The Hypocrisy Driving The Fake News Panic

The really dishonest peddlers of misinformation are the authors of the Fake News Panic

The elite that dominates the institutions of the European Union has adopted the dishonest practice of blaming the spread of disinformation and fake news for their inability to win the support of a sizeable section of the electorate.

During the weeks leading up to the elections to the EU’s parliament, Eurocrats were constantly blaming Russia for the expected swing to the right. As a journalist in The Times noted a day before the results of the election were announced, ‘Brussels is ready to blame Russian propaganda aimed at undermining the European Union for an expected surge in support for populists and nationalists in elections across Europe this weekend’[i]. Numerous other media sources waded in with headlines such as ‘EU struggles to counter Russian election disinformation’[ii].

Leading EU officials regularly issue alarmist warnings about the nefarious plot hatched by foreign actors to influence the outcome of the EU elections. ‘The next European elections will be a defining moment for our common future,” said the Spanish Socialist, Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs chief. He added, ‘we need to protect this election process and more broadly European public debate from malign foreign actors who want Europe to fail’.[iii]

What Borell means by protecting public debate from malign foreign influences is far from clear. But the tone of his and his colleagues statement suggests that they may well use the power of the EU to police public communication in order to shut down the communication of dissident views. The heavy-handed politicization of the issue of disinformation is particularly widespread in places like France, where its centrist Government is under formidable pressure from sovereigntist patriotic movements. The French Government has clearly lost its nerves, which explains why its European affairs minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, told newspaper Ouest France back in April that his country was ‘pounded’ by Russian disinformation[iv].

The constant display of elite anxiety about the supposed threat posed by alien propaganda and disinformation often assumes a hysterical form. According to a report published by The Guardian, a few days before the election, ‘debunking, prebunking and factchecking; correcting fake news and race hate -battling disinformation’ before the EU election has ‘become ahigh-stakes full-time job for hundreds of staff across the continent’[v]. The report added:

‘EU leaders are so concerned over foreign interference in the polls, due to take place from Thursday to Sunday, that they have put rapid alert teams on notice to swing into action in the event of a serious incident. Officials say the quantity of disinformation has reached “tsunami levels” – but political leaders have been the slowest to catch on’.

It is evident that what is really at issue here is the practice of the politics of fear. The main driver of the cultivation of the politics of fear by the European elites is their anxiety about their loss of influence over large sections of society. Blaming fake news and malevolent external agents allows them to avoid acknowledging the strength of popular hostility to their rule. In a previous essay I characterized this response as form of democracy panic. This sentiment was systematically communicated in January’s World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2024. The main sentiment that underpins this Report is the conviction that the ‘demos’ are influenced by prejudice and fake news.[vi] In other words the people cannot be relied on to vote the right way and follow the advice of the oligarchs who attend the World Economic Forum.

The Global Risk Report 2024 more or less claims that misinformation and disinformation constitute the greatest risk facing society in the period ahead. It notes that:

 ‘emerging as the most severe global risk anticipated over the next two years, foreign and domestic actors alike will leverage Misinformation and disinformation to further widen societal and political divides’!

The report explicitly connects the alleged risks posed by fake news to its concern with the outcome of the numerous elections that will be held in the next two years

The elevation of the problem of fake news  by the World Economic Forum is the flip side of the denigration of the intelligence and independence of the electorate. What these oligarchs really object to is democracy itself. They blame the electorate for ignoring their advice and listening to the wrong kinds of views. By labeling these views as Fake, they can dismiss it malevolent lies- not as suitable arguments for a political debate

From a sociological perspective the Fake News Panic is best understood as a symptom of the loss of elite authority over the control of information. In recent decades the hegemonic narrative of the mainstream European Elites communicated through the media has lost much of its force. A lack of trust in the words of the elites and in their media has run in parallel with the growth of other sources of information. This development has led to the emergence of counter-narratives that challenge the elite’s version of events. Consequently, the European public has an unprecedented opportunity to access information which is not available through the mainstream media. For the European Union Oligarchy the proliferation of narratives that challenge its hegemony is bad news. Instead of maturely challenging these narratives it seeks to delegitimate them by demonising them as fake news.

