"The dynamism of Russia’s information warfare is best illustrated by the fact that over the last decade it underwent at least two strategic shifts—after the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 and in 2014 when Russia went from being risk-averse and stealthy to increasingly aggressive and risk-taking. E
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ffective countermeasures, especially those applied in Central and Eastern Europe, must reflect this reality by being highly adaptable and agile—a factor that local anti-information-warfare capacities often lack." (Executive summary)
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"Efforts to fight the spread of disinformation have had mixed results. Self-regulation by online platforms such as Twitter or Facebook puts a great deal of power in their hands, with potentially negative effects on independent news outlets that depend on social media for their outreach. State regula
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tion, meanwhile, raises concerns of censorship. There is a danger that methods intended to reduce disinformation, implemented clumsily or without sufficient regard for their effects, will actually exacerbate the anti-establishment feeling that drives disinformation in the first place. Just as the disinformation problem can, to a great extent, be traced back to wider structural faults in the political system, the solution, too, must be partly structural. There must be a shift in commercial practices to disrupt the commercial motivations driving disinformation, make online platforms more fair, transparent and open, and reduce the pressure on media outlets to compete for attention." (Executive summary)
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"Following multiple controversies in the past two years, Facebook is seeking to implement much needed processes for self-regulation and governance to help regain the trust of the public, politicians, and regulatory authorities. Facebook has thus entered a new era of cautious glasnost, inviting resea
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rchers to look 'under the hood' of various aspects of its operations, and understand how it formulates and implements its policies. This short report aims to build on these developments by identifying some specific issues concerning political information and speech on Facebook, providing an overview of the major changes that Facebook has made in recent years in response to public criticism, and critically assessing these changes, offering suggestions as to what more the company should do." (Publisher description)
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"Ce guide, conçu à partir d'une collecte des données sur l'expression de la haine en ligne sous toutes ses formes, et de leur analyse, propose des modules simples à comprendre afin d'accompagner celles et ceux qui le souhaitent dans la création d'un réseau virtuel d'échange pacifié. Les reco
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mmandations présentes ici ne se limitent pas à l'expression de la haine en ligne mais abordent toutes les formes de violences qui peuvent exister car c'est en prévenant la violence ordinaire qu'il est possible d'enrayer la violence idéologique, principal terreau de la confrontation meurtrière entre les peuples." (Préface, page 9)
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"The primary questions driving this assessment are: What are the principal drivers of extremism in Mauritania? What are the principal social fractures that have been, or could be, exploited by extremists? The table below displays the overall main drivers of VE in Mauritania, as well as the five subn
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ational assessment sites (Nouakchott, Nouadhibou, Trarza, Hodh el-Gharbi, and Assaba). Poor governance and relative deprivation are among the most pervasive push factors identified in this assessment, while ideology and social media are the main pull factors [...] The second main assessment question is: What is the role of the Mauritania media landscape within the context of VE? Section 4 addresses this question through a thorough assessment of the overall media landscape in Mauritania. We found that the Mauritanian media has the potential to be a key actor in efforts to counter VE in Mauritania. However, it needs a lot of capacity building and professionalization in order to be effective." (Pages 8-10)
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"This review seeks to inform United States Agency for International Development (USAID) evaluation of countering violent extremism (CVE) programming in Asia and globally by exploring two research questions: 1. Under current conditions, is it possible to develop a model or methodology to test the rel
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ationship between CVE programming and extremist violence? 2. What high-level outcomes other than violence reduction might be linked to CVE programming? What approaches could be used to measure such outcomes? USAID defines violent extremism (VE) as “…advocating, engaging in, preparing, or otherwise supporting ideologically motivated or justified violence to further social, economic, and political objectives.” In practice, the threat posed by religiously motivated violent extremist groups has drawn primary concern. Violent religious extremism can and often does function in combination with aggrieved ethnic identity groups pursuing communal advantages. VE’s defining elements include a desire to reorder society in line with a given ideology and the interests of the group proclaiming the ideology, pursuit of sociopolitical and economic objectives, and a willingness and capacity to use violence as a tactic to pursue these objectives. How individual and community incentives and risk factors, structural conditions, enabling factors, and external triggers interact to produce extremist beliefs, support for VE actors and actions, recruitment into a violent extremist organization (VEO), or violence itself is not fully understood. Correspondingly, CVE programs occur in diverse settings and encompass a variety of interventions and intermediate outcomes. The amount of USAID financial investment in CVE programming in a given country is often small relative to the scale and complexity of the VE problem and its drivers, limiting the change to which a program can aspire and for which it might reasonably be held accountable." (Executive summary)
