée : des publications et des images identiques, diffusées par des comptes qui présentent souvent la même photo de profil.

Image 1 : Publication vantant les barrages hydroélectriques construits par Condé.

La plupart du contenu de ces Pages fait l’éloge de la politique et du caractère du président Alpha Condé dans un style journalistique soutenu, avec une syntaxe et un vocabulaire sophistiqués. Certaines publications font référence à des faits précis, émaillés de chiffres et d’autres éléments de preuve. Par exemple, une publication du groupe « Guinéens, ouvrez les yeux » (également retrouvée sur six autres Pages du réseau) célèbre la construction de barrages hydroélectriques par le président Condé, dont un barrage controversé financé par la Chine (Image 1).

Au cours de notre enquête dans ce réseau visiblement organisé, nous avons trouvé des articles de presse sur les individus régulièrement identifiés dans les publications du réseau. L’attention des médias de focalise sur les « Volontaires Communicants » (ou « Volcom ») un groupe de communicants politiques employés et salariés par le RPG pour promouvoir Condé et sa politique.   De nombreux membres des Volcom parlent librement de leurs activités. Par exemple, Korbonya Balde se présente sur son compte Facebook comme travaillant pour la « Cellule de Communication du RPG Arc-en-Ciel ». Balde a été arrêté en 2018 pour incitation à la haine raciale et à la violence envers les opposants politiques du RPG sur les réseaux sociaux. En février, les Volcom ont entamé une grève pour dénoncer leurs conditions de travail – un événement qui, d’après nos sources guinéennes, a suscité une attention considérable parmi l’élite guinéenne. 

La couverture médiatique de la grève des Volcom a mis en exergue une partie de leurs soutiens au sein du gouvernement guinéen, suggérant que Albert Damantang Camara, Ministre de la Sécurité et la Protection Civile, Hadja Aissatou Béla Diallo, ministre conseillère chargée de mission auprès du président, Madina Thiam (la fille de Diallo) et Souleimane Keita, un membre influent du parti et conseiller présidentiel, financent collectivement les Volcom. 

Bien que l’organigramme des Volcom ne soit pas public, au moins deux de leurs membres semblent avoir une influence notable au sein du groupe. Ibrahima Kallo est désigné par d’autres utilisateurs Facebook et plusieurs médias comme « le chef des Volcom ». Il a récemment été nommé comme attaché auprès de Diakara Koulibaly, Ministre des Hydrocarbures. Sa présence sur les réseaux sociaux (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat) est prolifique. Il semble aussi avoir un accès privilégié à Condé, comme plusieurs images et liens d’identification (tags) l’attestent. Charles Kolie, mieux connu sous son alias Facebook « Continuité Continuité » semble également avoir un rôle de coordinateur au sein de Volcom. Une biographie publiée sur Facebook affirme que Kolie a rempli plusieurs fonctions au sein du RPG jusqu’en 2007, et qu’il est coordinateur national de Volcom depuis 2018.

Sur la base de ces éléments, nous avons élaboré des critères pour établir des liens entre les Pages pro-Condé que nous avons découvertes et les Volcom. Nous attribuons une Page aux Volcom avec un haut niveau de certitude si elle satisfait au moins deux de ces critères :

• Les Volcoms sont mentionnés explicitement, dans des publications ou dans les informations de la Page. Cela passe souvent par l’usage de mots-dièse comme #Volcom_rpg_AEC ou #Volcoms.

• Des membres de Volcom sont identifiés dans des publications de la Page, ou des publications de membres des Volcom sont reprises sur la Page, ou les publications de la Page sont régulièrement reprises par des membres des Volcom.

• Au moins une publication (texte ou image) a été recopiée directement depuis une autre Page. Dans au moins un sous-ensemble de Pages, nous avons remarqué que les heures de publication et le contenu étaient très largement coordonnés.

• Des similitudes dans les métadonnées des Pages, notamment la date de création de la page, la date de mise à jour des photos de profil, l’adresse email ou téléphonique de contact, ou encore la localisation de l’administrateur.

Image 2 : Exemples de Pages du réseau Volcom.

Nous avons identifié 94 Pages que nous attribuons avec un haut niveau de certitude au réseau Volcom. La plupart des Pages du réseau ont été créées à la fin de 2019 ou au début de 2020, et vingt-cinq d’entre elles ont été créées le 27 mars 2020. La plupart des Pages ont entre plusieurs centaines et plusieurs milliers d’abonnés, et quatorze en ont au moins 10 000 (voir les exemples de deux pages dans l’Image 1). La plus importante (« Le coin des guinéens ») a plus de 352 000 abonnés, ce qui pourrait suggérer que presqu’un utilisateur Facebook guinéen sur cinq est abonné à cette Page. Aucune des Pages ne déclare que son contenu émane d’employés du parti RPG ou du gouvernement. Par exemple, dans sa section « A propos », la Page « Guinéens, Ouvrez les Yeux » déclare seulement être « une page créée par des analystes dans le but de dénoncer, critiquer et apporter des solutions sur les différentes mutations de la Guinée ».

Image 3 : Exemple de publications identiques dont la diffusion est coordonnée.

Le réseau présente des formes de coordination, y compris la répétition de publications parfaitement identiques à travers plusieurs Pages. Par exemple, la publication en Image 3, qui critique le Front National pour la Défense de la Constitution (FNDC), une coalition de partis d’opposition guinéens, a été publiée presque simultanément le 31 mai sur au moins trois Pages Facebook : à 9h58 sur « Le Forum Républicain », à 10h00 sur « Guinéens, Changeons de Mentalité » et sur « Allons au référendum dans la paix et la concorde ». Plus tard ce même jour, la même publication est apparue sur deux autres Pages du réseau, « Le coin des guinéens » et « Pr Alpha Condé Pour Tous ». 

Image 4 : Activité de publication, Ensemble 1. En surligné, la période de 3 semaines au cours de laquelle la coordination est la plus marquée.

