British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, speaking at a session of the UN General Assembly, said that a National Center for Information Security will appear within the structure of the country’s security services.
According to him, the new center’s task will be to identify, determine the origin of, and counter disinformation spread in the British information space by unfriendly states, including Russia.
Burnham called Russia one of the main sources of this threat and said that the Russian authorities spend about 1.3 billion pounds sterling, or 1.73 billion dollars, annually on information manipulation. Among the tools, he listed internet bots, fake websites, fabricated newspaper articles, and posts allegedly on behalf of at least 28 British organizations and media outlets, including the BBC and universities.
The prime minister also said that this is an unofficial campaign that penetrates people’s homes, distorts perceptions of their country and society, and sows discord and dissatisfaction. In the same speech, he mentioned cyberattacks on British companies and public organizations and attempts to influence the 2019 parliamentary elections.
Burnham warned that artificial intelligence technologies will amplify these threats. Russia, whose representative was in the hall during the speech, did not comment on these statements.
In 2020, the UK government published a report on Russian attempts to interfere in the country’s affairs, including the parliamentary elections, and the Russian Foreign Ministry then called the document “Russophobic”. On Tuesday, September 22, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the “Dialogue on Fakes 4.0” forum in Moscow that the “information war against Russia” began in the early 2000s, after Vladimir Putin came to power.
Lavrov also said that the Western media space and the entertainment industry had long been preparing audiences in their countries to accept anti-Russian clichés and fantasies.
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