In November 2020, Barack Obama warned of an “epistemological crisis” facing western democracies. Polarisation and radicalisation were corroding trust in established information sources. “If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work,” the former US president said.
That vulnerability has grown since then. Democracy’s enemies have become more determined to exploit it. This is the threat that Andy Burnham highlighted in a speech at the United Nations this week. The prime minister accused Russia of waging an “industrial-scale assault” on the UK’s information environment using bot armies and fake websites to spread falsehoods, interfere in elections, foment discord and poison inter-community relations.
The prime minister announced the creation of a National Centre for Information Defence to thwart campaigns of epistemological sabotage by hostile actors. It is an overdue enhancement of Britain’s civil defence capabilities.
Mr Burnham is right to highlight the threat, but he told only part of the story. The Kremlin would be wasting its money pumping out disinformation if large US tech platforms didn’t provide convenient channels for the toxin to spread, if there weren’t a complicit audience in Britain sharing the offending material and if the market for spreading pernicious propaganda weren’t so lucrative. Information warfare is only effective when it exploits structural vulnerabilities in the target society. Far-right material sowing hatred against migrants is most fruitful where the terrain has been fertilised by domestic politics.
Earlier this year, analysis by the Guardian found that more than half of accounts on X that were posting about racially aggravated riots in Belfast and civil disorder in Southampton were based outside the UK. Seven of the most-read tweets originated in the US, including one posted by X’s proprietor, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.
Mr Musk has been assiduous in promoting a warped, dystopian idea of Britain as a failed state whose culture is being corroded by mass migration. His platform has been invaluable to far-right activists who have mustered gangs of masked men into mobs that obstruct roads, intimidate people and threaten asylum claimants at British ports. Last year, Mr Musk addressed a rally organised by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, where he called for the Labour government to be removed. Earlier this year, Mr Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, travelled to Moscow on a trip funded by the Musk Foundation. He said the purpose of the trip was to “see the beauty of a civilised society”.
Mr Burnham did not address that side of the anti‑democracy equation in his speech, perhaps because he felt that it would be impolitic to impugn US big tech under the president’s nose. Mr Trump is also an originator and disseminator of falsehoods online, but the nature of transatlantic diplomacy prevents a UK prime minister confronting him with that record.
Under the circumstances, it made sense for Mr Burnham to concentrate his remarks on the threat from the Kremlin, but that must not signal the limit of his policy focus. British democracy is indeed under attack from Russia, but an effective campaign to build resilience has to recognise also the complicity of domestic extremists and the digital privileges they enjoy thanks to US technology companies.
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