Une telle activité de publication coordonnée est fréquente parmi les Pages du réseau. Nous avons identifié deux ensembles de Pages au sein du réseau qui présentent des activités de publication hautement coordonnées. L’ensemble 1 (Image 4) comprend 15 Pages qui publient régulièrement le même contenu approximativement à la même heure. Ces Pages ont 185 000 abonnés au total, ce qui représente 23 pourcents des abonnés du réseau général. Dix de ces Pages ont un seul administrateur, localisé en Turquie, ce qui pourrait suggérer qu’un même individu ou entreprise pourrait être impliqué dans la gestion de ces Pages. Par ailleurs, sept autres Pages ont également un administrateur en Turquie, ce qui porte le total à dix-sept Pages dans le réseau. Bien que d’autres Pages au sein du réseau aient des administrateurs dans des pays étrangers, comme les Etats-Unis, la France, le Maroc, l’Espagne et l’Inde, le nombre de Pages administrées depuis la Turquie est bien plus important.

Image 5 : Ensemble 2, Activité de publication coordonnée.

L’ensemble 2 (Image 5) comprend 14 plus petites Pages avec 2896 abonnés au total. Toutes les Pages de cet ensemble ont été créées les 26 et 27 mars 2020. A juger par leur faible nombre d’abonnés et d’interactions, nous faisons l’hypothèse que les Pages de cet ensemble sont encore en train de construire leur audience, ou qu’elles servent à grossir les statistiques d’interaction d’autres Pages. Leurs activités de publication sont gérées de manière parallèle, ce qui suggère que des techniques d’automatisation sont utilisées pour gérer ces Pages. 

Outre leurs activités de publication coordonnées, ces Pages ont tendance à partager les publications de deux médias vidéo liés au RPG : Alpha Condé TV et 224Minutes (à noter, la Page de 224Minutes a été retirée de Facebook en septembre 2020, peu avant la publication de cet article). La presse guinéenne attribue la direction d’Alpha Condé TV à Madina Thiam, également marraine des Volcom. 224Minutes a précédemment été épinglé par les plateformes de réseaux sociaux pour des violations de leurs conditions d’utilisation : son premier compte Twitter a été suspendu, et Facebook bloque tous les liens extérieurs vers 224minutes.net, affichant le message suivant : « Le lien auquel vous avez tenté d'accéder est contraire à nos Standards de la Communauté ». Sur les Pages Facebook d’Alpha Condé TV et 224Minutes, plusieurs publications présentent un nombre de partages particulièrement élevé au regard de leurs mentions « j’aime », ce qui est suspect. Une publication récente d’Alpha Condé TV, par exemple, a seulement 96 mentions « j’aime » et 67 commentaires mais a été partagée 4000 fois dans les 16 heures.

Image 6 : Exemples de comptes utilisant Condé ou Poutine comme photos de profil.

Les Pages des Volcom sont largement diffusées grâce à un réseau de comptes Facebook géré par les communicants du RPG. La plupart des utilisateurs qui « aiment », commentent ou partagent les Pages du réseau publient presqu’exclusivement du contenu sur Condé sur leurs propres profils personnels. Plusieurs d’entre eux ont les mêmes portraits de Vladimir Poutine ou de Condé comme photos de profil et de couverture (Image 6, Alpha Mon Choix et Politologue Traoré). Certains de ces comptes se présentent comme employés par le RPG Arc-en-Ciel, le parti de Condé.

Image 7 : Exemple d'utilisateur partageant une même publication Volcom dans plusieurs groupes.

Ces utilisateurs partagent des contenus issus des Pages du réseau sur leurs propres journaux ou sur des Groupes : les comptes individuels partagent souvent la même publication de nombreuses fois (Image 7). Ils relaient ces publications dans des Groupes neutres, ou même d’opposition, qui ne sont pas contrôlés par Volcom, touchant ainsi un plus grand nombre de Guinéens. Bien que ces utilisateurs se livrent à des activités de publication coordonnées et que plusieurs utilisent clairement de faux noms, il ne s’agit pas nécessairement d’identités complètement fictives. Ainsi, les photos de ces comptes semblent bien être d’une seule et même personne, engagée dans diverses activités, souvent politiques. De plus, nous n’interprétons pas la prolifération de photos de Poutine comme un signe d’interférence russe. Ce phénomène semble plutôt motivé par le parallèle entre Condé et Poutine, qui a également légitimé un changement à la constitution de son pays pour demeurer au pouvoir. En utilisant l’image de Poutine, les soutiens de Condé évoquent les deux décennies de Poutine en Russie comme un modèle de la stabilité et de la continuité auxquelles ils aspirent pour la Guinée.

Des liens avec l'étranger: la Turquie

Image 8 : Publications favorables à Albayrak, issues de Pages du réseau Volcom.

Etant donné le nombre important de pages gérées par des administrateurs turcs (ou basés en Turquie), nous avons analysé les comportements de publication sur les sujets d’intérêt pour la Turquie. Le réseau des Volcom (y compris les Pages sans administrateur turc) a publié plusieurs articles au sujet d’un conglomérat turc étroitement lié à Condé : le groupe Albayrak, présidé par Ahmet Calik, allié proche d’Erdogan, et précédemment dirigé par Berat Albayrak, gendre d’Erdogan. Les publications mentionnent Albayrak en termes positifs, célébrant les dons d’Albayrak à la Guinée durant la crise du Covid-19 (avec une vidéo du groupe Albayrak) et la mise en place d’un service de collecte de déchets à Conakry (Image 8).

Image 9 : Photo de Condé et Calik, publiée par un membre éminent des Volcom.

En outre, les membres des Volcom rapportent certaines réunions au sommet entre les dirigeants d’Albayrak et l’administration Condé, comme l’illustre cette photo de Condé en discussion avec Ahmet Calik le 30 octobre 2019, postée par Ibrahima Kallo sur Twitter (Image 9). Dans la publication sont identifiés deux ministres du gouvernement Condé, deux membres de Volcom, et le président-directeur général du Fonds d’Entretien Routier. Cette même année, Albayrak a remporté un contrat pour prolonger un segment de route vers le Port Autonome de Conakry.

Image 10 : L'avion privé de Condé (numéro de série TC-VTN), un prêt d'Erdogan.

Les présidents Erdogan et Condé ont également de très bonnes relations personnelles. Erdogan fut l’un des rares dirigeants internationaux à exprimer son soutien à Condé en envoyant des félicitations officielles après le référendum de mars 2010. Erdogan a également prêté un avion privé à Condé, que Condé utilise à présent comme son avion officiel (Image 11). Un suivi de l’activité récente de l’avion révèle au moins quatre aller-retours entre la Guinée et la Turquie dans la seule seconde moitié de 2019.

Cependant, quoique quelques indices semblent désigner un lien entre les contenus des Volcom et les intérêts officiels de la Turquie, nous n’avons pas pu déterminer l’identité de l’administrateur turc des Pages des Volcom, ni trouver des preuves directes d’une implication turque dans ce réseau.

