“The planet economical Forum is frequently cast in the Netherlands as a shadowy global power—part of a broader anti-globalist communicative that sometimes veers into anti-Semitic territory,” Robert van der Noordaa of Trollrensics told EURACTIV.pl’s fact Talks podcast.
IN BRIEF: Disinformation in the Netherlands
- Dominant narratives: anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ. Anti-vaccine, related to the MH17 shootdown, the war in Ukraine, the planet economical Forum, farmers
- Main disinformation spreaders: Russia, China, MAGA movement, Elon Musk, home parties (e.g. PVV and its leaders Geert Wilders, Forum for Democracy), alternate propaganda media (e.g. ON, Andere Krant)
- Most common fake news: the WEC being a shadowy organisation exerting control over global affairs, no food in the country without farming, sex education in schools as a cover for grooming children for pedophiles, raising concerns about Israeli misconduct in Gaza means anti-Semitism
- Combating disinformation: targeting propaganda media
In this episode, we research the Dutch disinformation scenery with Robert van der Noordaa, investigative writer and analyst, co-founder of Trollrensics, specialising in hybrid warfare, disinformation, and Russian influence operations.
Karolina Zbytniewska, EURACTIV.pl: The Netherlands is simply a country where information flows freely, but misleading narratives can inactive take root. What are the dominant disinformation narratives circulating there?
Robert van der Noordaa: First, it’s crucial to realize that we have rather a strong far right in the Netherlands. Most people have heard of the PVV and Geert Wilders. There are besides another political parties, like Forum for Democracy—I’m not certain why they call themselves that.
To misinform.
Exactly. It seems like the other of what they are. That’s an crucial context, due to the fact that the political scenery frequently plays a key function in how much disinformation and propaganda circulates on social media. Of course, social media knows no borders, but if you look specifically at Dutch users, you’ll see quite a few this propaganda.
You’re saying they are strong—how strong exactly? Apart from the fact that Wilders is now part of the government and his organization came first in the last elections?
Yes, and what’s different is that there was a fresh organization that fundamentally didn’t be before the elections. It was founded by individual who divided off from another political party—this fresh organization is called NSC—New Social Contract. It has now more or little collapsed, but they inactive managed to win 20 seats. The politician who started it was very popular and publically claimed he wouldn’t work with PVV or Geert Wilders. But behind the scenes, that’s precisely what he was doing.
Without his organization and those 20 seats, it wouldn’t have been possible to form a coalition with the PVV. So, the PVV is inactive more or little the strongest organization in the Netherlands, though it has a akin number of seats to the combined full of 2 another parties—GroenLinks and PvdA.
Geert Wilders is rather pro-Russian, which creates a political environment where Russian propaganda can spread more easily. If you compare that to a country like Finland, where there’s almost no utmost left or right and the political center is stronger, you see little propaganda and it gains little traction.
So the political scenery is crucial in knowing the spread of disinformation. In the Netherlands, unfortunately, we have a strong far right and many alleged “alternative media” outlets—about 20 of them—that spread not just propaganda, but outright lies. They call themselves media companies, but they shouldn’t be.
And who decides which outlets deserve to be called media and which don’t?
That’s a fair question. I’m a scientist—I hold 2 method degrees from 2 different universities—and I look at facts. If individual claims we’re ruled by lizards or that there’s any deep-space state conspiracy, well, there’s no evidence for that. Yet those kinds of theories are inactive widely promoted. any of this propaganda is conspiracy-based, while another parts are more political—linked, for instance, to Russia.
I’ve conducted investigation in many countries, and any of the narratives we see in the Netherlands are rather akin to what’s being pushed in France, Germany, Italy, and even Poland. quite a few it focuses on anti-immigration rhetoric, which, politically, is rather popular. quite a few people simply don’t like immigrants.
But you actually have immigrants. We don’t have as many, apart from the fresh wave after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
That’s true, although the numbers have gone down late as any people have returned to Syria, for example. But that has nothing to do with the PVV, even if they’d like to take credit for it.
The reality is that many immigrants in the Netherlands are not refugees but people who come here to work. If you don’t want people from another countries to come, you’d gotta make it illegal for them to apply for jobs.
