Justin Trudeau says he has a plan to fight Russia’s disinformation

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This article was published 12/03/2022 (977 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA—Whether it’s flat-out denials about Russian attacks on Ukraine, doctored images on social media, or false claims that footage of suffering Ukrainians actually depicts crisis actors, Russia’s disinformation campaign is well underway.

And during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he wanted to do something about it.

“We all have a responsibility to deal in facts, and to fight the flood of disinformation and manipulation,” he said.

Trudeau’s answer to combating Russia’s information is to renew an initiative known as the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM). He committed to spending $13.4 million over five years to expand the RRM. That’s on top of a separate $3-million-pledge through a different program that will help Ukrainians build “resilience” to disinformation, Global Affairs Canada told the Star.

But what exactly the RRM does is not clear, with experts cautioning that the initiative is “shrouded” in secrecy.

Here’s what we know:

What is the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism?

The RRM was introduced four years ago, during the 2018 G7 Summit hosted by Canada in Charlevoix, Que.

It was launched as a three-year pilot to co-ordinate efforts between G7 nations to identify, block and respond to threats targeting G7 democracies.

Those threats include state-sponsored disinformation, attacks on electoral processes and anything that might undermine Canada’s sovereignty and security.

Canada now fully leads the initiative, through a special unit within Global Affairs that analyzes threat patterns and trends.

RRM Canada mostly conducts research by analyzing social media “with a particular interest in understanding the disinformation landscape.” It was also involved in working to block outside interference in the 2019 federal election.

As part of the federal government’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections task force, RRM Canada says it also acts as an “early warning system,” sharing data about democratic threats across the G7 network.

One of the reports produced from that data followed Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election — won by current president Volodymyr Zelenskyy — and explored how the election was likely the target of a Russian interference campaign.

Last spring, at a meeting of parliament’s Canada-China relations committee, the mechanism was described as “very successful” by Daniel Costello, then an assistant deputy minister with Global Affairs.

“We would certainly like to continue to improve it, and it is very important to do so because we are increasingly faced with misinformation. The trends and tactics of our adversaries are constantly changing and developing very quickly and they are very complex,” said Costello, who is now Trudeau’s foreign and defence policy adviser.

Are other nations committed to using it?

Speaking Wednesday, Trudeau said Germany also intended to boost its contributions to the RRM, focusing on countries targeted by Russia.

Earlier in the week, following Trudeau’s visit to London, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also announced his intent to bolster the initiative.

“We will continue to use the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism for joint assessment and collective action, including ramping up our collective engagement with media, tech platforms and civil society to tackle Russia’s unprecedented information war,” read a statement from Downing Street.

Global Affairs told the Star that Canada and other G7 members — along with observers like Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Sweden and NATO — use the mechanism to identify foreign threats and “explore options for collective responses”.

How does it work?

The federal department would not provide specific details on how it planned to use the initiative to handle the onslaught of false information.

“In the current context of Russia’s unprecedented information war targeting Ukraine, G7 RRM members are ramping up engagement with social media platforms and civil society, as effective solutions will require a multi-stakeholder approach,” its statement read.

Those in Canada keeping a close eye on disinformation say that overall, very little is known about the mechanism.

“Its effectiveness to me is unknown with regards to protecting our democracy and G7 democracies,” said Marcus Kolga, a top disinformation expert with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“It strikes me as a bit of a black hole of information.”

Kolga told the Star there is a lack of public information about the impact the mechanism has had, or the processes it uses to counter misinformation.

“I think that the Canadian government agreed to sort of lead this effort because they truly wanted to be helpful in combating misinformation. But I think they’ve done it in such a way that they didn’t completely understand the threat of foreign disinformation,” he said.

Ahmed Al-Rawi, a disinformation expert at Simon Fraser University, also told the Star that the initiative was “shrouded with mystery” and that its research methods were unclear.

NDP MP Charlie Angus, meanwhile, said Wednesday’s announcement amounted to “posturing”.

“I’ve never come across this before, and I’ve been involved in interparliamentary investigations into disinformation,” he told the Star.

The most direct solution, he said, is holding social media platforms to account when it comes to limiting the spread of state-sponsored disinformation.

That’s “what’s staring us in the face,” he added.

Raisa Patel is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @R_SPatel