"Governments around the world have dramatically increased their efforts to manipulate information on social media over the past year. The Chinese and Russian regimes pioneered the use of surreptitious methods to distort online discussions and suppress dissent more than a decade ago, but the practice
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has since gone global. Such state-led interventions present a major threat to the notion of the internet as a liberating technology. Online content manipulation contributed to a seventh consecutive year of overall decline in internet freedom, along with a rise in disruptions to mobile internet service and increases in physical and technical attacks on human rights defenders and independent media. Nearly half of the 65 countries assessed in Freedom on the Net 2017 experienced declines during the coverage period, while just 13 made gains, most of them minor. Less than one-quarter of users reside in countries where the internet is designated Free, meaning there are no major obstacles to access, onerous restrictions on content, or serious violations of user rights in the form of unchecked surveillance or unjust repercussions for legitimate speech." (Page 1)
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"The term “fake news” became increasingly common during the past year. While this concept has many synonyms—disinformation campaigns, cyber propaganda, cognitive hacking, and information warfare—it’s just one facet of the bigger problem: the manipulation of public opinion to affect the rea
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l world. Thanks to the connectivity and digital platforms that make it possible to share and spread information, traditional challenges such as physical borders and the constraints of time and distance do not exist anymore. Unfortunately, it also makes it easier to manipulate the public’s perception of reality and thought processes, resulting in the proliferation of fake news that affects our real, non-digital environment. Each new incident shows how much impact the technological manipulation of public opinion can have on people’s daily lives. This paper studies and explores the techniques and methods used by actors to spread fake news and manipulate public opinion to serve various motives ranging from personal and financial to political. It also discusses the three legs of the fake news triangle: the services that enable them, their appearance on social media sites, and the motivations behind these activities. We demonstrate several techniques used to identify such campaigns by processing social media data and show how it is possible to trace those campaigns to the original perpetrators. Finally, we discuss how social media platforms and the general public can counter fake news." (Page 3)
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"The share of interviewed persons who said that mass media in the Republic of Moldova behaves to a great extent responsibly to its audience remains at a very low level—8% (7% in September 2016, 8% in January 2016). However, as we can see in the chart below, there are also some good signs, despite
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the majority of persons being dissatisfied with the lack of responsibility of the national media—48% (54% in September 2016, 57% in January 2016)—we can see a significant progress of the perception of media’s increased responsibility to their audience against the answer ’to a great extent’, i.e. a consistent evolution from 30% to 43% during 2 years." (Main conclusions, page 4)
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"These are the latest findings from the Ipsos Perils of Perception survey. The results highlight how wrong people across 38 countries are about some key issues and features of the population in their country. Perceptions are not reality … Things are not as bad as they seem ... Only a small minorit
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y of people in most countries think the murder rate has declined in their country since 2000, despite that being true in most countries, and the overall rate across these countries having declined by 29% [...] Very few people in most countries think deaths from terrorist attacks are lower in recent years, despite that being the case in most countries [...] Most countries greatly overestimate the proportion of prisoners in their country that are immigrants, with the Netherlands, South Africa, France and the USA particularly likely to guess too high [...] All countries overestimate teenage births, and many are hugely wrong, particularly in Latin America and South Africa. But even countries with very low levels of teenage births overestimate significantly. For example, actual rates are under 1% in Canada and France but the average guess is that one in five teenagers get pregnant each year [...] Nearly six in ten people across the countries as a whole say they are unsure or believe that there is a link between vaccines and autism in healthy children, despite the claim being widely discredited. Some countries, particularly Montenegro and India, have very high levels of belief in the claim [...] (Slides 2-12)
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"Revelations around Russian efforts to shape the 2016 US presidential election through the use of disinformation, bots, and hacking have thrust the problems of “fake news” and social media manipulation into the public spotlight. This primer is an introduction to this phenomenon, laying out the k
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ey terms, major actors, and potential legislative actions that might be taken." (Introduction)
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"Cyber troops are government, military or political party teams committed to manipulating public opinion over social media. In this working paper, we report on specific organizations created, often with public money, to help define and manage what is in the best interest of the public. We compare su
