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| Digiday, Jan. 25, 2017. And France’s 2015 National Digital Security Strategy identified spreading disinformation and propaganda an attack on defence and national security to be met with a response. 708 In advance of June 2017 parliamentary elections, the French government also discontinued electronic voting by French citizens abroad Direct Diplomatic Engagement Clearly Pointing to Malicious Actors and the Consequences of Their Actions Can Act as a De- terrent: In a February speech to the French parliament, then Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault stated that France will not accept any interference whatsoever in our electoral process, no more from Russia than from any other state. This is a question of our democracy, our sovereignty, our national independ- ence.’’ 710 Ayrault’s warning included a pledge to carryout retaliatory measures against any such interference. 711 French government officials reiterated this warning privately to Russian officials in France, which may have prompted overt Russian interference in the campaign and comments on specific candidates to apparently subside. 712 Since then, the Macron Administration has stressed the importance of boosting international cooperation to prevent and respond to cyberattacks. 713 • Encouraging Vigilance by Non-Government Actors and Collec- tive Discipline in Media, the Private Sector, and Civil Society is a Critical Ingredient in an Effective Response Subsequent to the dump of hacked material from the Macron campaign less than 48 hours before the runoff vote, the French electoral commission issued an instruction to news media in France not to publish the contents of the leaked information or risk criminal charges. 714 For its part, the media effectively complied with the government ban, but also took stepson its own to exercise collective discipline and increase its scrutiny of information before publication to avoid spreading fake news. Mainstream news organizations increased their fact-checking efforts assigns of Russian disinformation emerged. 715 Le Monde’s Decodex project, for example, enabled a suite of fact-checking products based on a database of more than 600 websites, both French and international, which its fact checkers had identified as unreliable because the site could not be verified as legitimate or was deemed to manipulate information. 716 Perhaps VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt PO 00000 Frm 00131 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER 126 Eric Auchard & Joseph Menn, Facebook cracks down on 30,000 fake accounts in France Reuters, Apr. 13, 2017; Joseph Menn, Russia Used Facebook to Try to Spy on Macron Campaign Sources, Reuters, July 27, 2017. 718 Ibid. 719 Rachel Donadio, Why the Macron Hacking Attack Landed With a Thud in France The New York Times, May 8, 2017. drawing from lessons learned in the 2016 US. election, Facebook stated publicly in April 2017 that it had suspended 30,000 accounts for promoting propaganda or election-related spam before the French poll, though subsequent press reporting on private meetings between company officials and congressional staff indicate the number of accounts ultimately suspended could have been as many as This reporting also cited evidence connecting Russian intelligence to approximately two dozen fake Facebook accounts that were used to conduct surveillance specifically on Macron campaign staff, which the company deactivated. 718 The Macron campaign, mindful it was a hacking target, also took defensive steps to furnish false logins and information in response to spear- phishing emails while hackers ultimately were able to break into campaign materials, the effort may have helped to delay the release of the information until late in the campaign, at which point it gained limited traction with a forewarned, and vigilant, French audience. 719 VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt PO 00000 Frm 00132 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER 127 Tim Hume, Vladimir Putin I Didn’t Mean to Scare Angela Merkel with My Dog CNN, Jan. 12, 2016. Thomas Johnson, ‘‘Merkel Appears to Roll Her Eyes at Putin, and the Internet Can’t Get Enough The Washington Post, July 7, 2017. Patrick Donahue & Ilya Arkhipov, In Tense Encounter, Merkel Tells Putin Sanctions Must Remain Bloomberg, May 2, 2017; Andreas Rinke & Denis Pinchuk, Putin, Merkel Struggle to Move Past Differences in Tense Meeting Reuters, May 2, 2017. 723 Nord Stream, Who We Are https://www.nord-stream.com/about-us/ (visited Dec. 31, 2017); Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder Nominated to Russia’s Rosneft Board Download 0.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
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