Russian disinformation is in the news.
Johan Bäckman, known for his connections to Russian authorities, has for years been actively providing Russian state television with news stories denigrating Finland and other Western countries.
He's at it again, reports Hufvudstadsbladet, which found that the propagandist is now taking aim at Finland's Swedish-speaking minority, this time vilifying the language group instead of Americans or Ukrainian 'fascists.'
Speaking on a Russian talk show this past summer, he argued that Swedish speakers — like President Alexander Stubb — command powerful positions in Finnish society.
"One must understand that there are Swedish Swedes and Finnish Swedes. The Swedes, including the Finnish Swedes, hate Russia. Meanwhile, the Finnish Finns are neutral or positive. There is a substantial Orthodox Finnish-speaking population that is naturally positive towards Russia," he told the talk show hosted by a US-convicted Russian agent.
In 2022, the Supreme Court handed Bäckman a 60-day suspended prison sentence over his harassment of Yle journalist Jessikka Aro.
The perils of online credentials
Artificial intelligence is making it harder to identify scammers. This is evident by the 44 million euros people in Finland lost to fraudsters last year, according to Helsingin Sanomat.
Small languages like Finnish no longer offer protection against payment fraud in the era of AI applications. Gone are the poorly written messages of years past.
These days scammers move between different channels. What starts as a text message leads to phone calls. Ultimately, these multi-pronged approaches are fishing for the victim's online banking credentials, and that's where things get hairy, according to the paper.
For those fighting fraud, online banking codes pose a tricky situation, as strong authentication using these credentials should generally be respected. Strong authentication is like a signature and should be treated with the same seriousness, the paper explains.
"If you carry out an authentication, you are responsible for it," Jukka-Pekka Kokkonen, an anti-fraud expert at payments company Nexi, told HS.
Testing limits
An incendiary Facebook post by Finns Party politician Mauri Peltokangas is stirring up the tabloids. The MP's weekend post centres on his visit to retailer Kärkkäinen in Northern Ostrobothnia, which he said was pleasant as there were no "Mogadishu accents, goat herders, camels or flying carpets in the parking lot."
Peltokangas, who's previously faced incitement charges, said he did not consider his writing racist, noting that he believed freedom of speech is thriving in Finland. In 2021, an appellate court ruled that political freedom of speech allows for a certain degree of exaggeration and provocation. That said, the court found that Peltokangas did not defame or insult refugees or asylum seekers in the manner defined by criminal law.
His party's leader, Finance Minister Riikka Purra, commented on Peltokangas' controversial weekend update, picking up on the price of gas, which has been a theme within the party.
"Is the price of gas so cheap that a camel would be more expensive?" Purra asked.