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ch organizations across 28 countries, and inventory them according to the kinds of messages, valences and communication strategies used. We catalogue their organizationalforms and evaluate their capacities in terms of budgets and staffing. This working paper summarizes the findings of the first comprehensive inventory of the major organizations behind social media manipulation. We find that cyber troops are a pervasive and global phenomenon. Many different countries employ significant numbers of people and resources to manage and manipulate public opinion online, sometimes targeting domestic audiences and sometimes targeting foreign publics. The earliest reports of organized social media manipulation emerged in 2010, and by 2017 there are details on such organizations in 28 countries. Looking across the 28 countries, every authoritarian regime has social media campaigns targeting their own populations, while only a few of them target foreign publics. In contrast, almost every democracy in this sample has organized social media campaigns that target foreign publics, while political-party-supported campaigns target domestic voters. Authoritarian regimes are not the only or even the best at organized social media manipulation. The earliest reports of government involvement in nudging public opinion involve democracies, and new innovations in political communication technologies often come from political parties and arise during high-profile elections. Over time, the primary mode for organizing cyber troops has gone from involving military units that experiment with manipulating public opinion over social media networks to strategic communication firms that take contracts from governments for social media campaigns." (Executive summary)
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"[...] this book aims to draw from the experience of Arab journalists and experts in the Arab World to help journalists enhance their news verification and social newsgathering skills. We hope the publication contributes to the ongoing debate on techniques and ethics that surrounds user-generated co
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ntents (UGC) and the use of digital platforms in the news production process." (Page 13)
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"Gerüchte und Falschmeldungen begleiten die Menschheitsgeschichte von Beginn an. Ihre politischen und militärischen Folgen waren oft verheerend. Mit dem Aufstieg von »Fake News« ist klar, dass Gerüchte und Falschmeldungen im Zeitalter der sozialen Medien geschichtsträchtiger sind als je zuvor.
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Die Autoren führen an elf Beispielen aus dem 20. und 21. Jahrhundert vor, wie Fehlinformationen und Gerüchte im Spannungsfeld zwischen Politik, Medien und Öffentlichkeit ihren verhängnisvollen Lauf nahmen. Dabei haben sie Fälle gewählt, die für Deutschland von zentraler Bedeutung waren – von der NS-Zeit (»Alpenfestung«) über den Kalten Krieg (»Amikäfer«) bis in die allerjüngste Gegenwart." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The crisis in Ukraine has accentuated the position of Russian television as the government’s strongest asset in its information warfare. The internet, however, allows other players to challenge the Kremlin’s narrative by providing counter-narratives and debunking distorted information and fake
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images. Accounting for the new media ecology—through which strategic narratives are created and interpreted, this article scrutinizes the narratives of allegedly fake news on Channel One, perceiving the fabricated stories as extreme projections of Russia’s strategic narratives, and the attempts of the Ukrainian fact-checking website Stopfake.org to counter the Russian narrative by refuting misinformation and exposing misleading images about Ukraine. Secondly, it analyses how Twitter users judged the veracity of these news stories and contributed to the perpetuation of strategic narratives." (Abstract)
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"These are the latest findings from the Ipsos Perils of Perception survey. The results highlight how wrong people across 40 countries are about some key issues and features of the population in their country. Perceptions are not reality… Nearly all countries overestimate their Muslim population, a
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nd many are extraordinarily wrong [...] Nearly every country thinks their Muslim population will grow much more than is projected [...] Every country thinks people are much less happy than they say they are [...] People are often very wrong on how acceptable their fellow citizens find homosexuality [...] Countries are also often very wrong on how acceptable people find sex before marriage [...] (Slides 2-12)
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"Only 8% of respondents stated that the media in Moldova exhibit, to a very large extent, a responsible behavior toward their audiences. The majority of respondents or 56% stated they were dissatisfied with the lack of responsibility of the national media. One in ten respondents considered him/herse
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lf very informed; another five in ten respondents are quite satisfied in terms of perceived level of information. Television is still the main source of social and political news in Moldova, with 65% of respondents citing it as the preferred source, followed by the Internet (websites) (24%), and the social networking sites and radio stations with 5% each. According to the study “Measuring the perceptions of sociopolitical news by the media audience in the Republic of Moldova”, realized in October 2015, information sources have their specific audiences. Television is preferred mostly by occupationally inactive people, aged over 45 years, with secondary and low levels of education. Young people, with higher levels of education, who are occupationally active, and live in municipalities show preference for getting information online." (Page 5)
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"In this issue we discuss some of the arguments and debates related to the highly charged and topical issue of Russia’s strategic narrative and how it is disseminated. Propaganda, in numerous forms, creates a barrier to more constructive engagement and dialogue. This issue’s contributors find th