But in many sectors—engineering, healthcare, tech—we simply don’t have adequate qualified people. Companies like ASML, which makes chip machines, hire quite a few highly skilled workers from India, even building housing for them. Most immigration isn’t about war refugees, but about labour.
You’ve touched on migration—what are the major disinformation narratives in the Netherlands?
There are many. We could talk for hours about them. But any of the most prominent include anti-LGBT narratives. These aren’t always outright lies, but they’re definitely pushed aggressively. That lines up with Russian disinformation networks, which frequently disseminate anti-LGBT content.
Another very persistent communicative is anti-vaccine propaganda. This started well before COVID, going back to efforts by Russia’s net investigation Agency more than a decade ago. During the pandemic, this peaked. We have a large group of people in the Netherlands spreading the most absurd anti-vaccination theories.
Even now, erstwhile COVID is mostly behind us, they continue. These individuals seem very susceptible to propaganda. erstwhile the pandemic faded, they shifted from being “vaccine experts” to “war experts,” now spreading Russian disinformation about Ukraine. It’s rather remarkable.
So yes, there’s quite a few propaganda related to the war in Ukraine. Interestingly, even in Poland I’ve noticed a drop in support for Ukrainians. Russian troll accounts are spreading bizarre narratives, like claiming that Ukrainian prostitutes are flooding Poland and making it a terrible place. So it seems these narratives are besides being utilized in your elections.
In mainstream politics, we don’t hear much about prostitutes. But on fringe accounts—those pushing the Overton window—it’s definitely present in the Netherlands. And there are countless another topics. During elections, the dominant themes include anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment.
One major subject is the planet economical Forum—there’s quite a few conspiracy explanation content portraying it as a kind of deep-state entity controlling everything.
Would you say this communicative is besides anti-Semitic? In the US, for instance, there’s this thought of a global judaic cabal controlling the world. It sounds somewhat similar, even if the xenophobic aspect isn’t always explicitly mentioned.
It’s not entirely clear-cut, but the WEF communicative seems to belong to the same corner of propaganda—it’s very much tied to anti-globalism. So, it becomes part of a broader planet conspiracy theory—about grabbing power, controlling everything. In that sense, it overlaps with WEF narratives.
During elections, both national and European, you frequently see people in the Netherlands associating certain political parties with the planet economical Forum. For example, the Dutch organization D66 is seen by any as powerfully aligned with the WEF.
This is utilized to demonise those parties. It can go as far as claiming that Merkel and Rutte belong to any secret club that drinks baby blood. any of the propaganda is so outlandish it’s hard to believe anyone would come up with it.
Sounds like QAnon propaganda or disinformation. They usage the same tropes.
Exactly. Initially, people laughed at QAnon in the US, but then it turned out to be rather influential. You see little of it now, but any of those utmost conspiracy theories inactive circulate, frequently coming from that QAnon corner.
And unfortunately, any of these political parties have strong pro-Russian leanings, so you besides see quite a few Russian propaganda. 1 of the most infamous examples is the MH17 case—the Malaysian Airlines plane shot down over east Ukraine. Russia was responsible, and for years they’ve pushed disinformation about it.
There’s inactive active propaganda claiming Ukraine did it, or that it was actually the missing MH370 plane with dead bodies planted on board. It’s disturbingly creative. MH17 is most likely 1 of the longest-running disinformation campaigns attributed to Russia. Another topic—Poland deals with this too—is anything related to farmers.
You mean things like the European Green Deal?
Yes, though it’s not limited to 1 issue. In the Netherlands, we have quite a few farmers—and I don’t think most of them are a problem. But any large-scale farmers with massive pig or cattle farms are, peculiarly due to the manure and the nitrogen problem.
There’s quite a few propaganda like “no farmers, no food,” but 90% of the meat produced is exported. So, technically, we could reduce 90% of those farms and inactive have adequate food domestically. This kind of propaganda besides intersects with Ukraine. Back in 2016, far-right groups organised a referendum against the EU–Ukraine association agreement.
And honestly, it’s not entirely unfounded—if you open the borders and Ukraine exports cheaper agricultural products, they become competition for local farmers.
Yes, we’ve seen akin consequences for Polish farmers.
Exactly—you’ve had farmers blocking trains and border crossings. In the Netherlands, it’s become a vehicle for broader discontent.
