Mark Scott
In the ongoing battle to combat Russian election interference, Washington just showed Brussels what real enforcement looked like — and it didn’t take glitzy new social media rules to hobble Moscow’s global disinformation machine.
First, the Justice Department seized and shut down scores of Kremlin-backed websites that pretended to be those of American outlets like the Washington Post and Fox News to peddle clandestine Russian propaganda at U.S. voters. Then, the Treasury Department sanctioned high-profile Russian officials, including the editor-in-chief of RT. The Justice Department indicted two separate Russians for funneling $10 million into a Tennessee-based company that produced millions of social media posts that spewed Russian disinformation directly into people’s smartphones.
Europe hasn’t done anything close to that — despite Russia also targeting countries across the Atlantic with similar covert tactics.
It’s a reminder that while the European Union has long championed itself as the global frontrunner on digital rulemaking to combat the Russian threat, it’s struggling to keep pace with the United States when it may matter most.
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