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"Strategic communications for the purpose of countering violent extremism have become widespread in recent years, especially given the communications revolution which has amplified the messages of violent extremists and those that wish to counter them. Despite this, there is little-to-no research wh
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ich collects message data and analyses its design in a systematic way. In this article, we collect data from 10 social media multi-message campaigns and undertake an exploratory analysis of their design using a methodology developed from Ingram’s “Linkage-based” framework for countering militant Islamist propaganda. Our findings include: a prevalence towards highlighting the atrocities of violent extremist groups rather than strategies which challenge their competence; a priority to messages which seize the narrative agenda; differing emotional or rational pulls depending on the language in which the message is delivered; a range of different tactics employed depending on the target audience; as well as a wide range of deployments of different themes of positive and negative messages. We offer a number of possible explanations for these findings, before undertaking a cluster analysis of the data to aid the construction of Weberian “ideal type” campaigns, which offer a contribution to the field for the purposes of future research and exposition." (Abstract)
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"The report is split into three chapters: chapter one looks at over one hundred different campaigns, highlighting effective and successful campaigns, and the evaluations of them where possible. Those that are not evaluated can be used as inspiration. The categorisation of the different campaigns was
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difficult, therefore within the chapter itself the campaigns have been categorised into 12 different topics, however in the bibliography they are categorised by the country that they originated in. In order to visualise how many campaigns fell into two different categories, the campaign crossover table was created. It is important to note that some of the campaigns in the table may also have fallen into a third category as well, but this has not been displayed. Chapter two identifies training resources and articles that lay out the current state of thinking on the following six different topics: counter/alternative narratives, disinformation resources, good/best practices, current thinking, educational resources and toolkits, and finally, resources discussing online radicalisation. Chapter three provides summaries and key takeaways from the three round table discussions we conducted in Brussels, London and The Hague [...] Finally, as a result of the knowledge gathered in this report, the conclusion and recommendations lay out the necessary components for building a successful, effective, and impactful campaign, in the hopes that it will be informative and useful for future campaigners and trainers." (Introduction)
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"At the heart of the challenges to democracy posed by digital media are three core problems: 1. Platform monopolies: two or three corporations control not only our means of communication, but also the content which is distributed, both of which are core aspects of our democracy. Whilst the market po
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wer and global mobility of these companies make it possible for them to avoid national regulatory measures, either by moving operations elsewhere or simply ignoring them; 2. Algorithmic opacity: algorithmic engines are using huge quantities of personal data to make ever more precise predictions about what we want to see and hear, and having ever increasing influence over what we think and do, with little transparency about how they work or accountability for their impact; and 3. Attention economy: the dominant business model of digital media prioritises the amplification of whatever content is best at grabbing our attention, while avoiding responsibility for the impact that content has on our collective wellbeing and our democracy. The negative impact is brutally clear from both the literature and the world around us." (Introduction, page 14)
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"This document serves as a reading list and primer on digital disinformation. While the proliferation of literature on the subject is a positive reaction to an otherwise vague yet troubling threat, it can be difficult to grasp how much has been accomplished and what questions remain unanswered. This
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document will therefore give readers a foundational understanding of the immense amount of work that has been done in the last few years on digital disinformation and where future research may be heading. The sources are divided into nine categories of interest and include articles and reports from academic journals, research institutes, non-profit organizations, and news media, reflecting the multidisciplinary and sociotechnical nature of the subject. Although many of the sources can fit into more than one category, having a classification framework is useful for conceptualizing the kinds of research being done and provides direction for those new to the literature. And finally, like a well-run state-sponsored troll farm, the scholarship of digital disinformation continues to produce new content every day. We would be remiss if we did not stress that this document is only a snapshot of a particular moment in this expanding field. As such, we’ve included a list of additional resources that are regularly updated with research and news on disinformation and media manipulation more broadly." (Introduction)