L'influence des Volcom sur la politique guinéenne

Nous avons contacté plusieurs journalistes et guinéens politiquement engagés pour comprendre dans quelle mesure les Pages des Volcom influencent la politique guinéenne, et combien il était plausible qu’elles convainquent les électeurs à l’orée de l’élection présidentielle d’octobre, ou d’exacerber les tensions entre groupes ethniques en Guinée. De nombreuses sources guinéennes ont confirmé que Volcom est financé par le parti du président et que les principaux partis d’opposition en Guinée utilisent aussi des réseaux sociaux et diffusent de la désinformation ou de la mésinformation. Par exemple, d’après certaines de nos sources, l’opposition aurait prétendu qu’Alpha Condé était traité pour le Covid-19 à l’étranger, ce qui s’est avéré faux. Cependant, bien que nous ayons trouvé des Pages soutenant l’opposition guinéenne avec des dizaines ou des centaines d’abonnés, aucune ne présentait un système de publication coordonné. Nos sources affirment que la désinformation en ligne (aussi appelée « intoxication » en Guinée) est un élément si crucial du jeu politique qu’aucun parti ne peut se permettre de s’en abstraire.

La propagande politique et la désinformation en Guinée sont loin d’être inoffensives. Nos sources ont déploré l’illettrisme digital en Guinée, qui rend la population très susceptible à la propagande sur internet. « C’est un immense problème en Guinée. Tout ce que les gens voient sur Facebook, ils s’imaginent que c’est la réalité. Il y a aussi beaucoup plus de fausses informations et de fausses actualités en Guinée. » Plusieurs de nos contacts ont exprimé la crainte qu’en nourrissant l’antagonisme entre partis, la désinformation n’accentue les tensions entre les groupes ethniques Peuls et Mandinka. Une série d’articles de presse sur les Volcom se focalise sur une affaire de 2018, dans laquelle des communicants du RPG et de l’UFDG ont été arrêtés pour incitation à la violence.

Que faire pour limiter la propagande digitale en Guinée ?

Nos contacts en Guinée sont sceptiques quant à l’efficacité d’une nouvelle régulation contre la désinformation. Comme une personne l’a évoqué, «Notre Constitution mentionne la cybercriminalité et prévoit des sanctions ; mais la mise en application, comme dans tous les domaines, pêche. » Ils ont souvent cité le besoin d’impliquer plus activement la société civile : « Il nous faut une société civile très dynamique et ouverte. Si aucun organisme indépendant ne contrôle l’action gouvernementale, la société civile doit garantir la transparence. » D’autres ont mis en exergue l’importance de formations en communication digitale pour le public.

Cependant, la construction d’une société civile robuste, ou l’amélioration de l’éducation en matière digitale, prendront du temps. Alors que la Guinée se prépare pour une élection décisive, le parti au pouvoir a déjà construit l’infrastructure Facebook nécessaire pour mener des campagnes de propagande grande ampleur en faveur d’un troisième mandat du Président Condé. Nous voyons cette opération comme un cas d’espèce d’une campagne politique qui – intentionnellement ou non – met au jour des zones grises dans les politiques de Facebook. Facebook juge que ce réseau ne remplit pas les critères d’une « action inauthentique concertée », mais nous croyons que le manque de transparence du réseau sur ses affiliations avec le parti au pouvoir est incompatible avec l’idéal démocratique d’une campagne électorale. 

For a broader look at the upcoming Polish election, its stakes and major figures, see our scene-setter.

On May 10, 2020 Polish voters will head to the polls for the first round of Poland’s presidential election. SIO has been following key narratives across Facebook Pages and Groups in order to get a better understanding of the role of social media in this important European election. In this post we compare candidate coverage on mainstream Polish news outlets’ Facebook Pages to the larger Facebook landscape. We observe that content related to far-right candidates makes up a greater percentage of general Facebook content than of content on mainstream outlets’ Pages, and that this greater portion is matched by greater engagement. There are several ways to interpret this. On the one hand, the mainstream media may be reluctant to give far-right candidates press, and thus their coverage may not reflect the candidates’ true level of support among the electorate. On the other hand, there is evidence that far-right Pages have been especially successful in boosting engagement on Facebook—often by posting content simultaneously across networks of Pages. To this end, we show how one far-right network uses 17 Pages and a handful of content farms to boost its candidate in the election. 

Poland has a two-round presidential election; the first vote on May 10 will determine which two candidates advance to the second round on May 24, unless one candidate receives an absolute majority (in which case, he or she will be declared the victor). The frontrunner, incumbent President Andrzej Duda of the PiS (Law and Justice) party, has reached the 50% mark in only one opinion poll, making a second round quite likely. Polls have tightened in recent weeks, suggesting that Duda’s main rivals—Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska of the centrist Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, or PO), Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz of the Christian-Democratic Polish People’s Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, or PSL), and independent candidate Szymon Hołownia—have a better chance at surpassing Duda than was previously thought. Several polls show that a second round election between Duda and one of his rivals could come down to just a few percentage points. (Other polls from mid-February, on the other hand, suggest that Duda’s lead is relatively safe).

Political Narratives on Facebook

Within this political environment, Facebook plays an increasingly important role. According to Statista, over 1.5 million Poles have joined Facebook in the last year, and spending on political ads—while capped at 19.4 million PLN by Polish law—continues to rise on Facebook.

To better understand how the Polish citizen-driven political landscape on Facebook compares to that of more traditional political media in Poland—such as newspapers, magazines, and television—we compared political content on a set of diverse Polish “mainstream media” Facebook Pages to political content across Facebook.¹ We collected posts that mentioned the presidential candidates, limiting posts to those that were written in Polish, and including searches for all the grammatical cases in which the candidates’ names could appear.

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The results for Polish “mainstream media” Pages are not surprising and generally track with polling: Duda, both a 2020 candidate and the sitting president, receives substantially more coverage than any other candidate; but the amount of content referring to other candidates has increased in recent months as well. Duda’s principal rival, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, receives the second most mentions, followed by Hołownia, Biedroń, Kosiniak-Kamysz, and Bosak, in that order.² There are visible spikes on the days when candidates entered the race: Dec 8 (Hołownia), Dec 14 (Kidawa-Błońska), and Jan 18 (Bosak).

