Russian and Chinese influence networks across Europe mentioned Ireland thousands of times in the past year, according to an in-depth study from Norway’s Defence Research Strategy.

The two states are known to spread misinformation online, as well as promote narratives that portray their countries in a more positive light to Western audiences.

The Russian Internet Research Agency, which is based out of a building just outside St Petersburg, famously interfered in the US 2016 election, for example.

Politics and international relations professor at UCD Alexander Dukalskis told Moncrieff these narratives often focus on undermining democracy in Western nations.

“If you compare Russia and Chine, they sort of take different approaches often,” he said.

“Writ large, Russia tries to promote certain narratives about its foreign policy and to sow discord in democratic societies, to undermine faith in democracy.

“It certainly focused a lot on Ukraine in the last few years promoting lies that Ukraine is run by Nazis or that NATO started the war."

Prof Dukalskis said that Chinese narratives focus more on promoting the country as a leader in the global economy and a good place to live.

Berlin, Germany, Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation

He acknowledged that Ireland also promotes itself to tourists online, but said he is “not aware of any bot farms or troll farms that the Irish Government controls”.

“I think what you get with regard to Ireland or to other democratic states and the information relationship to Russia and China is a dynamic of what some people call ‘asymmetric access’,” he said.

“Liberal democracy spheres like Ireland or the rest of Western Europe, we have an open public sphere, people can promote their opinions, they can read pretty much whatever information they want.

“That’s a good thing, but it comes with the downside that it’s very easy for malicious actors to promote their own narratives.

“It puts us in a tight spot because we don’t want to censor those things right? We want to stay true to our values of free speech and liberal openness and so on.”

However, Prof Dukalskis said this favour is not returned by Moscow or Beijing.

'We are of interest to big powers'

The research indicated that Chinese networks in particular seem to have an interest in Ireland.

According to Prof Dukalskis, this could be due to an appreciation for Ireland’s military neutrality.

“I think China appreciates that Ireland is neutral and not a member of NATO, which kind of accords with China’s view of the world,” he said.

“And of course we are a large tech hub so there are quite a few Chinese companies that have either headquarters or European headquarters here.

“Even though our defence strategy has always been that we are an island in the North Atlantic and therefore we’ll be safe, the world is changing.

"We are of interest to big powers in different ways than we were even a few years ago.”

Prof Dukalskis said investments in research should be made to understand this mis and dis-information in more detail.

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Main image: A computer hacker