Thread by @DisinfoEU

UNCOVERED: How the so-called French media outlet “France Libre 24” – which uses disinformation to sow polarisation in society – hides the fact that it’s managed by a controversial Polish far-right media network. (1/20)

Several months ago, our attention was caught by a newcomer in the French online media landscape - France Libre 24, which sounds like the French news TV channel France24. (2/20)

FL24.net presents a large majority of its articles as being sourced from French mainstream media (@AFPfr, @LeMondeFr, @LePoint, etc.) - a practice that gives FL24.net an aura of legitimacy. (3/20)

But at close inspection, we found that they tweak the content of the articles. For example, an AFP story about racism against the Italian footballer Mario Balotelli was modified and then posted by FL24.net to suggest that the incident didn’t actually happen. (4/20)

Most of the time these articles were rewritten to include politicised messages, polarising narratives, and disinformation items. One of their articles was also recently debunked by the French fact-checker AFP Factuel. (5/20)
factuel.afp.com/non-cette-vide…

Intrigued by the questionable practices of FL24.net, we dug deeper to see who manages this website. Surprisingly, we discovered that FL24.net shares the same IP address as a Polish media platform called Wolnosc24. (6/20)

Even more unexpectedly, we found that FL24.net’s IP address was previously used by the website of the Polish far-right tabloid Najwyższy Czas! (nczas.com), founded by the controversial former MEP Janusz Korwin Mikke. (7/20)

What’s more, both Wolnosc24.pl and nczas.com are managed by the same team and are under the umbrella of the same corporate structure 5S Media sp. z.o.o. (8/20)

Thanks to web archives, we were able to determine that FL24.net previously contained a mention of a Polish company called 6S Media sp z.o.o.
archive.md/GHD7v
(9/20)

A mention that was quickly removed from the website to hide all connections to Poland. (10/20)

Two of the shareholders of 6S Media sp.z.o.o (Tomasz S. and Krzysztof S.) also have shares in 5S Media sp.z.o.o (Tomasz S. and Krzysztof S.). All this information is publicly available here: rejestr.io/krs/792869/6s-…
(11/20)

Interestingly, we found a public post on social media with Krzysztof S. posing in a FL24.net t-shirt. (12/20)

Moreover, Adam W – another shareholder of 6S Media SP Z.O.O and deputy editor of Nczas! – is also a main shareholder of Cat@Net. And, as you may know, a recent investigation by Newsweek Polska revealed that Cat@Net had run a troll farm in Poland. (13/20)

theguardian.com/world/2019/nov…

This network has been trying to develop an active presence on social media, and the France Libre 24 Facebook Page now has almost 20k followers. (14/20)

To increase its audience, the Facebook Page has also paid for ads targeting France. (15/20)

More surprisingly, some ads have even targeted Canada. (16/20)

Finally, France Libre 24’s Instagram account has been active since mid-October 2019. As you can see below, the account has even begun to produce its own original content. (17/20)

To sum up:
- FL24.net spreads polarising content and disinformation by appropriating and modifying articles from reputable media.
- The website hides its ties to Poland and the controversial media Najwyższy Czas!
(18/20)

In addition, deceptive media outlets such as FL24 gain legitimacy from posing as real media outlets, and consequently, have the ability to influence a political landscape, as we have seen with our Ukrainian investigation. (19/20)

https://twitter.com/DisinfoEU/status/1197902680162754561?s=20

You can find out more by reading @POLITICOEurope's Morning Tech newsletter, with whom we partnered on this investigation. (20/20)

politico.eu/pro/section/te…

On this story and on intra-EU disinformation campaigns: read the reaction from Commissioner @VeraJourova available on the Politico article (now without paywall):
politico.eu/article/france…