The picture on Facebook more broadly—including, but not limited to, the “mainstream media” Pages—looks somewhat different.

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Duda and Kidawa-Błońska remain in the two top positions, in terms of total mentions, but there are changes below them: in particular, the far-right candidate from Konfederacja, Krzysztof Bosak, jumps from sixth to third. This suggests that the far right is better represented across Facebook than in Polish “mainstream” media Facebook Pages. 

One could object that these are just mention totals, and that this does not indicate that users are actually engaging with the content. Perhaps Bosak-aligned Pages are simply spinning up content irrespective of engagement. As the figure below shows, however, Bosak remains in third when we add up the total interactions—like, love, angry, wow, etc.—that posts referring to candidates receive. The far-right candidate does consistently better in terms of drawing reactions from Facebook users than the other three low-polling candidates:

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This is not true of candidate-related content on Polish “mainstream media” Facebook Pages, where the enthusiasm of Bosak’s and Biedroń’s supporters does not seem to compensate for the mainstream Pages’ tendency to publish about them less often:

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The fact that Bosak-related (i.e., far-right) content makes up a greater proportion of content across Facebook than on “mainstream” Polish media Pages, and the fact that the engagement rates for this far-right content are also disproportionate, suggest that Polish politics on Facebook differs from Polish politics in “mainstream” Polish media in at least one way: it skews to the right. Other researchers have found evidence of a similar rightward skew on Twitter. Of course, Bosak’s increased presence in Facebook-wide content could be explained in a number of ways:

• Polish users could on the whole be more conservative than the “mainstream” Pages’ content suggests, and tracking activity on Facebook merely gives us a more accurate idea of people’s actual preferences;

• The audiences of far-right Pages could be more active in creating content and engaging with it than other segments of the population;

• The far-right Pages could be amplifying their content more successfully than Pages in other parts of the political spectrum.

While we cannot address explanations one and two, a closer look at these Pages’ activity shows that explanation three appears to be an important contributor to the Pages’ engagement rates. Over the past two months, we have found that—while all sides of the political spectrum try to boost engagement with their messaging—the Polish far right has been particularly aggressive in its efforts to amplify its content, often using highly coordinated tactics.

How a Far-Right Network Amplifies Its Content on Facebook

One of the networks that we observed successfully spreading far-right content in a coordinated manner is a collection of Pages we call “Pantarhei” [from Heraclitus: “Everything flows”], after one of the URLs it frequently promotes. (In our next blog post, we’ll cover other, larger networks and describe in more detail how they function.)

The “Pantarhei” network consists of approximately 17 Pages, most of them created between 2015 and 2017, and with as few as 1,000 and as many as 260,000 followers. The Page names are nationalist in character: “I love Poland,” “I don’t want the Islamization of Europe,” “I choose Poland,” and so forth.

The “Stop islamizacji Europy” [“Stop the Islamization of Europe”] Page, part of the “Pantarhei” network. 

The Pages push Islamophobic, anti-US, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic content and boost Konfederacja politicians and causes, including Bosak’s presidential run. To this end, they also post content attacking Law and Justice and Civic Platform from the right and argue for leaving the European Union. Four content farms provide the majority of the network’s content:

• Wprawo.pl: a nationalist site managed by Jacek Międlar, a former priest and far-right activist; pushes nationalist and anti-Ukrainian themes (~28.5% of urls—here and below, over the past three months)

• Pantarhei24.com: appropriates and translates news from non-Polish-language websites; anti-immigrant focus (~21% of urls)

• Magnapolonia.org - a right-wing news site; focus on foreign policy (especially related to the Middle East) (~15.8% of urls)

• Dzienniknarodowy.pl: a right-wing news-site related to “Roty Niepodległości” (“Legions of Independence”), a highly-organized nationalist group, and Marsz Niepodległości (“March of Independence”), the biggest annual patriotic demonstration taking place in Warsaw, accused of promoting extremist views (~9.3% of urls)

One function of these content farms is to provide Facebook-ready content which entices viewers back to the websites, where they are shown ads (and often petitioned for financial support through Paypal or other means). In this respect, networks like “Pantarhei” have a spam-like quality: they revolve around clickbait. Since the quality of the individual pieces of content themselves is not as important as their political slant or the overall commercial outcome, the Posts do not typically perform very well: the average interaction rate for outbound links (the type of Post that makes money for the operators) in the “Pantarhei” network from December 2019 to March 2020 was 0.15%. But the network operators can make up for this shortcoming by cranking out content in huge quantities and by posting it simultaneously across many purportedly independent Facebook Pages:

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This mass dissemination strategy allows the Page owners to compensate for the vagaries of Facebook’s algorithm, which tends to rank outbound links lower than photos or other on-platform content, and potentially to reach more followers—in this case, over 550,000, the combined followers of these 17 Pages—than any single Page in the network can reach. At the same time, the content appears organically popular, as if the Page administrators each simply happened to choose it that day, concealing the true coordinated nature of the Page from the audience. The user, seeing only one small corner of the network, has little indication that they are seeing content from a larger campaign. It is not clear whether these amplification tactics, described by Avaaz in a 2019 report on far-right networks on Facebook and covered by SIO in reports on Taiwan and a Kosovo-based network, run afoul of Facebook’s community standards on coordination and inauthentic behavior.

The “Pantarhei” network operators do not create much of the content they share. Instead, they copy and refurbish photos and articles from other news websites, and post the content as their own. The photo for the article shown above, for instance, was taken from the New York Post; a recent anti-immigration article in the network was reappropriated from kresy.pl, another right-wing news site. This content theft allows a handful of website operators to crank out a large amount of content. From March 2 to March 9, 2020, the 17 Pages in the “Pantarhei” network posted 1,800 outbound links, or over fifteen per day per Page. Of these links, 66% appeared across multiple Pages in the network.

If it is true, as the post-count data suggest, that Polish politics on Facebook skews to the right of Polish “mainstream media,” one of the reasons for this difference might be the tactics far-right networks like “Pantarhei” use to amplify their content. The frequency with which such networks post Bosak-related content—across many Pages, occasionally multiple times—could account for the discrepancy in candidate-related content we note above.

Since mere mentions don’t translate to electoral success, it is worth asking: do Bosak’s high engagement numbers on Facebook increase his chances in the real world? There are many complex factors at work, but polls suggest that Bosak—consistently polling between 3 and 5%—has not seen any significant electoral boost from his popularity on Facebook. 

