Online falsehoods a 'national security threat'
In 2016, two groups of protesters showed up in front of the Islamic Da'wah Centre in Houston, Texas, in support of two diametrically opposite causes.
Donning "White Lives Matter" T-shirts, the first group of 10 protested what they called the Islamisation of America. The second group of 60, waving signs declaring "Muslims are welcome here", were there in counter-protest.
Both sides were galvanised by their respective Facebook groups - Heart of Texas and United Muslims of America - and even urged the taking of firearms to the protest, though Houston police made sure the protest did not turn violent.
What neither group knew was that a Russia-linked group known as the Internet Research Agency had been behind both, and at a cost of just US$200 (S$274), had succeeded in stirring up a real security threat.
The case was one of several examples cited in the report of the Select Committee released yesterday, to show how deliberate disinformation operations aim to widen social divides and undermine democratic processes and institutions.
Such online falsehoods can even undermine national sovereignty and harm national security.
The report summed up how the committee heard from disinformation researchers about how campaigns allegedly conducted by Russia had posed a serious threat to countries including the US, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and France.
In another example, known Russian trolls ran Twitter and Instagram accounts about the Black Lives Matter movement and police shootings, widening the divide between each side.
Other disinformation operations sought to undermine faith in the US democratic process.
European Values Think-Tank representative Jakub Janda noted that "disinformation operations often have the goal of undermining public trust towards democratic institutions, and causing the public to lose trust in institutions like the free media and democratic political parties", the report said.
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