So the current Elite Panic about Fake News is driven by the recognition that people have access to multiple sources of information and news and they no longer accept, trust or believe the version promoted by the established sources.

Self-delusion or dishonesty

Whether the individuals who promote the Fake News Panic are simply scared and deluded or dishonestly peddling a story they know to be false is not clear. It is likely that both of these motives are influencing elite politics. Blaming the outside agitator – in this case a form of McCarthyism-in-reverse – frequently serve as a response to political dissidence. Certainly the focus on the threat posed by Russian propaganda  should be understood as the latest version of the ‘blame the foreign agitator’ propaganda.

Whether they are deluded or simply dishonest the peddlers of the outside agitator conspiracy stories are actively in the business of promoting their own Fake News stories. I know this because I and the think tank – MCC-Brussels – of which I am the Director are often the targets of mendacious Fake News stories.

Since the out break of the European Farmers Protest, MCC Brussels have been in the forefront of actively supporting their cause. We have produced numerous research reports that explain why the farmers are protesting and we have held meetings where activists involved in the demonstrations have had an opportunity to air their view. For the EU oligarchs and their friends in the media the support offered by MCC-Brussels to the cause of the small-farmers was unacceptable. Instead of responding to the arguments contained in our reports we were accused of being the behind-the-scenes organisers of this protest.

Time and again the EU establishment and their subservient media-friends have fabricated stories about myself and the institute that I work for. Such ludicrous stories go so far as to claim that MCC-Brussels has actually paid farmers to protest! In a social media post, the conspiratorial minded German MEP, Daniel Freund tweeted that according to The Financial Times, we organized the protests in Brussels. He added ‘Out of curiosity: - How much did you pay the attendants? And I gotta ask: - Any EU funds involved?’[vii].

Freund’s ludicrous and provocative question referred to a report from a supposedly respectable news source; The Financial Times’ which claimed that ‘Protests by farmers against the EU in Brussels last week were organised by a Hungarian think-tank’[viii].

The campaign of disinformation against us was also embraced by the French media outlet, Le Monde. It stated:

‘It was no coincidence either that a faction of the agricultural trade unionists present [at the protest] was connected with the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), an ultraconservative, "anti-woke" think tank’.[ix]

An on-line news site directed at corporates claimed that the farmers protest ‘was initiated at a meeting convened in Brussels in January by MCC Brussels’[x]. Numerous politicians joined in and attempted to deflect attention from the legitimacy of the causes of the farmers’ protest through a campaign of disinformation. This completely fabricated story has been making the rounds in recent weeks.

The campaign of disinformation against myself and my team exposes the hypocrisy of the Fake News Panic merchants. The very framing of the contemporary concept of Fake News is itself an example of fake news in action. Having created the fiction of a Fake News Crisis its authors are in the business of turning the promotion of disinformation into an art form. Who needs Russian or Chinese agents to promote false information when our own elites so casually make up stories to discredit their opponents?

One thing for sure whatever the outcome of the coming election it has little to do with the role played by foreign agents or fake news.

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[i] https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/eu-brussels-analysis-russian-meddling-swing-right-wing-parties-xz7ldhnsr

[ii] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/european-election-eu-struggles-counter-russian-disinformation-2024-06-03/

[iii] https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/eu-brussels-analysis-russian-meddling-swing-right-wing-parties-xz7ldhnsr

[iv] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/european-election-eu-struggles-counter-russian-disinformation-2024-06-03/

[v] https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/04/disinformation-crisis-unit-european-parliamentary-elections

[vi]

The World Economic Forum Really Thinks That The Biggest Global Risk Is Democracy

[vii] https://x.com/daniel_freund/status/1750803035469611460

[viii] FT https://www.ft.com/content/e158834e-1860-4dee-9d2f-3458ec71f287

[ix] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2024/02/20/the-european-far-right-opportunistically-supports-farmers_6542024_23.html#:~:text=Known%20as%20Orban's%20%22think%20tank,told%20the%20Belgian%20newspaper%20De

[x] https://corporateeurope.org/en/2024/06/far-right-aims-capture-farmer-protests-offers-no-solutions-promoting-same-neoliberal-agenda