While a thorough analysis of the role of Facebook in the Polish election will have to wait until after the voters go to the polls, we continue to observe these amplification tactics being used to influence the Polish electorate. In our next blog post, we will examine a series of larger, more influential networks and describe in greater detail their tactics and organization.

1. “Across Facebook” refers in this case, and in the references that follow, to all of the Pages and Groups that are visible to CrowdTangle, Facebook’s social-analytics platform, which we used to analyze Facebook activity. The “mainstream media” list consists of the Facebook Pages for: 300Polityka, DoRzeczy, dziennik.pl, FAKT24.pl, Gazeta Wyborcza, Gazeta.pl, gazetaprawna.pl, Interia, Newsweek Polska, Niezalezna.pl, Onet, Polityka, polsatnews.pl, Polska Agencja Prasowa, Polskatimes.pl, PolskieRadio24.pl, Radio TOK FM, Radio ZET, RMF FM, Rzeczpospolita, se.pl, Telewizja Republika, TVN24, tvp.info, Tygodnik Sieci, Wirtualna Polska, wPolityce.pl, and WPROST.

2. It’s important to note that these figures refer only to mentions, positive or negative; a high figure for a given candidate does not mean that they are being boosted, as critical posts are counted alongside supportive commentary.

This is the third of a series of pieces the Observatory intends to publish on societies and elections at risk from online disinformation. Our goal is to draw the attention of the media, tech platforms and other academics to these risks and to provide a basic background that could be useful to those who wish to study the information environment in these areas.

Following the parliamentary elections of October 2019, Polish voters will return to the polls in May 2020 to elect a new president. Poland’s fractious domestic political environment and troubled relations with the European Union make it a likely target for malign influence operations. Indeed, Polish politics has been awash in recent years with troll farms, hyperpartisan media, conspiracy theories, and influence operations originating in Russia. Over the coming months the Stanford Internet Observatory will track influence operations in Poland and observe the online dynamics of key national and international actors with a stake in this important election.

Political context

Polish politics is dominated by the conflict between the governing Law and Justice [Prawo i Sprawiedliwość] party (PiS), which many observers consider right-wing populist, and the coalition of four parties opposed to it, led by the Civic Platform [Platforma Obywatelska] party (PO).

PiS has been the governing political party in Poland since 2015, when its candidate Andrzej Duda won the presidency and it racked up an absolute majority in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament. PiS achieved these gains thanks to the appeal of its particular combination of right-wing populism and left-wing economics, which included anti-immigrant and anti-LGBT rhetoric, overt nationalism, and redistributive measures, including the popular 500+ program, which provide assistance for low- and middle-income families. PiS has also positioned itself as an EU antagonist, and its policies and rhetoric have created constant friction with Brussels. Finally, the party has sought to entrench itself by using its majority to take control of public media and restructure Poland’s judicial system, triggering a series of constitutional crises. It was this last action, in particular, that led the European Commission to trigger Article 7, which could lead to sanctions and Poland’s being deprived of voting rights in the Commission.

PiS’s strong-arm tactics have been divisive, and its victories in the 2019 European Parliament and Polish Parliamentary elections took place against a backdrop of increased polarization in Poland. Indeed, while PiS was the clear victor in October’s elections, it lost its majority in the Senate, resulting in a divided legislature in which the opposition will be able to hold up legislation and thus impede some of PiS’s efforts to solidify its position. This has led some observers to point out that PiS might have “hit its ceiling.” Others have suggested that, given PiS’s promises to intensify (rather than moderate) its policies if rewarded at the polls, its victory might herald more democratic backsliding.

The process unfolding in Poland has international implications as well. PiS’s euroskepticism and the country’s repeated conflicts with the EU have made Poland’s course one of the key questions concerning the EU’s future. The EU will be watching the elections closely in the hopes of dealing with a more conciliatory Polish president. Likewise, Poland’s position as a bulwark of NATO in Eastern Europe makes it an important United States ally. While it is unlikely that Poland’s position vis-à-vis NATO will change, the US will be hoping for a reliable partner aligned with NATO’s other members and interests. Perhaps most important, Russia has a long-term interest in driving a wedge between Poland, a historical adversary and committed NATO member on its western border, and the EU and NATO. It has developed influence operations intended to isolate Poland as part of a larger “divide and rule” approach, and will almost certainly continue to exert itself in this direction. 

Media Landscape

Traditional Media

In general, the media environment in Poland has become more polarized, fractured, and contentious since PiS came to power, with increasing levels of vitriol. Hostile actors and troublemakers—domestic and foreign alike—have taken advantage of these conditions to influence Polish politics and stoke tensions.

Polish newspapers and television networks have historically been dependent on advertising spending from state-controlled companies, and this makes them sensitive to the coverage needs of the current governing party, which tends to dole out advertising money to sympathetic outlets. PiS has expanded this channel of influence by significantly increasing ad spending by state-controlled companies and focusing this spending on a handful of favorable outlets.

PiS remains in control of Telewizja Polska [Polish Television, or TVP] which is the largest Polish television network and effectively a PiS mouthpiece. PiS also receives a considerable amount of positive coverage from newspapers which benefit from state-sponsored advertising, such as Gazeta Polska, wSieci, and Do Rzeczy, and is aligned with conservative broadcasters such as Radio Maryja (nationwide) or Radio Rodzina (local).

More or less aligned with the main opposition party PO [Platforma Obywatelska or Civic Platform] against PiS are the television network TVN, the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, the weeklies Newsweek Polska and Polityka, and two dominant radio stations, RMF FM and Radio ZET, as well as a number of popular websites such as Onet.pl, Interia.pl, and Gazeta.pl. However, this alignment is fluid, and more left-leaning outlets, such as Polityka and Newsweek Polska, can also criticize PO and the parties to its left. 

A major bone of contention remains the question of foreign capital in the Polish media landscape. The PiS leadership has repeatedly called for “repolonizing” the country’s media, alleging that they are dominated by foreign (mostly German) companies that deliberately provide unfavorable coverage of the government. A number of broadcasters depend on non-Polish capital, e.g. TVN is owned by the U.S. media group Discovery, while others receive funding from Germany-based entities.  The local newspaper market is likewise dominated by foreign, mostly German capital (e.g. Polska Press, part of Verlagsgruppe Passau, which owns more than 20 local newspapers). The fact that many Polish media outlets are foreign-owned brings together two political issues that are likely to feature in the election: allegations of “media bias” by PiS and its supporters can turn into allegations that the EU and its member states (especially Germany) seek to control Poland. On the other hand, PiS’s opponents can present PiS’s attacks on the press as more evidence of its hostility to free media and to the EU.

