Breaking the Code: Russian and Chinese Disinformation and Illicit Financial Flows in Southeast Europe
Report of CSD from 19 April 2023
Alongside its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has intensified its hybrid influence operations. Southeast Europe (SEE) in particular remains one of the most vulnerable soft targets for the Kremlin’s ongoing hybrid war. Democratic backsliding, governance deficits, the erosion of civil liberties, and a stalled integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions have kept the region locked in political uncertainty, strategic ambiguity, and susceptibility to foreign malign influence. Media capture and the channelling of illicit financial flows (IFFs) are two of the most critical instruments that the Kremlin employs for state capture in the region. China has increasingly followed suit, co-opting and bankrolling the same infrastructure and networks to exert its own influence in the region and further amplify local authoritarian dynamics.
The following report provides an in-depth assessment of the methods, scope, and goals of media capture tactics and illicit financial operations in eight Balkan states: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. It reveals the extent to which the web of media interference and dirty money undermines democracy and Euro-Atlantic integration by swaying the domestic political outcomes and foreign policy decisions of countries across Southeast Europe.
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In June of 2022, Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, Twitter (rebranded as X) and a selection of advertising industry companies all signed up to the strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation (European Commission, 2022). One of the goals of this strengthened version of the code was to empower the industry to adhere to self-regulatory standards in order to combat disinformation. The strengthened code also claims to set a more ambitious set of commitments and measures aimed at combating disinformation online.
Our aim here is to offer an assessment or evaluation of the implementation of the 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation (CoP) by these companies in Bulgaria. Very little information exists on the implementation of the strengthened Code of Practice when it comes to Bulgaria by Very Large Online Platforms and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOP and VLOSE) and this is a country which is particularly vulnerable to disinformation narratives. [+]
