The French government has set up an agency called Viginum, responsible for “protection against foreign digital interference”. During the presidential campaign, Russia, China, Turkey and American conspiracy theorists would be particularly watched by this organization.
The Viginum agency is made up of about thirty agents, some of whom are former intelligence services. Its creation was announced in July 2021, but it has only been operational since the publication, last December, of a decree allowing it to collect information directly on social networks. In particular, it made it possible to scrutinize the online discussions around the referendum for the independence of New Caledonia, but also recently, the conversations of the participants of the freedom convoys which spread on social networks.
This Viginum entity is neither a police nor intelligence service, this is what the government points out. The primary function of the structure is to detect attempts at 2.0 propaganda that have been raging for a long time and across networks. But it is also responsible for ensuring that all French institutions and civil society actors benefit from the results of these investigations, in order to be able to fight effectively against fake news.
Fight against the manipulation of information
” The installation of a service like Viginum was essential to at least centralize French expertise in the fight against the manipulation of information coming from abroad, explains Jean Cattan, Secretary General of the National Digital Council. But what seems important now is to share this expertise between all the components of the State and outside the State, that is to say with the world of research, civil society or even journalists. . »
Fighting fake news does not only concern the 2022 presidential campaign, specifies the secretary general of the National Digital Council: “ We see this, for example, with the Ukrainian crisis and potential manipulation of information from foreign powers. It is becoming important that we are all ready, within the State and in society, to cooperate as well as possible, to analyze as best as possible, the dynamics of online disinformation in order to better react collectively. »
The risk of electoral disinformation campaigns
What are the scenarios envisaged by Viginum on online threats to the presidential campaign? Principally, ” a campaign to smear or promote a candidate from abroad “, Indicates the Viginum site with the risk that several States jointly launch electoral disinformation campaigns.
The agency’s analysts use mathematical modeling to identify, for example, fake accounts that share the same misleading or altered photo of a candidate. However, the National Commission for Computing and Liberties believes that this new structure is not neutral on the exercise of public freedoms “. The Cnil specifies in its opinion that it warns against a possible “massive collection” of Internet users’ data which will be carried out by this new body.