Social Media

Facebook

Facebook is by far the most significant social-media platform in Poland, with almost 18.5 million active users, nearly half of the population. Trust in social networks as a news source is relatively high in Poland, and younger Poles in particular are likely to get their news from Facebook and other social-media platforms. Indeed, initial analysis of top Facebook Pages devoted to Polish politics suggests that engagement increases around elections:

Activity on partisan Polish Facebook Pages, suggesting a spike in politics-related activity on Facebook around the October parliamentary elections in 2015 (top) and 2019 (bottom). Courtesy of CrowdTangle.

Facebook is also the premier vector for domestic and international actors seeking to influence Polish politics, and the majority of disinformation campaigns that have been identified to date have used Facebook. We describe some of these operations in the Disinformation and Misinformation section below.

Relevant Facebook Groups and Pages

PO-Aligned

SokzBuraka [Beet Juice] (~840,000 followers) — a left-leaning “satirical” Page that shares memes and content mocking PiS. Has been accused of spreading misinformation.

Racjonalna Polska [Rational Poland] (~279,000 followers) — anti-PiS Facebook Page with the goal of “normalizing Polish politics and supporting rational and moderate political initiatives.” Posts memes and other content mocking PiS.

PiS-aligned

Telewizja Republika [Television Republic] (~175,000 followers) — ”the best television on the right.” Pro-PiS Page with a strong pro-Church slant.

Polska Prawa i Sprawiedliwa [A Just and Right Poland] (~20,000 members) — pro-PiS Group that posts anti-opposition memes.

Far-Right

Polska Moja Ojczyzna [Poland My Homeland] (~44,000 followers) — far-right Page that shares news and memes; frequently posts anti-Semitic content.

Marsz Niepodległości [March of Independence] (~255,000 followers) — site associated with the far-right movement March of Independence; posts inflammatory and conspiratorial content.

Twitter

While Twitter remains a “niche” platform in Poland—as of December 2019, it had a market share of only 4.69%—it plays an important role as an ideological battlefield; its popularity among politicians and journalists means that it has a significant role in setting the terms of the news cycle. Some observers argue that PiS did this especially well in 2015. This makes Twitter a target for partisans seeking to inject narratives into mainstream media or alter the terms of a debate, in spite of its relatively small user base in Poland. 

Disinformation and Misinformation Threats

The Domestic Arena

Highly polarized societies with high levels of social-media use, like Poland, are generally susceptible to online disinformation campaigns. A report by the Oxford Internet Institute showed that Poland was especially vulnerable to “junk news” shared on Twitter and Facebook in the run-up to the 2019 European Parliament Elections: according to the report, Polish internet users shared more “junk news” than legitimate news on Twitter. Furthermore, reports of disinformation and misinformation used by all sides are on the rise. Opponents of PiS, for example, created and circulated false images showing PiS MEPs carrying crosses in the European Parliament, adding “A strong group of exorcists already at work!”’

A post on the anti-PiS Facebook Page Racjonalna Polska featuring a falsified image. The captions read “Well it’s started” and “A strong group of exorcists already at work!”

Similarly, PO supporters continue to spread allegations that Jarosław Kaczyński signed a loyalty pledge to the Polish Communist Party in the early 1980s, despite the fact that this claim has been debunked. And the popular Facebook account SokZBuraka [“Beet Juice”] (850,000 Page likes)—whose founder Mariusz Kozak-Zagozda was reported to have worked as a promotional representative for Warsaw’s City Hall, currently in the hands of the opposition party—has circulated false claims about PiS politicians, such as the allegation that PiS politicians are profiting from the privatization of tenement houses in Warsaw.

On the other hand, PiS-controlled state media, especially TVP, the largest broadcaster in Poland, have taken to pushing dubious narratives and using misleading images and footage as part of their coverage, which increasingly resembles pro-PiS propaganda. In one case, after young doctors went on strike to protest low wages, TVP showed a young doctor’s pictures from social media and claimed that they were evidence that she had been on exotic vacations; but in reality the pictures were from medical mission trips. TVP has also been accused of manipulating interviews to make opposition politicians look bad and using invented quotes to burnish PiS’s image. And its use of misleading and fabricated evidence is not restricted to Polish politics; like many conservative broadcasters, TVP has gone out of its way to attack George Soros and Greta Thunberg, in one instance by broadcasting a doctored image.

A doctored image of Greta Thunberg shown on PiS-controlled state TV and intended to discredit climate-change activism. The original image features Al Gore, not George Soros.

In general, false or exaggerated claims and fabricated quotes have become a regular part of online campaigning in Poland. It is especially common for content-creators with nationalist agendas to spread dubious and false stories related to anti-immigrant and anti-LGBT narratives. For example, PiS-Chairman Jarosław Kaczynski warned of refugees bringing “various parasites and protozoa” into the country, heating up the immigration debate. Likewise, PiS politicians have echoed numerous false claims about the LGBT movement, including the assertion that “LGBT is a promotion of pedophilia.” As in other EU countries, xenophobia (especially Islamophobia) and homophobia continue to drive misinformation and disinformation traffic on social media.

Polish history and collective memory is another area of contention. PiS has turned to revisionist history to present a more glorious version of Poland's complicated past. Poland’s place in the Holocaust has been a particular focus for PiS, exemplified by a 2018 amendment of the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance (popularly known as the ‘Holocaust Law’) which made it illegal to assert that Poles had a role in the Holocaust and was linked by some observers to Holocaust denial. Simmering nationalist sentiment in Poland and Ukraine has led to renewed tensions over another historical issue, the massacre of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in the Volhynia in World War II. This issue continues to cloud Ukrainian-Polish relations and has become a rallying point for far-right groups in particular. It has also been a focal point for Russian influence operations, which seek to elevate these far-right groups in order to cause the two countries to quarrel. Indeed, Korwin-Mikke, one of the leaders of the far-right party Konfedracja, has openly adopted the Russian line, arguing that “Russia is now our ally—and Ukraine, the enemy,” a line Russian media have eagerly echoed. In sum, collective memory is very much at the center of Polish politics, especially on social media, and these events are easy targets for actors seeking to sow division or stir up passions.

