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Russia expected to meddle in UK election as regime ‘targets forums like Mumsnet’

Russia’s growing and nefarious influence has reached discussion forums, where propagandists integrate themselves into online communities

Analysts monitoring Russian disinformation online have found pro-Kremlin networks targeting social media platforms to influence domestic politics in other countries and sway public opinion ahead of elections, including the UK. Mr Giles said the efforts to root out foreign and malign influence operations have been hindered by both a lack of will from social media platforms to tackle the problem and low prioritisation by governments to invest resources to investigate means by which Russian disinformation is delivered. “Other countries have undertaken long-term programmes of education to try to boost the resilience of the information space to influence from hostile actors like Russia, here in the UK it’s been off to a slow start and it is faltering,” Mr Giles added.

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