It makes it very hard to address the nitrogen issue. The EU is pressuring us to take it seriously—because it is a serious problem. In many areas of the Netherlands, you can’t even build fresh housing due to the fact that nitrogen levels are already besides high.
Any fresh construction would add to the problem, so permits are denied. And yet, many people inactive voted for the farmers’ party, BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB). I actually like farmers—I’ve worked with them, and inactive have large relationships with them—but we do request to address this.
Also, pesticides that should be banned are inactive in use—or even being reintroduced. So overall, I don’t think the BBB party’s approach is very constructive. But this kind of propaganda is widespread, and you see it in Poland too.
You mentioned disinformation targeted at LGBTQ people. From our position in Poland, the Netherlands is seen as a progressive country. Is that image inactive accurate?
Unfortunately, it’s becoming little progressive.
Why is that? Is it due to propaganda, or is it more of a bottom-up backlash within society—something that propaganda and politicians then exploit?
It’s both. Much of it is connected to the far-right and conservative or Christian parties. In the Netherlands, quite a few the anti-LGBTQ propaganda—like the outrage over sex education for kids aged 8 to 12—comes from those circles. any of it even claims specified education is part of a grooming agenda for pedophiles—very much QAnon-style conspiracy theories.
So part of it stems from spiritual beliefs, but there’s besides this “horseshoe theory”—where far left and far right end up looking similar. And societal norms are shifting. In the 1960s and 70s, people were topless at the beach—now that’s mostly gone. Younger generations are, in any ways, becoming little tolerant. And in Poland, PiS even created these alleged LGBT-free zones. I never rather understood how that was
Yes, fortunately those were yet abolished. Still, very interesting to hear this about the Netherlands. Moving on, you’ve been talking about political parties, Russian influence, and grassroots disinformation. Are there any other sources of disinformation in the Netherlands—beyond Russia, far-right politicians, or net subcultures? Any another actors? State-based or otherwise?
Well, we consume quite a few English-language media—we’re very oriented toward the US.So aside from Russian propaganda—whether about MH17 or the war in Ukraine—you besides get disinformation from American MAGA circles. any of it even overlaps with QAnon narratives.
Trump doesn’t care about the fact at all. He just goes somewhere and tells any story, completely unprepared. And sometimes you can catch him telling lie after lie after lie. He doesn’t care. That’s just the way he communicates.
Maybe in any cases, he doesn’t even mean to lie. I don’t think he cares whether he tells the fact or not—he just tells a communicative that he thinks will appeal to people. And apparently, it does appeal to rather quite a few people.
People believe this kind of propaganda. 1 celebrated thing—it’s an interesting debate—is the Capitol coup. 1 female was even killed in the Capitol due to the fact that she was trying to climb through any window. I mean, this was definitely Trump trying to catch power by letting people kind of annex the Capitol. And now he pardoned everybody who was involved, as if they were the victims.
The policemen who died—it must be horrific to see this. But this kind of propaganda… There’s no boundary between news and social media. So you see this propaganda coming from another countries as well.
So globalisation of propaganda?
Yeah, indeed. And now, with this war between Israel and Hamas, Gaza, that debate is so incredibly poisoned. I mean, I have quite a few judaic friends. I don’t think anyone likes that all these people in Gaza are being murdered, hospitals are being bombed, and children are being bombed. But the minute you say something about it, everybody immediately jumps on your neck, saying you’re anti-Semitic or you hatred Jews—and it’s just bullshit. So I’m glad I’m not an Israel expert, due to the fact that I think that’s worse.
But I think this challenge of commenting on what’s going on in Gaza is besides without borders.
Yeah, but that’s the full problem—social media is poison. I mean, you have real people spreading disinformation. But if you look at all these networks and inauthentic behaviour—China employs thousands and thousands of people who most likely run hundreds of thousands of accounts on social media to influence opinions.
China was 1 of the parties spreading disinformation on social media. There even seems to be any kind of cooperation with Russia. erstwhile the full-scale war started in 2022, we detected a large Chinese network in our system. And the amount of Russian propaganda was huge—aimed at Ukraine, but besides promoting the thought that NATO was the reason Russia started the war.
So quite a few social media is poison. In my opinion, it would be a lot better if we just deleted all these platforms. Also, for your children—you see the effect on children too. They spend the full day just flicking through these short videos on Instagram or TikTok or whatever.