These are some of the themes that have appeared in disinformation and misinformation campaigns in Poland in the past and are likely to appear again. We include more specific narratives and examples below.

Foreign Threats

Poland’s combative domestic politics make for an information environment laden with misinformation and disinformation; but Poland has also been targeted by foreign influence operations as well—specifically by Russia and Russia-affiliated agents. A report by the Warsaw Institute suggests that, while Poles are resistant to the kind of overt pro-Russian narratives featured on RT and Sputnik, Russia-aligned “patriotic” content that attacks Ukraine, Lithuania, the US, Israel, etc., has had success. The example of Korwin-Mikke given above shows just one of the avenues such a narrative might open up. Since the primary goal of this content is to heighten tensions and increase distrust, it can appear to be pro-PiS or anti-PiS; it is especially common for Russia-aligned outlets to attack PiS from the right. The Warsaw Institute’s report shows that pro-Russia narratives can work their way into Polish media in much the same way described in the Internet Observatory’s recent paper on GRU online operations: at the heart of Russia-aligned networks are more or less overtly pro-Russian sites, which, by sharing content on Facebook and Twitter, insert narratives into fringe outlets, spreading the content to even more Polish internet users and potentially even drawing the attention of the mainstream media to the claims, which by this time have been effectively laundered.

Another potential vector for influence in Polish politics comes from the American Christian and far-right organizations seeking to swing European politics to the right, including Steve Bannon’s group, known as The Movement. These organizations have funneled millions of dollars into European politics in recent years, and Poland is a battleground for them. While PiS has made it clear that it does not see Bannon as a partner, other Polish right-wing groups have cultivated connections with influential American far-right figures. Polish electoral laws make it difficult for foreign organizations like Bannon’s to provide money to Polish political parties legally, but the fragmentation of the Polish information environment makes it more feasible to exert influence using other means (see below). 

This said, the prevalence of disinformation and misinformation in Polish politics has been largely a domestic problem in the past decade; Poles do not need to look to outside powers to find examples of political agents abusing the possibilities of social media and the internet to spread falsehoods. For this reason, much of our monitoring in the run-up to the election will focus on the domestic actors listed below.

Troll Farms and Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior

The spread of dubious information is not the only kind of online behavior poised to disrupt Polish politics; like most societies with heavy social-media use, Poland has seen the rise of coordinated trolling—specifically, “ePR” firms that flood social media with comments or posts in support of or in opposition to an issue or political figure. These posts and the “conviction” behind them are designed to look authentic but are actually concocted in the manner of traditional PR measures. For example, the PiS-appointed Deputy Justice Minister Łukasz Piebiak was forced to resign in August 2019 after it was revealed that he had coordinated an online harassment campaign directed at judges who were critical of PiS’s changes to the judiciary. Even before this scandal, known as the “Hater Affair” or “Hate Speech Affair” [“afera hejterska”] PiS’s opponents had accused it of using troll farms and various forms of astroturfing to bolster its online presence and attack its enemies. 

Similarly, investigative journalists have identified other coordinated trolling efforts directed at Polish internet users and networks of Facebook Pages that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB)—specifically to boost far-right candidates and spread false stories with anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic content. In 2019 the activist collective Avaaz uncovered a large network of Poland-based Facebook Pages (subsequently taken down) that used CIB to gain over 8 million followers. Investigators for VSquare, in turn, found that this network was connected to PiS’s Adam Andruszkiewicz and Confederation’s Janusz Korwin-Mikke. These Pages relied on a few tactics to gain followers: they posted the same (usually fabricated) story simultaneously on multiple Pages, reposted the same content many times, always as “breaking news,” and frequently changed their names. Another VSquare investigation found that Cat@Net, a supposed “ePR agency,” was running 179 fake Twitter and Facebook accounts and had signed contracts with entities on the left and the right to burnish their online image. Finally, Politico recently traced the right-wing supposedly French website France Libre 24 back to Polish far-right activists seeking to boost their French ideological allies—in this case, too, Korwin-Mikke has been implicated. 

These investigations make it clear that the infrastructure and wherewithal for such activities are in place in Poland, and it is possible that they will be employed in the coming months, both by domestic actors with partisan objectives and by foreign entities seeking to influence the election.

Relevant Actors

Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [PiS] (right-wing populist, incumbent)

• Andrzej Duda — current President, candidate from PiS

• Jarosław Kaczyński — chairman of PiS

• Mateusz Morawiecki — Prime Minister of Poland

• Beata Szydło — MEP, former Prime Minister of Poland 

Platforma Obywatelska [PO]/Koalicja Obywatelska [KO] (Centrist, liberal-conservative, primary opposition coalition)

• Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska — presidential candidate from PO

• Grzegorz Schetyna — former chairman of PO

• Donald Tusk — founder of PO, former president of the European Council

• Borys Budka - chairman of PO

Other Candidates and Parties

• Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz — presidential candidate from the Polish People’s Party [ludowcy], a liberal-conservative party to the right of PO.

• Robert Biedroń — presidential candidate from The Left [Lewica], a center-left political alliance.

• Szymon Hołownia — independent centrist presidential candidate and former television host.

• Krzysztof Bosak — presidential candidate from Confederation Liberty and Independence [Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość], a far-right party. Previously involved in All-Polish Youth and the National Movement, both far-right movements.

Other Domestic Actors

• Far-right parties (All-Polish youth, National Radical Camp, National Revival of Poland, et al.) — these parties will likely support the candidate from Confederation Liberty and Independence, or, failing that, seek to pull Duda (the current president) and PiS to the right, particularly on foreign-policy issues (Ukraine, Germany, and Russia) and a handful of domestic issues (immigration, LGBT rights, abortion). The extreme far right will likely push for further alienation from the EU (“Polexit”) and make an issue of the status of Polish minorities in the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine. In the run-up to the 2019 European Parliament elections, far-right Facebook Pages tended to attack PiS in favor of Confederation Korwin (a predecessor to Confederation Liberty and Independence.)

• Leftist parties (Lewica Razem, et al.) — these groups will push for better relations with Brussels and a Poland that is more integrated with the EU and less closely tied to the US. (In part because of its Communist past, Poland does not have significant far-left political movements.)

• Religious organizations — The Catholic Church and Radio Maryja both have a significant impact on elevating certain governmental/nationalist narratives. Ordo Iuris, a fundamentalist Christian think tank with close ties to PiS, is also influential.

