During the Viginum Forum, which took place on Friday, March 28, French Prime Minister François Bayrou spoke about the manipulation of information on digital technology. This event aimed in particular to highlight Viginum, the government's vigilance and protection service against foreign digital interference created in 2021 and little known to the general public.
While the event notably highlighted certain obligations of GAFAM, thanks to a speech by the president of Arcom, Martin Ajdari, the latter affirmed his desire to step up his collaboration with the Viginum service.
He returned to very concrete actions, including a complaint filed against Elon Musk during the last election campaign in Germany. But it was above all the intervention of the French Prime Minister, François Bayrou, which was very noted...
"We are already at war"
While foreign digital interference is on the rise, François Bayrou spoke at Sorbonne University to discuss the current danger posed by the manipulation of information on the web. According to him, France is also "the country most targeted by attempts at manipulation" coming from outside, after Ukraine.
France and Europe are all the more threatened because, according to him, the country's democratic regime cannot be viable if "citizens do not have access to true, reliable information." In the latest reports published by Viginum, we learn that these campaigns are now being carried out from Azerbaijan, Iran, and Russia, to impersonate media outlets like Le Parisien.
Fake news that circulates six times faster
During this event, the Minister responsible for AI and digital technology, Clara Chappaz, punctuated François Bayrou's speech to return to the subject of "bots" on social networks.
According to the Minister, the disinformation that is developing on the web comes partly from the latter, based on a very serious study from MIT. This study, published in 2018, already showed that false information circulated more than true information, until 6 times faster from these accounts.
To spread disinformation, these accounts are allegedly using the right to freedom of expression, with the Minister also stating that "it was never a question of giving freedom of expression to bots." According to Viginum, Russia has already begun deploying "troll farms" for three years, partly to legitimize and support the war in Ukraine.
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