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"Policy discourse about disinformation focuses heavily on the technological dimensions of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Unfortunately, this myopic focus on technology has led to insufficient attention being paid to the underlying human factors driving the success of state-sponsored disin
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formation campaigns. Academic research on disinformation strongly suggests that belief in false or misleading information is driven more by individual emotional and cognitive responses — amplified by macro social, political and cultural trends — than specific information technologies. Thus, attention given to countering the distribution and promulgation of disinformation through specific technological platforms, at the expense of understanding the human factors at play, hampers the ability of public diplomacy efforts countering it. This article addresses this lacuna by reviewing the underlying psychology of three common types of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and identifying lessons for designing effective public diplomacy counter-strategies in the future." (Abstract)
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"News organizations in many Western democracies face decreasing trust amid fake news accusations. In this situation, news organizations risk losing their license to operate and need to defend their legitimacy. This study analyzes how The New York Times (NYT) discredits fake news accusations, which a
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re prominently expressed by US President Trump. A critical discourse analysis of the NYT’s news articles about fake news accusations in the first 70 days following President Trump’s inauguration reveals four delegitimizing strategies. First, the accusations are taken as a “badge of honor” for professional journalism but are morally evaluated to damage journalism’s role as the fourth estate in democracy. Second, using sarcasm, the articles criticize President Trump’s capacity to govern and thus question his legitimacy. Third, reporting implies that fake news accusations aim at suppressing critical thinking as in authoritarian regimes. Fourth, accusations are described as irrational responses to professional reporting or proven to be factually wrong, when possible. Overall, reporting in the NYT portrays President Trump as an irresponsible leader risking the well-being of the country’s citizens, its journalism, and its democracy, as well as journalism in foreign countries." (Abstract)
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"In the months before Myanmar's national elections in November 2015, Khin Oo says she began to engage directly with Facebook users to dispel rumours and misinformation that, in her view, propagated hate and inflamed intercommunal tensions. She posted "right speech" and "right information" by comment
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ing on other users' comments and posts to correct misunderstandings and challenge errors and misinformation. Khin Oo is one of several Facebook commenters or social media activists I spoke with in 2015 and 2016 who identified themselves as working to counter hate speech. Some are Muslim, but some are not; in fact some are monks worried about protecting their religion. Many are youths and students, but some are older, in their 30s and 40s. They all, however, collectively feel the weight of the future of their country. They desperately want to take action against online hate speech and the spread of misinformation. These individuals, almost all of whom asked to remain unnamed, describe their work as "sharing" new points of view and "talking about different ideas". A review of some of the posts and comments they have distributed and collected, however, shows they are much more intentional and strategic about their actions." (Page 379)
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"Thorben Prenzel stellt in seinem Buch die Triple-A-Methode vor, die eine einfache Handlungsanleitung für den Alltag bietet. Diese verständliche Schritt-für-Schritt Anleitung hilft Ihnen, gekonnt die richtigen Argumente zur richtigen Zeit anzubringen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
"A number of recent legislative initiatives on ‘hate speech’, including most prominently the 2017 German NetzDG law on social media, make reference to some forms of self-regulation. Voluntary mechanisms between digital companies and various public bodies addressing ‘hate speech’ and other is
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sues, such as the EU Code of Conduct on hate speech, also make reference to self-regulatory models. However, our analysis of these mechanisms demonstrates that they fail to comply with the requirements of international human rights law. They rely on vague and overbroad terms to identify unlawful content, they delegate censorship responsibilities to social media companies with no real consideration of the lawfulness of content, and they fail to provide due process guarantees. ARTICLE 19 therefore suggests exploring a new model of effective self-regulation for social media. This model could take the form of a dedicated “social media council” – inspired by the effective self-regulation models created to support and promote journalistic ethics and high standards in print media. We believe that effective selfregulation could offer an appropriate framework through which to address the current problems with content moderation by social media companies, including ‘hate speech’ on their platforms, providing it also meets certain conditions of independence, openness to civil society participation, accountability and effectiveness." (Executive summary)
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