International Actors

• Russia — a history of hundreds of years of enmity makes Poland-Russia relations very complex and generally hostile, with periods of detente. Russia’s increasing bellicosity in Eastern Europe affects Poland directly. Though it has not been invaded and had its territory annexed, like Ukraine, its neighbor to the east, it has been steadily targeted by influence operations (see above) and cyber attacks originating in Russia.

• USA — While the US and Polish governments remain close allies, far-right and Christian groups in the US have sought to boost ideological allies in Poland (see above). 

• Ukraine — traditionally friendly relations have been marred by resurfacing strife over atrocities committed during WW2, including the Volhynia massacre, and an influx of Ukrainian workers has led to xenophobic tensions. PiS’s position on Ukraine-related issues is ambiguous, as it moved to declare the massacre a genocide, while it has simultaneously overseen a large increase in the number of Ukrainian workers in the country.

• Belarus — After a long period of essentially static relations between Poland and Belarus, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has caused them to seek closer ties. Both countries are home to populations of the other’s ethnic group.

• Germany — PiS has made antagonism towards Germany (seen in particular as the embodiment of the EU) part of its platform, undermining bilateral relations that had been unprecedentedly positive. 

• Visegrad Group (Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia) — attempting to build a coalition within the EU against the Germany-France center and Russia’s interference in the former Warsaw Pact states.

Key Narratives in Play

Below we describe some of the issues that could be leveraged in malign narratives. The narratives below are far from the only ones we will investigate, but they are topics of debate in Polish society that may be leveraged by inauthentic actors: 

• LGBT Issues: PiS has made LGBT rights a campaign issue; a specific point of tension is the establishment of “LGBT-free zones” in certain Polish cities.

An anti-LGBT post on an All-Polish Youth Facebook Page. “Wherever there is a member of All-Polish Youth, there is already a LGBT-free zone!” the caption reads.

• Feminism and Women’s Rights: in 2016 PiS has attempted to outlaw abortion entirely, triggering large protests (known as the “Black Protest” [czarny protest]). This led to an uneasy status quo, and abortion is still a frequent topic on social media.

• Immigration: PiS made opposition to immigration a large part of its program in 2015 (focusing on immigrants from the Near East). Now anti-immigration groups have shifted their focus to Ukrainians, who make up the majority of immigrants to Poland. This issue dovetails with the conflict between Ukrainian and Polish nationalists (see below).

• WW2 and the Holocaust: Polish society is still riven by the events of 1939-1945, and arguments about Poland’s role in and relationship to the Holocaust are very common. The topic of reparations has become a focus on the right, in particular. Far-right groups demand reparation payments from Germany but reject the notion that such reparations are owed to Polish Jews as well.

A post on PiS’s Facebook Page calling for reparations from Germany.

• Corruption: Corruption scandals have roiled both sides of the political spectrum and been the basis for attacks. 

• Energy Policy and Nord-Stream 2: the Russian pipeline (supported by Germany) has been a point of contention in Poland, which is dependent on energy imports.

• US-Poland Relations: the US maintains thousands of troops in Poland, and groups on the left and the right attack the centrist parties for their dependence on the US (albeit for different reasons). Another important issue is the elimination of visa requirements for Poles, which was seen as a major coup for PiS.

• Judges and Judicial Independence: PiS’s attempts to reconfigure the Polish judicial system have drawn fierce criticism from the EU and its opponents in Poland.

A post on the Rational Poland Facebook Page calling on Poles to resist PiS’s changes to the court system.

• Environmental Issues: While Poland remains dependent on coal, a burgeoning climate-activism movement makes the case for joining other EU countries in addressing climate change—adding to an already fraught political debate over Poland's position in the EU.  

• Relations with Ukraine: Ukrainian and Polish nationalists have clashed over the status of the massacre of Poles by Ukrainians in Volhynia during WW2, and an influx of Ukrainian immigrants has aggravated these tensions. This has been a useful issue for Russian influence operations, which seek to divide Poland and Ukraine.

A far-right Facebook Page called “A Ukrainian is NOT my brother.”

• Pan-Slavism: Interestingly, another issue popular among nationalists takes the opposite view: that all Slavic peoples (including Ukraine) should unite in opposition to American and Western-European influence. This issue is also useful for Russia-aligned actors.

For Further Reading

Disinformation Assessments

• Computational Propaganda in Poland: False Amplifiers and the Digital Public Sphere,  Robert Gorwa, Oxford Internet Institute.

• The Weaponization of Culture: Kremlin’s Traditional Agenda and the Export of Values to Central Europe, Péter Krekó, et al., Political Capital Institute.

• Far Right Networks of Deception, Avaaz.

• European Elections in the V4: From Disinformation Campaigns to Narrative Amplification, Miroslava Sawiris, et al., Globsec. 

• Today’s Potemkin Village: Kremlin Disinformation and Propaganda in Poland, Małgorzata Zawadzka, Warsaw Institute.

• Polskie fejki, rosyjska dezinformacja. OKO.press tropi tych, którzy je produkują. Niektórzy z nich nie istnieją, Patryk Szczepaniak and Konrad Szczygieł, Oko.press.

• Junk News During the EU Parliamentary Elections: Lessons from a Seven-Language Study of Twitter and Facebook, Nahema Marchal, et al., Oxford Internet Institute.

• Information Warfare in the Internet: Countering Pro-Kremlin Disinformation in the CEE Countries, Antoni Wierzejski, et al., Centre for International Relations. 

Media Analysis

• Pluralism Under Attack: The Assault on Press Freedom in Poland, Annabelle Chapman, Freedom House.

• Media w Polsce. Do kogo należy prasa, telewizja, portale czy radio?, money.pl.

Political Analysis

• Revealed: dozens of European politicians linked to US ‘incubator for extremism’, Nandini Archer and Claire Provost, Open Democracy.

• Divided at the Centre: Germany, Poland, and the Troubles of the Trump Era, Piotr Buras and Josef Janning, European Council on Foreign Relations.

• Poland’s Historical Revisionism Is Pushing It Into Moscow’s Arms, Mateusz Mazzini, Foreign Policy.

• Hostile Takeover: How Law and Justice Captured Poland's Courts, Christian Davies, Freedome House.

• Poland 2020: A Crunch Year for Populists' Grip on Power, Claudio Ciobanu, Balkan Insight.

Acknowledgements

We thank Anna Gielewska and Agata Foryciarz for their helpful feedback and suggestions in preparing this report.