Information Warfare Watch No. 45

THE BBC MAKES THE CASE
England's state broadcaster is making the case that the country needs to expand its international messaging in order to better "champion western values." Senior officials at the BBC have argued that the company's World Service, which focuses on external broadcasting in foreign languages, needs to step up its activities and expand its budget in the face of "aggressive" propaganda efforts by Russia and China. They note that Moscow and Beijing are spending a combined £8 billion ($10.5 billion) annually to message to foreign publics, while the budget of the BBC World Service is a mere fraction of that: £400 million ($525 million). "As press freedom drastically reduces, disinformation thrives and state-backed media advance aggressively, its role is increasingly important," says Jonathan Munro, the global director of BBC News. "We need a sustainable, long term funding solution that enables the World Service to meet these global challenges and invest in services for the future." (Guardian, March 12, 2025)

RT IS GAMING THE WESTERN SYSTEM
The start of the Kremlin's "special military operation" against Ukraine in February 2023 was accompanied by a closure of the West to Russian media, as Russian channels like RT were blocked and deplatformed in various markets. So the situation has remained as Russia's war of choice drags on. But, as a new investigative report by opposition outlet iStories details, RT has been working to get its message out in novel ways. This includes "several channels associated with RT" that "publish old videos of the TV channel under the guise of their own, support the war in Ukraine, criticize the policy of the Western authorities and actively promote the move of foreigners to Russia - for 'traditional values.'"

One of them is the YouTube channel "Real Reporter." Ostensibly registered in Kazakhstan, it has emerged as a prominent voice in attempting to shape perceptions to an audience of what is now 300,000 subscribers about conditions within Russia. It does so with stories "about how Russians were practically not influenced by sanctions, how Russian industry copes with import substitution, and the economy is growing, interviews with Russian mobilized people who want to 'repay the debt' to the country, with foreigners from Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia who move to Russia for a better life." (iStories, March 13, 2025)

HOW THE HOUTHIS ARE MESSAGING
While disinformation and information warfare has historically been the purview of nation state actors, more and more sub-state groups are getting into the (informational) game. One is Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have skyrocketed to international notoriety as a result of their persistent threat to maritime shipping in the Red Sea. But the Houthis are engaged in far more than sporadic attacks on regional shipping, as a new report from Israeli cybersecurity firm ClearSky documents. The study examines recent disinformation and information operation efforts being carried out by the Iranian-supported militants, with some surprising conclusions.

"In early April, ClearSky's team discovered a persistent Yemeni/Houthi influence campaign operating in Israel and the Gulf states," the study details. The effort, a reboot of an earlier messaging campaign aimed at the Gulf States, is significant: "The campaign operators have invested for years in building and maintaining an infrastructure that includes fake websites, Facebook pages, and social media profiles. The ongoing maintenance of such a campaign indicates its importance and the resources allocated to sustain it. These resources include, among other things, dedicated personnel, funding, and a certain level of proficiency in Hebrew."

The new campaign includes a number of tried-and-true methods employed by other info threat actors. These include the "creation of Facebook groups" (including groups in Hebrew), "fake social media profiles," and the infiltration of legitimate Israeli Facebook groups and the seeding of malicious content on them. (ClearSky, April 2025)

INFO TARGET: ISRAEL
The Houthis, moreover, are not the only ones messaging to the Israeli public. As a new study by the Institute for National and Strategic Studies, the country's premier think tank, notes: "China is undertaking efforts to influence the Israeli public through China Radio International (CRI), embassy activities that include journalist delegations and the publication of articles and interviews in Israeli media, and collaborations with local media outlets." Israel, the study notes, is seen by Beijing as a "strategic target" as a result of its close links to the West, as well as its "potential for technological collaboration." And while the country, in the main, has shown resilience to Chinese propaganda, this "may not suffice in the future, especially as Israel becomes an increasingly contentious aspect of the great power competition, potentially triggering more intense influence attempts." (INSS, April 3, 2025)