DayofPal— French government agency (Viginum) accused an Israeli tech firm, BlackCore, of running a coordinated online disinformation campaign targeting Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney and the SNP ahead of the Holyrood election.
Hundreds of fake social media accounts posted coordinated comments aimed at Swinney and his party, particularly on posts related to his criticism of Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip.
French authorities say the same firm has been linked to similar interference operations in other countries, though it is still unclear who commissioned the activity.
Reuters revealed that French authorities suspected BlackCore was behind an online smear campaign targeting three mayoral candidates from the hard-left, pro-Palestine France Unbowed party (LFI) in the local elections.
At a press conference on Thursday alongside French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, Viginum chief Marc-Antoine Brillant said technical work had led them to BlackCore.
Viginum subsequently presented a detailed report on BlackCore’s actions around the world.
“This modus operandi was not limited to municipal elections in France,” he said. “It also appears to have been used to carry out foreign digital interference operations in other countries or regions, such as Angola, Togo, the elections in Scotland, and the 2025 municipal election in New York.”
However, Brillant said it was still unclear who had commissioned BlackCore to meddle in France.
“Our investigations did not make it possible to identify the sponsor or sponsors, if indeed they exist, behind this foreign digital interference,” he said.
Lecornu said the French government had asked Israel for explanations on BlackCore’s actions, but also for help in trying to find out who may have been behind the smear campaign.
“I do not doubt for a single instant that if a French private group, from French soil moreover, had engaged in foreign digital interference in Israel, they would have done the same to its ambassador on site,” Lecornu said.
A joint investigation by the French daily Libération and Haaretz, which analysed BlackCore’s digital footprint, uncovered a toolkit of influence-operation systems routed through servers in Britain, Germany, Finland and Lithuania.
BlackCore said it provided governments and political campaigns with “cutting-edge strategies, advanced tools, and robust security to shape narratives.”
BlackCore is now the subject of two investigations in France, one by Paris prosecutors and another by the domestic intelligence agency, which is probing who may have commissioned the campaign.
BlackCore’s systems appear to have shared web infrastructure with websites that housed the internal systems of two Israeli companies, Galacticos and SNI, Haaretz reported.
Brillant did not explicitly mention who was targeted in last year’s New York City election, which was won by Zohran Mamdani who is known for his outspoken support for the Palestinian cause and opposition to the Israeli genocide and occupation.
In a subsequent report, Viginum said it detected BlackCore-linked accounts targeting John Swinney, the First Minister of Scotland.
Swinney described the Israeli genocide in Gaza as a “man-made humanitarian catastrophe,” saying a genocide may be unfolding, citing civilian casualties, widespread destruction and racist statements by Israeli officials.
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