The government must do more to combat the use of algorithms to spread misinformation via social media, putting the upcoming local election at risk of foreign troll armies, government advisory body Rathenau Institute has said in a report out on Wednesday.
There is European and Dutch legislation to tackle recommendation algorithms but it is not being fully used, the institute said.
The institute recommends better monitoring of platforms by the government, which is currently in the process of setting up its own early detection system together with a range of experts.
“We have ended up in a situation where recommendation algorithms are determining what we are seeing, and that plays into the hands of people with malicious intent,” Rathenau head investigator Luuk Ex said.
In addition, social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, X, Youtube and TikTok cannot be relied on to remove fake accounts sending out similar messages and other ways troll armies reinforce malicious content to influence public opinion, the institute concluded.
During a meeting with MPs, platform representatives said they had detected few to no attempts at disinformation in the run-up to the national elections in 2025, despite research that found hundreds of active foreign troll accounts.
According to democracy watchdog Post X society, which also detected large-scale attempts by foreign trolls to influence the national election, the trolls focus on important election issues and mainly support extreme right-wing parties, such as Forum voor Democratie and the PVV.
“Accounts from far-flung countries repost messages about wind farms, or asylum seeker centres, which makes X think: this is getting a lot of attention, let’s make it bigger,” spokesman Pieter van Boheemen told broadcaster NOS.
Perpetrators can be anyone with a credit card but the finger of suspicion points mainly to Russia and China he said.
Junior digital economy minister Willemijn Aerdts said other countries aiming to “destabilise the process” may also be in the picture.
Van Boheemen said no research has been done into the effects of the trolling. “Even as few as a couple of hundred votes can be enough to sway a local outcome,” he said.
