Propaganda and the world order
A social thread argued that organized propaganda campaigns are challenging established international norms and complicating global responses to crises. (x.com) The post connected information operations to broader diplomatic friction rather than to a single incident. (x.com)
Propaganda campaigns are now being treated by governments and alliances as a foreign-policy and security problem, not just a media problem. (gao.gov) The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a September 26, 2024 report that Russia, China and Iran were the main foreign governments spreading disinformation identified by U.S. agencies. The report said the tactics included fake social-media accounts, covert websites and artificial-intelligence tools such as deepfakes. (gao.gov) European Union officials use a broader term — Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, or FIMI — for coordinated efforts to distort debate and pressure political outcomes. The European External Action Service said on March 17, 2026 that it has built up its FIMI response since 2015 and now treats the issue as a security and foreign-policy threat. (eeas.europa.eu) The European Union’s January 2024 FIMI threat report tied these campaigns to Russia’s war against Ukraine and to attacks on institutions including the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Josep Borrell wrote that about 2 billion people were due to vote worldwide in 2024, including in the June 2024 European Parliament election, making information manipulation a live election-security issue. (euvsdisinfo.eu) The United Nations has tried to move the debate from individual false posts to the rules of the whole information system. Its Global Principles for Information Integrity, released in June 2024, called for action by states, technology companies, media and civil society while stressing freedom of expression, privacy and independent journalism. (un.org) That shift has produced new diplomatic machinery. Canada and the Netherlands launched the Global Declaration on Information Integrity Online on September 20, 2023, and Canada said 34 countries had endorsed it at launch, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and South Korea. (international.gc.ca) The Group of Seven has also folded disinformation into its defense of the “rules-based international order.” Canada’s 2024 annual report said the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, created at the 2018 Charlevoix summit, now coordinates work on election integrity, influence operations tied to kinetic warfare, artificial-intelligence threats and transnational repression. (international.gc.ca) In Asia, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said in May 2024 that China’s disinformation campaigns in Taiwan and the Philippines were aimed at discrediting leaders, shaping regional narratives and driving wedges in U.S.-allied relationships. The study said information operations were being used alongside other state tools rather than as stand-alone acts. (iiss.org) Governments pushing back say the answer is coordination, transparency and stronger public resilience. The U.S. State Department’s January 2024 framework called for national strategies, dedicated institutions, support for independent media and civil society, and multilateral cooperation against foreign state information manipulation. (state.gov) Critics of counter-disinformation policy warn that broad definitions can spill into censorship or politicized content policing, a tension the United Nations principles address by pairing information-integrity measures with human-rights safeguards. The fight is no longer over one rumor or one platform; it is over who sets the terms of public reality across borders. (un.org)
