
Finland is winning the war on fake news - myinnerbanjo
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/
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jillesvangurp
I've lived in Finland for a few years and have some Finnish friends that I've
debated this with. There are few relevant facts about Finland to be aware of
that make this a very real threat for Finland.

1) Finland used to be under Swedish rule for many centuries until the Russians
took over in 1807 after the Swedish Russian war. Towards the end of WW I
Finland declared its independence and made use of the chaos during the Russian
revolution.

2) During WW II, Finland was isolated from the allied forces and, with German
logistical support, defeated some very determined Stalinist troops from
reconquering the country. Twice. Finnish troops defeated and humiliated the
Russian army. In fairness, they were a little distracted by battling the
Germans. Lots of Fins found themselves on the wrong side of the border after
WW II ended.

3) Finland is an EU member but not a NATO member. Whenever the topic of
joining NATO comes up there is significant intimidation from Russia to prevent
this from happening. This includes border closings, occasional incursions of
their airspace, and the vague threat they could come back to re-occupy the
country.

4) Finland has a relatively large army to be able to defend it's border with
Russia. They value their independence and are fiercely nationalistic. All
Finnish men serve 9-12 months in the army and there are hundreds of thousands
of reserve troupes on a population of less than 5 million.

5) Finland is only a few miles away from Tallinn (Estonia) and you can get
from Helsinki to Saint Petersburg by train in just a few hours. Access to the
Baltic for the Russians passes through that narrow straight. That makes the
Finnish coast strategically very significant for the Russians.

In short, Russia has plenty of reasons to want to influence local politics in
Finland and this is nothing new for Finland. The Fake news campaigns in
Finland have followed the same pattern as elsewhere. Online trolling,
intimidation of politicians, playing sentiments around issues with migrants,
etc. On top of that there's a Russian mafia presence in the country and
Russian intelligence has long used Helsinki as a base of operations. Recently,
there have been some scandals around secret bases in Finland in and around
some islands off the coast of Turku in the Baltic on properties owned by
russians.

So during the recent elections, Russian influence and fake news were big
topics that most Finnish take very seriously. As the populists actually won a
lot of seats, I wouldn't call this a great victory just yet.

~~~
Gravityloss
The gulf of Finland is 80 kilometers wide.

