Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney was targeted by an Israeli-based technology firm called Blackcore during the Holyrood election, according to a report by Viginum, the French government’s cybersecurity agency. Viginum found that 256 fake social media accounts posted 1,400 coordinated comments targeting Swinney personally, the SNP and the Scottish Government. The discovery was made while Viginum was investigating disinformation in French mayoral elections. Blackcore, which described itself as an “elite influence, cyber, and technology company built for the modern era of information warfare,” deleted its entire online presence after Reuters began making enquiries. Swinney called the findings “deeply concerning.”
How it was discovered
The investigation into Swinney’s social media accounts was not the original purpose of Viginum’s work. The French cybersecurity agency was examining the spread of disinformation in French mayoral elections when it identified Blackcore’s activities – and then found the same patterns operating in Scotland, Angola, Togo and the New York mayoral election in which Zohran Mamdani was elected.
The Viginum report accused Blackcore of conducting “smear campaigns” against left-wing and pro-Palestine candidates. The targeting of Swinney – a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza who supports the creation of an independent Palestinian state – fits that pattern precisely.
The report sets out the specific numbers. At least 256 accounts were mobilised to spread 1,400 comments: 652 on posts from @JohnSwinney, 338 on posts from @theSNP and 112 on posts from @ScotGovFM.
The SNP confirmed to LBC that it had noticed an “unprecedented level of negative reactions and comments from accounts which appeared to be AI-generated bots.” They were not wrong.
What Blackcore was
Blackcore described itself on its since-deleted website as “an elite influence, cyber, and technology company built for the modern era of information warfare.” It offered governments and political campaigns “cutting-edge strategies, advanced tools, and robust security to shape narratives.”
The firm’s online presence disappeared after Reuters made enquiries. Its website, social media profiles and other digital footprint were removed. The speed and completeness of the deletion suggests an organisation that understood precisely what it had been doing and anticipated the consequences of it being documented.
Viginum chief Marc-Antoine Brillant said the investigation had not been able to identify who commissioned Blackcore. “Our investigations did not make it possible to identify the sponsor or sponsors, if indeed they exist, behind this foreign digital interference.” The firm’s activities were documented. The client behind the activities remains unknown.
The French government’s response
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the French government had asked Israel for an explanation of Blackcore’s actions and for help identifying who may have been behind the campaign. He was pointed about the reciprocal nature of the request: “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.”
Israel’s embassy in Paris said it was waiting to receive details of the French probe before conducting its own investigation. “Israel has, of course, no intention to interfere in the French political process, be it at the national or municipal level.” The statement referred specifically to France and did not address Scotland.
LBC contacted Viginum directly but the agency was unable to provide the names of the fake accounts or confirm exactly what they were attempting to do in Scotland beyond the coordination pattern the report identified.
Swinney’s response
Swinney called the Viginum report “deeply concerning.” “Online disinformation and misinformation are a real and present threat to our democracy. It is clear that orchestrated disinformation campaigns and foreign election interference are issues which need to be taken seriously.”
He directed his call for action at the UK Government, which has responsibility for national security: “Urgent steps need to be taken to counter the threat of foreign online political interference and ensure that our democratic processes are not undermined in this way. That begins with the UK Government making dealing with hostile state online interference a far higher priority, as per Sir Philip Rycroft’s recommendation.”
The broader context
Swinney’s experience sits within a pattern of foreign digital interference in democratic elections that has become increasingly documented. As we reported in our Musk disliked Britons piece, The Independent has called for foreign media ownership laws to be tightened to prevent what it called a “foreign plutocrat” using a “poison factory” to interfere in British elections. As we reported in our Tommy Robinson Moscow piece, Robinson was meeting Elon Musk’s father at a Kremlin-adjacent economic forum in the same week he was posting British protest locations.
The Blackcore case adds a different dimension: not social media amplification by named individuals with large platforms, but coordinated fake account activity designed to be invisible – 256 accounts posting 1,400 comments to create the impression of organic hostility toward a specific political figure. The aim is not to win an argument but to manufacture the appearance of one.
As we reported in our Mehdi Hasan News Agents USA piece, Hasan drew the specific comparison between the contemporary billionaire/state approach to media control and the methods used by Orbán, Erdoğan and Modi. Blackcore’s method – fake accounts, coordinated comments, deleted digital footprint – is the operational-level version of the same strategy: shape the information environment, muddy the discourse, and ensure that no single actor can be definitively held responsible.
Swinney’s call for the UK Government to treat hostile state online interference “as a far higher priority” is a reasonable one. The Viginum report confirms that Scottish democracy was being manipulated during an election. The only reason it is known is because France was investigating something else.
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