A Newsletter of Political Warfare, Influence, and Information Campaignsfrom the Pell Center at Salve Regina UniversitySign up for the Active Measures Newsletter here. Protecting ElectionsIn Ukraine and Beyond, Democracy Requires Both Freedom and Security | April Gordon | Freedom House #DisinfoWeek – Protecting Democratic Elections | Disinfo Portal Leading Ukraine Candidate Fights ‘Fakes With Fakes’ As Facebook Tests […]Read More

Richard Fontaine and Kara Fredericks, March 15th, 2019, Center for a New American Security https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/the-autocrats-new-tool-kit Chinese authorities are now using the tools of big data to detect departures from “normal” behavior among Muslims in the country’s Xinjiang region—and then to identify each supposed deviant for further state attention. The Egyptian government plans to relocate from […]Read More

Mark Mazzetti, Adam Goldman, Ronen Bergman and Nicole Perlroth, March 21st, 2019, New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/us/politics/government-hackers-nso-darkmatter.html Sophisticated surveillance, once the domain of world powers, is increasingly available on the private market. Smaller countries are seizing on the tools — sometimes for darker purposes. The man in charge of Saudi Arabia’s ruthless campaign to stifle dissent […]Read More

Inside Russia’s online propaganda machine Charles Maynes, PRI, March 16th, 2019 https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-03-16/mole-among-trolls-inside-russias-online-propaganda-machine Long before Americans heard about Russians using social media as part of a broader interference campaign in the 2016 US presidential elections, the Kremlin was trolling its own citizens. For years, reports have surfaced of nondescript buildings in St. Petersburg and Moscow that […]Read More

Apple press release, March 19th, 2019https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/apple-teams-with-media-literacy-programs-in-the-us-and-europe/ New Initiative to Encourage Critical Thinking and Empower Students to be Better Informed Cupertino, California — Apple today announced a new initiative in support of leading nonprofit organizations in the US and Europe that offer nonpartisan, independent media literacy programs. The News Literacy Project (NLP) and Common Sense in […]Read More

Thou Shall Stop! is not a strategy Matt Armstrong, March 18th, 2019, https://mountainrunner.us/2019/03/thou-shall-stop-is-not-a-strategy/ Articles appear periodically on how the United States, or its allies, could improve its game in today’s decentralized information environment. So many that it is often hard to keep up, so if I criticize one here — like I’m about to do — […]Read More

Kevin Truitte, Georgetown University Security Studies Review March 11th, 2019 http://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2019/03/11/an-american-national-information-security-strategy/ In today’s Digital Age, information is a potent weapon. American adversaries such as Russia and China understand the power of information and seek to manipulate it to their advantage. From injecting or magnifying divisive messages in social media to penetrating government networks to steal […]Read More

The path from online propaganda to murder isn’t only the domain of the Islamic State Philip Bump, March 15th, 2019, Washington Post It didn’t take long for American authorities to recognize an unusual factor powering the rise of the Islamic State several years ago. While its ideology and violence may have seemed medieval, its recruitment […]Read More

In Indonesia, Facebook and Twitter Are ‘Buzzer’ Battlegrounds as Elections Loom Reuters in the New York Times, March 13th, 2019 Almost every day, “Janda”, a self-described Indonesian housewife with 2,000 Twitter followers, dispenses lifestyle tips, complains about city life, and praises how the government of President Joko Widodo has improved her life as a young […]Read More

#DisinfoWeek was a series of strategic dialogues focused on the global challenge of disinformation. The Atlantic Council, together with U.S. Missions and Embassies in Europe, hosted a series of events in Athens and Madrid, and a capstone forum in Brussels, from March 4-8, 2019. https://disinfoweek.org/ Transcript from the Madrid event is here. Transcript from the […]Read More