Instead, the researchers found examples of foreign actors actively trying to influence Norwegians on social media.
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The researchers have mapped and analyzed the spread of (dis) information and propaganda from foreign actors on Norwegian websites, on Facebook and on Twitter.
– This happens over time and in ways that make us take this challenge seriously, says Eskil Grendahl Sivertsen, director of the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (FFI) to VG.
– How?
– Even though we did not find anything to indicate that the election was attempted to be influenced, our research shows that it is actors out there who create and disseminate information in Norwegian, aimed at a Norwegian audience. Something is about disinformation where there are manipulation techniques behind it, such as fake accounts, says Sivertsen.
Afraid of foreign players
Fear of electoral influence last year led the government to launch 13 measures that would strengthen resilience to undesirable influences in the last parliamentary election.
One of the measures in the government’s action plan was to map the information impact of the election. FFI was commissioned in collaboration with the analysis agencies Analyze & Tall and Common Consultancy and has resulted in the report «Unwanted foreign influence? Mapping and analysis of the parliamentary elections 2021».
–In total, the researchers examined 12.5 million comments on Facebook and 360,000 twitter messages in the search for foreign election influence between 1 August and 16 September 2021.
– What about the closed groups on social media? Have you researched them?
– There are a number of privacy considerations, ethical and resource considerations that mean that in this assignment we do not go into the closed groups, Sivertsen says and continues:
– Our assessment is nevertheless that if an actor had achieved a particular effect with electoral influence, we believe that they would not have been able to do so, without us having found any trace of it in our analyzes, says Sivertsen.
–Good news
Minister of Local Government and District Affairs Bjørn Arild Gram is pleased that the report “acquits” the election that took place this autumn.
– It is good news that the researchers have not found signs of targeted attempts to influence the Storting election from foreign actors.
–– Was there anything that surprised you in this report?
– Well, when you hear about what has happened in other countries, I would have thought that they had found more advocacy work out there. What worries me most is that the report shows that foreign actors have the capacity to carry out major advocacy actions if they really support it, says Gram and continues:
– As a private person, you do not sit on Facebook and think that what you read can be part of an influence operation.
He emphasizes that the report is important for the work with electoral influence in the future.
– The report shows that we should not be naive, and that we must continue the important job of counteracting the unwanted influence of elections, Gram says.
Established working group
Another measure has been to set up a working group across several ministries and the intelligence, surveillance and security services that meet several times a year to work together on prevention.
– One of the most important things we do is to strengthen people’s judgment and resilience to those who do not want us well, Gram concludes.
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