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| Ibid. 640 Ibid. 641 James McAuley, Dutch Voters Reject Trade Deal Out of Anger Against EU The Wash- ington Post, Apr. 6, 2016; Netherlands Rejects EU-Ukraine Partnership Deal BBC News, Apr. 7, 2016. Netherlands Ministry of Security and Justice, National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, Cyber Security Assessment Netherlands 2017, at 7 (Aug. 2017). 643 Ibid. at 12. 644 Thessa Lageman, Russian Hackers Use Dutch Polls as Practice Deutsche Welle, Oct. 3, 2017; Ministry of Security and Justice, National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, Cyber Security Assessment Netherlands 2017, at 35. US. Department of State, Report to Congress on Efforts by the Russian Federation to Un- dermine Elections in Europe and Eurasia, at 3 (Nov. 7, 2017). Thomas Escritt, Dutch Will Hand Count Ballots Due to Hacking Fears Reuters, Feb. 1, 2017; Peter Teffer, Fake News or Hacking Absent in Dutch Election Campaign EUobserver, Mar. 15, 2017. Ultimately, the referendum saw a relatively low turnout of 32 percent of the Dutch population, with about two-thirds of those voting against the agreement. 639 One Ukrainian foreign ministry official cited a poll which reported that 59 percent of those voting no said that their perception of Ukraine as corrupt was an important motivation for their vote 19 percent believed that Ukraine was responsible for the shooting down of Malaysia Air Flight 17 (a common and proven false theme of Russian propaganda, which killed 298 people, including 193 Dutch citizens and 34 percent thought that the agreement would guarantee Ukraine’s accession to the EU the latter two points are demonstrably false). 640 While anti-estab- lishment sentiments and increasing voter skepticism of the EU were viewed as important reasons for the referendum’s outcome, the potential effect of the disinformation campaign, not just on voters choices but also on their understanding of Ukraine, cannot be ignored. 641 When it perceives its interests are at stake, the Kremlin can be expected to carryout similar disinformation efforts during other referendums in Europe and beyond. The Netherlands has since worked to strengthen the integrity of its electoral process and systems, especially after the Kremlin’s attack on the 2016 US. presidential election. The Dutch National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism described in its annual report how the Dutch government, after noting the hack of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, sought to enhance digital resilience before and during their country’s March 2017 election by raising awareness among political parties and organizations. 642 Nonetheless, some Dutch organizations and platforms were subject to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, including websites that helped voters compare the platforms of different political par- ties. 643 Following rumors that election software was potentially vulnerable to cyberattacks and that Russian hackers could view the Dutch elections as good practice before the French and German elections, the month before the election the Minister of Interior and Kingdom Relations decided to switch to paper ballots only and count all votes by hand. 644 According to the US. State Department, the Netherlands also requested US. government assistance for its March 2017 general election. 645 The election appears to have occurred without any voting issues, and some observers noted that disinformation did not appear to play a large role during the campaign period, with fake news stories posted to Facebook and Twitter being quickly debunked by commentators. 646 VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt PO 00000 Frm 00120 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER 115 Government of the Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘‘The Netherlands to Support Independent Russian-Language Media Nov. 19, 2015. 648 Ibid. Like other countries in Europe, the Netherlands is also supporting independent Russian-language journalism. For example, Netherlands-based Free Press Unlimited Foundation manages a $1.4 million government grant to help develop a regional platform for Russian-language media organizations to exchange news items see Chapter When announcing the program, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bert Koenders, noted that the Dutch government was explicitly supporting independent media and not counterpropa- ganda, saying misinformation from Moscow is a threat to media diversity in all countries in which Russian is spoken. However, counterpropaganda is ineffective and goes against our democratic principles. We wish to support the work of independent media initiatives without dictating what they should write or broadcast.’’ 648 Download 0.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
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