Russia & social media; Russian Brexit influence; Obama weak Russia response, and more

Russian influence in the Brexit vote? We don’t really know how to deal with that (Sam Power, The Conversation) The U.K. Electoral Commission has already fined Leave.EU £70,000 after an investigation in which it was “satisfied beyond reasonable doubt” that the campaign failed to declare £77,380 in its spending return for the referendum. This would have pushed it over the allotted £700,000 spending limit for the campaign.
But the allegations concerning Russia are altogether more difficult, troubling and potentially challenging for British lawmakers. The Observer reports that documents it has seen suggest that there were multiple meetings between the leaders of Leave.EU and high-ranking Russian officials between November 2015 and 2017, two of which were said to have been held the week that Leave.EU launched its official campaign. The second allegation is also particularly interesting – that the Russian ambassador introduced key figures in Leave.EU to a businessman who purportedly offered Banks an opportunity to buy Russian goldmines. This also included a trip to Moscow to meet partners behind a gold project. Banks has repeatedly denied involvement with Russian officials or that Russian money played any part in the Brexit campaign.
These allegations are, at present, just allegations. At this stage it is unclear which – if any – rules have been broken and what the consequences would be if they had. But the communications, according to the reports, do tell us something about different ways of peddling influence in elections and referendums. It’s especially interesting for those of us who research the area of political financing. We follow the money, But what if there’s no money? “Follow the deal that could materialize (as money) at a later date” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

How to tackle “weapons of mass disinformation – WMD for the modern age” (Democracy Digest)
The UK’s most senior representative in the European commission has set out a Brussels plan to crack down on disinformation campaigns executed by Russia and non-state actors, which he suggests were deployed during the 2016 Brexit referendum. Sir Julian King, the commissioner for security in Brussels, warned in a speech that it has become too easy for those seeking to manipulate elections, democratic processes and institutions, the Guardian reports: “The commission is proposing a series of measures to counter behavioral manipulation and fake news, including an obligation on internet platforms to demand greater transparency from those who use them to micro-target messages at individuals. ….{And] seeking to win round member states’ efforts to tackle a “much more subtle and pernicious” attempt to undermine democracies, through the use of social media as a “weapon of mass disinformation – a WMD for the modern age,” King said.

Others emulate Russia’s influence campaigns (Tim Mak, NPR)
Michael Daniel, cybersecurity coordinator at the National Security Council during the Obama administration including the time period of the 2016 campaign, told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that “Our adversaries are also going to get better at integrating their cyber-capabilities with other aspects of their national power. The Russians are already quite far along with that but the Chinese and others are not far behind,” Daniel said. “The Russians and other actors, including China, Iran, North Korea, criminal organizations, terrorist organizations, hacktivists, all of them are discovering the cyberspace is a great place to try to advance their agenda. We are seeing a proliferation of capabilities across the globe.”

Obama criticized in Senate for not doing more on Russia meddling (Steven T. Dennis, Bloomberg)
The Republican and Democratic senators leading an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections joined in criticism of President Barack Obama’s administration for failing to do more to stop the meddling. Republican Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr said at a hearing Wednesday that Obama administration officials have made clear they were operating “without a playbook” against a new threat with an undefined set of rules. “They wanted to warn the Russians to stop interfering but avoid the appearance of putting their thumb on the scale in an election year,” Burr said.

West vs Russia: winning hearts and minds in the Western Balkans and EAP Countries (Radu Magdin, Euronews)
Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns in Eastern and Southeastern Europe thrive on West’s (i.e. EU and the US) unclear strategic objectives, on poorly designed plans and insufficient capacity to expose what is actually the profile of its geopolitical foe. I argue that there are reasons for optimism in dealing with the Russian information wars in Western Balkans and in the leading countries of the Eastern Partnership (Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia), provided that a swift change in the overall approach is embraced and more coordination within the West (even at a time of heightened transatlantic tensions) follows.Thus, I show that four broad tactics could decisively undermine the Russian narrative, seriously undermining the destructive potential of the Kremlin’s engagement strategies in these countries.

Russian-linked group tied to Winter Olympics attack is now targeting biochemical researchers (Chris Bing, Cyberscoop)
A wave of sophisticated spear phishing emails captured by Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab suggests that the same Russian-linked hacking group responsible for a historic cyberattack on the 2018 Winter Olympics is now targeting biochemical research and domestic financial organizations.

Hackers who sabotaged the Olympic games return for more mischief (Dan Goodin, Arstechnica)
Olympic Destroyer gang may be planning new destructive hacks, researchers say.