The FIMI Iceberg - Decoding Foreign Interference Threats

According to data gathered by the European External Action Service (EEAS), last year over eighty countries and over two hundred organizations were targets of attacks from Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference - or FIMI. These attacks targeted everything from major international events like the Paris Olympics, to national elections, regional conflicts and local protests.

The main instigators of these influence operations were China and Russia and they use FIMI to manipulate public opinion, fuel polarization and interfere with democratic processes within the EU and worldwide. They employ a multi-layered strategy using both state and non-state actors to exert long term influence.

According to the EEAS report, "their aim is to destabilize societies, damage democracies, drive wedges between different groups and undermine the EU's global standing". The EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas says "FIMI is not merely a tool for disseminating deceptive narratives. It is an integral part of military operations used by foreign states to lay the way for kinetic action on the ground," and "is a major security threat to the EU."

And it would appear that no country is immune. Even a small neutral country like Ireland was mentioned thousands of times by Russian and Chinese influence networks during a monitoring period from September 2023 to September 2024 according to an in-depth study carried out by Norway's Defense Research Strategy.

In this episode of Perspectives with Neilo, we chat with Eoin McNamara (X: @McNamara_Eoin  BSky: @mcnamara-eoin.bsky.social), Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki to unpack some of the key findings in these reports. We discuss what motives lie behind these manipulation and interference campaigns as well as some examples of recent case studies and their impact. In addition we talk about the vulnerability of western society to such interference and what democracies can do to protect their citizens from such nefarious interference in the future.

Date of Recording: March 31st, 2025.



The thumbnail is entitled the FIMI Iceberg and shows Russia President Putin and Chinese President Xi - one on either side of an iceberg. They are surrounded by symbols of their state organizations and state controlled media outlets that appear around the iceberg above the water line. Below the waterline are symbols of China's and Russia's covert state linked channels and state aligned channels.
The FIMI Iceberg showing Russia's and China's Overt threats such as official state agencies and state controlled outlets (media organizations) as well as Covert threats (below the water line) such as state linked channels and state aligned channels. See the 3rd EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats linked below for full details.


DIVE DEEPER:

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Music Credits:
Title music: Uplifting by Plastic3 used under Tribe of Noise license
Break: Shining Bright Dusk by FreeSoundServer via Pixabay

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