A group of researchers investigated whether there was a foreign influence in the debate on Facebook in Greenland. There was none during the period they analyzed. But then reality changed.
A Facebook ad claimed that Múte B. Egede and Kuno Fencker had been beaten up. The ad, which featured Arctic Hub’s logo and name, was published in February.
A few weeks earlier, another advert on social media in both Greenlandic and Danish stated that Elon Musk was “offering subsidies to the people of Greenland” – the advert had KNR’s name on it. And then a Múte B. Egede profile on X asked Elon Musk to keep his “dirty fingers off Greenland”.
They all have in common that the content is fake, and neither Arctic Hub nor KNR has anything to do with it. Another common feature is that they all appeared after January 7, when Donald Trump Jr. landed in Nuuk.
It was fake ads like this that were shared on social media. It was financial fraud, says Signe Ravn-Højgaard, explaining that the ads led to a website aimed at scamming people out of money. Screenshots from Facebook.
Reality changed
If we turn the clock another month back- to December 9 – a group of researchers published a report examining foreign disinformation on Greenlandic Facebook forums. Over a period from January 2023 to July 2024, they analyzed data from 107 different forums on the social media platform. Artificial intelligence makes it easy and cheap to produce fake news, also in Greenlandic. This had never been studied in Greenland before, and the conclusion was that the researchers had found no foreign influence in the debate.
“We found no evidence of foreign disinformation during the period we analyzed. The study now forms an important baseline for future studies,“ says Signe Ravn-Højgaard, one of the researchers behind the report.
Signe Ravn-Højgaard is the director and co-founder of Tænketanken for Digital Infrastruktur (the think tank for digital infrastructure) and has written her PhD at Ilisimatusarfik and Roskilde University.
However, the work was no waste, according to Signe Ravn-Højgaard.
The project investigated where on Facebook the debate was particularly vulnerable:
“Research from other parts of the world has shown that disinformation and misinformation is particularly effective when it strikes where there is already a lot of emotion at stake and where there are many divergent opinions. We found that the relationship with Denmark was one such issue,“ she says.
High risk of impact right now
Around the world, there are more and more examples of attempts to influence the debate in democracies through so-called ‘disinformation,’ i.e., content that is untrue or misleading and spread by foreign actors with the aim of weakening or harming an opponent, the report says.
It is intended to influence people’s attitudes, create discord, or shape behavior, often to gain political and economic advantage. The intense spotlight from the world on Greenland also means a greater risk of external influence, says Signe Ravn-Højgaard.
“A lot about Greenland’s future is up in the air right now, and many are interested in influencing it. That’s why there is so much risk of foreign influence now,“ she says.
It only takes a few shares for a post to reach a large proportion of the population,”
– Signe Ravn-Højgaard
Arctic Hub warned about the fake ads on their website and Facebook. Screenshot.
Clicking on the link in the fake Facebook ads led to a page that resembled the news site Arctic Today, but was also fake. It was an attempt at financial fraud. Screenshots.
Everyone knows everyone
In her research, Signe Ravn-Højgaard has found several reasons why Greenland is susceptible to disinformation.
“Society is small, and we are closely connected, which means that information and misinformation spread easily on Facebook. It only takes a few shares for a post to reach a large proportion of the population,“ she says, adding:
“And by the time the media, which is small and has limited resources, has time to grab a story from a Facebook post, fact-check it, and translate it, a large part of the population may have already got the information from social media.”
A Greenlandic editor-in-chief has told Danish media that the level of education in the country is low and that emotions characterize the debate on Facebook. So, there is reason to be extra alert against fake adverts and other misinformation aimed at influencing us in one direction or another.
Easy to create fake news with artificial intelligence
And finally, let’s go back to the fake news about politicians who had been beaten up, which suddenly appeared on Arctic Hub’s Facebook page.
“It was financial fraud,“ says Signe Ravn-Højgaard and explains that the adverts led to a website where the purpose was to scam people out of money.
“We still don’t know who is behind this. Maybe someone is exploiting the attention on Greenland, and these politicians may have become so well known that the interest around them can be used to attract potential victims.”
But there are also people out there who just think it’s fun to make fake news.
“Creating fake content has become much easier with artificial intelligence. Previously, you had to have skills to create a fake image, now we can do it easily.”
“The bottom line is that people need to be really vigilant,“ she says.