Flood of fake news and foreign interference ahead of key elections for Greenland

CopenhagenGreenland faces the upcoming general elections on March 11 with greater concern than ever about foreign interference and disinformation campaigns. The elections have been marked since US President Donald Trump expressed his their ambitions to "take control" of the Arctic island. These threats towards Greenland and, incidentally, towards Denmark, have revived the debate on holding an independence referendum on the island in the coming years.

With the focus of geopolitics now on Greenland, the events of the last few weeks are causing great concern in Nuuk and Copenhagen. As an example of interventions, coinciding with Trump Jr.'s visit to Nuuk, several youtubers, Celebrities in the MAGA movement have been handing out $100 bills on the streets of the Arctic capital. At the same time, disinformation and fake news are rife on social media, with the country's prime minister, Mute Egede, having to deny messages posted by a fake account on X that was pretending to be him. The same has happened to Danish MP Karsten Honge, who was the victim of a fake Facebook post with his photo asking for "help from Russia to prevent Greenland from joining the US." Another example of disinformation is the proliferation of articles purporting to be written by the public media outlet KNR, which talk about imaginary corruption scandals at the Greenland bank that target the government.

"We are suffering from a disinformation campaign and we are aware of it," said Pipaluk Lynge, chairman of Greenland's Foreign and Security Policy Committee, after his executive had to warn X about fake profiles posing as members of the government. For his part, Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard also said that Copenhagen is taking "the threat that influence campaigns by foreign states represent for our democracy" very seriously. The minister added that both Danish and Greenlandic authorities are closely monitoring the situation, and warned citizens that they can also take individual measures to avoid contributing to the spread of false information.

Greenland is especially vulnerable

For Carsten Schürman, a computer security researcher at the IT University of Copenhagen, the Danish minister's words respond to "the concern that in Greenland, where there are now international interests, fake profiles are being activated on social networks to spread disinformation on issues that could affect the outcome of the elections." Schürman adds that both Greenland and Denmark are particularly vulnerable to fake news, as they are highly digitalized societies in which people get their information through social networks. In fact, Greenland is one of the most active populations on Facebook in the world: of the 56,000 inhabitants of the Arctic island, 32,000 have a page on that social network. According to the expert, behind these fake news "there could be Russia, the United States or China. Everyone who has an interest in Greenland right now."

Another video that has spread across social media features Charlie Kirk, one of the most media-savvy ultraconservative figures in the US. In the video, which has received more than 400,000 views on YouTube, Kirk claimed that "Greenlandic children find rubies the size of baseballs, but Denmark refuses to allow them." exploit its resources"With the US, on the other hand, Greenland could become as prosperous as Saudi Arabia," he said.

For the communication researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Johan Farkas, it is to be expected that "influential political figures in the US will increasingly create content talking about Greenland with videos that distort reality," and warns that "from the comments, we see that these videos are also followed by users in Greenland and Denmark." The researcher in think tank Digital Infrastructure Signe Ravn-Højgaard also shares this concern: "We have to take this seriously. If a manipulative video is shared 50 or 100 times, it means that it has already reached a large part of the Greenlandic population."

As a counterpoint, DIIS researcher Ulrik Pram Gad believes that the fact that the island has so few inhabitants makes it more resilient to foreign interference: "It is more difficult to spread disinformation through fake profiles, as Greenlanders quickly realise that the person does not exist; the population is so small that everyone can know each other."

Foreign donations to political parties banned

Beyond concerns about misinformation, the Greenland government has passed an emergency law banning foreign donations to political parties. The government justified the need to tighten party funding rules by making direct reference to American donors, particularly Elon Musk, after his role in the recent German elections.