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at Russia’s narrative is based on notions of encirclement by the West as part of a deliberate containment strategy that Russia feels duty bound to resist if it is to remain a great power. The West, for its part, acknowledges Russia’s power status and its legitimate right to seek such status, but questions the means it uses to that end. Propaganda constructs an artificial information reality and sows doubt by questioning the very existence of objective, reliable and credible facts. It can mobilize popular support against an external threat, as well as toward a positive goal. Propaganda thrives when notions of journalistic objectivity are sacrificed. The notion that there must be two sides to any given issue or event can undermine rational conclusions when one side relies on the power of implausible denials and direct lies. “You have your truth, and I have mine” is the mantra and motto of contemporary Russian information warfare." (Director's letter, page 4)
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"Als Russland die Krim annektierte und den Krieg in der Ostukraine führte, setzte es gleichzeitig eine Propagandakampagne in Gang. Zur Bekämpfung von Desinformation und Falschmeldungen gründeten Dozenten und Studenten der Mohyla-Journalistenschule in Kiew im März 2014 das Informationsportal Stop
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.Fake. Über 1000 Fälle von Manipulation und Lüge aus russischen Quellen hat Stop.Fake aufgedeckt. Etwa 130 000 Leserinnen und Leser besuchen täglich das Portal, das unterdessen nicht mehr nur Fakes entlarvt, sondern für Qualitätsjournalismus steht. Es sieht seine Perspektive darin, das Spannungsfeld von Politik, Propaganda und Publizistik zu erforschen." (Abstract)
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"This paper sets out how Russia built up its disinformation campaign, by analyzing what was said and comparing it with what was done. Using open source and social media intelligence (OSSMINT), it exposes the false claims that Russia targeted ISIS or defeated international terrorism. It reveals that,
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far from being a partner in the fight against ISIS, Russia in fact acted as a party to the civil war in Syria, fighting for Assad and against the armed groups—especially those backed by the United States—that oppose both the Syrian leader and ISIS. This study concludes that Putin’s policy was to distract, deceive, and destroy. The buildup to the Russian air strikes distracted Western and Russian attention from Putin’s Ukrainian operations and the buildup of his forces in Syria. The official campaign reports deceived the world about the mission’s true targets and goals. The operation destroyed the capabilities of the only credible non-jihadist alternative to Assad’s regime, including those elements directly backed by the West. This fits a pattern of behavior already played out in Ukraine. It can be used as a template to predict, examine, and judge his future actions." (Executive summary, page 3)
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"Six in 10 respondents (62%) access news media daily. Radio remains the leading source of news but is declining in importance as television and the Internet build their audiences. A solid majority (57%) of Africans demand press freedom, endorsing the media’s right to publish what it wants without
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government interference. Africans also support an active “watchdog” role for the press: On average, 69% believe that the media should exercise this role. Similarly, a majority (64%) believe the media is effective in exposing government mistakes and corruption. More than one-third (36%) of respondents say the media “often” or “always” publishes things it knows are not true. In some countries, this perception is shared by large majorities of citizens." (Key findings, page 2)
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"These are the latest findings from the Ipsos Perils of Perception survey. The results highlight how wrong people across 33 countries are about some key issues and features of the population in their country. Perceptions are not reality… People generally overestimate the total household wealth tha
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t the wealthiest 1% in their country own. This is particularly true for developed countries [...] People tend to think the wealthiest 1% should own a lower proportion of their country’s total household wealth than they currently do [...] The public generally underestimate the proportion of overweight or obese people in their country [...] Across the world, people tend to overestimate the level of non-religious people in their country [...] People generally overestimate the level of immigration in their country. This is particularly true in Latin America [...] In every country across the study, people overestimate the average age within their country [...] (Slides 2-16)
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"Seit Januar 2014 bietet Russlands Fernsehen einen besonderen Blick auf die Ukraine. In ihrer Aggressivität und Demagogie ist die Berichterstattung beispiellos. Sender rücken vermeintliche „Konzentrationslager für prorussische Aktivisten“ ins Bild, sprechen von einem „Genozid“ an den russ
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ischsprachigen Menschen in der Ukraine und diffamieren die Protestbewegung des Euromajdan als „Faschismus“. Keine Diffamierung ist zu abwegig, um sie nicht zu senden. Polittechnologen stehen hinter dieser Desinformationskampagne. Doch um sie durchzuführen, bedarf es willfähriger Journalisten. Redakteure, Reporter und Moderatoren geben sich dazu her – aus Zynismus und politischer Überzeugung. Dass dabei ihr Berufsethos und die professionellen Standards verloren gehen, ficht sie nicht an. Sie sehen sich in einem Informationskrieg mit dem Westen." (Abstract)
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