I utilized to be the biggest fan of Twitter—before Elon Musk turned it into X. That made it a lot worse. And now Facebook has besides dropped its moderation.
And Elon Musk definitely bought the full platform to get Trump elected. But he’s besides trying to influence politics globally. He’s pushing for the AfD to regulation in Germany—this kind of stuff. It’s insane that individual pays $44 billion for a platform just to do that.
That’s actually a form of globalism. What Trump, the far right from another countries, and Russia are doing—that’s real globalism. They accuse everyone else of it, but it’s actually them doing it.
What is unique about the Dutch disinformation landscape? What’s exceptional in the Netherlands?
The reason it truly gains traction here is this combination of having many far-right political parties with rather quite a few followers, and besides a kind of conservatism. But people are more susceptible to this propaganda and these lies than in a country like Finland or Sweden.
And why? Why are they more susceptible?
Partly it has to do with the fact that these far-right parties don’t care about facts. If they were honest about immigration—that most immigrants find jobs, are skilled, and aren’t just political refugees fleeing wars—they wouldn’t spread specified narratives.
A lot of this far-right rhetoric is what people call populism. It sounds nice—the word sounds positive. But alternatively of “populism,” we should just say “terrible lies.” possibly then people would realize that it has nothing to do with truth. If you want to be a popular political party, you just start claiming that immigrants destruct everything and that grandma can’t afford to pay for bread or rent anymore—and it’s all due to these “damn immigrants.”
I never realize why people claim immigrants are taking their jobs, and then the next day say immigrants don’t work. How can they both work and not work at the same time? That logic is hard to follow. But in countries like Finland or Sweden, these same narratives don’t gain traction. It’s interesting to compare.
Logic is not so important. So why do you think Dutch people are more susceptible than others?
As I said, it’s the combination of conservatism and far-right influences. It’s besides rather toxic. Yes. There’s a correlation between education level and how people vote. Many highly educated people vote for parties like D66 or VVD, partially due to the fact that they own businesses.
A lot of VVD voters don’t want advanced taxes, due to the fact that that means more of their company’s money goes to the state. VVD is 1 of the fewer political parties that tries to prevent that.
But 1 very crucial thing is that we have a dense scenery of alternate propaganda media that push out an insane number of lies.
Now there’s even a tv station called ON—“Ongehoord Nederland,” or “Unheard Netherlands” in English. But they are heard, due to the fact that they have a tv station. So they’re not truly “unheard.”
If you watch what’s presented there, it’s highly painful. quite a few this alternate media has real influence on people. We can actually see it.
What our software does—I’ve been doing this since 2015—is track how these alternate media articles are shared. And they’re being shared more and more. So that means they’re gaining traction. People like these kinds of lies.
And where are these alternate media present—on cable or YouTube? Where do they appear?
In most cases, they’re websites that print articles. ON is simply a tv station, like a regular state-funded media outlet. They make tv shows and “news.” It’s very painful to watch—I effort to avoid it as much as possible. any of it, like you said, is besides on YouTube. any even have printed editions.
There’s 1 called Andere Krant—“The another Newspaper”—and it’s besides horrific. Very pro-Russian propaganda. You can find it in rather a fewer stores. any store owners refuse to carry it due to the fact that they hatred it, but in another places, people can inactive buy it.
What you’re describing sounds truly bleak. So let’s conclude our podcast with something hopefully more positive. What’s being done to counter disinformation in the Netherlands? And what more would you recommend?
If you care about democracy, possibly you should take action against propaganda media. But politicians are afraid of these far-right parties and their voters due to the fact that they’re rather aggressive.
So they don’t dare do anything. This full topic—propaganda—is almost impossible to discuss in politics. It immediately turns into “Big Brother is watching you,” as if you’re trying to control the population.
I’m not entirely certain what the solution is. The Netherlands has changed a lot since 2000. In the last 10 years, I’ve seen it go from a comparatively open, average country to a scenery dominated by far-right propaganda.
I just hope that at any point something will be done about these social media platforms and alternate media. But honestly, I can’t share many success stories. If it gets worse, I think I might want to decision to Ukraine—because there, at least, I wouldn’t gotta deal with all this propaganda and bullshit.
You can learn more about the disinformation scenery in the Netherlands here.
