by Rawi Abdelal and Galit Goldstein Harvard Business School, May 28 2019 https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=56206 https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-russia-found-disinformation-haven-america-59892?page=0%2C1 Americans continue to discuss Russia’s information operations efforts in the wrong way. We have wasted time debating whether “Russia” or “Russians”—the government or government-connected individuals—meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Mueller Report definitively established that the Russians, both through […]Read More

Facebook and Twitter disable new disinformation campaign with ties to Iran Tony Romm, May 28th 2019, Washington Post Facebook and Twitter each said on Tuesday they had disabled a sprawling disinformation campaign that appeared to originate in Iran, including two accounts on Twitter that mimicked Republican congressional candidates and may have sought to push pro-Iranian […]Read More

U.S. Officials Say Foreign Election Hacking Is Inevitable The Associated Press in the New York Times, May 22nd 2019 The hacking of U.S. election systems, including by foreign adversaries, is inevitable, and the real challenge is ensuring the country is resilient enough to withstand catastrophic problems from cyber breaches, government officials said Wednesday. Google’s Duplex […]Read More

Emmi Bevensee, Alexander Reid Ross, and Sabrina Nardin, May 22nd 2019, The Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/european-elections-parliament-bots-social-media-matteo-salvini-far-right-a8924831.html Computer programmes aren’t going to drag the pencil out of your hand and scrawl an X on the ballot paper for you, but they are doing everything they can to make sure you head to the polling station with a warped idea of […]Read More

Our Take Russia’s financial tools of malign interference: ASD Co-director Laura Rosenberger testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, discussing the holistic nature of Russia’s interference in democratic countries in Europe and North America. Rosenberger highlighted how Russia uses malign finance and economic coercion to both achieve its foreign policy goals and to […]Read More

What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracyEliza Mackintosh, CNN, May 2019https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/ Helsinki, Finland (CNN) – On a recent afternoon in Helsinki, a group of students gathered to hear a lecture on a subject that is far from a staple in most community college curriculums. Standing in front of the classroom at Espoo Adult […]Read More

Fake Video Faked Pelosi Videos, Slowed To Make Her Appear Drunk, Spread Across Social Media | Drew Harwell | Washington Post Facebook on Fake Pelosi Video: Being “Fake” isn’t Enough for Removal | Nancy Scola | Politico Mona Lisa Frown: Machine Learning Brings Old Paintings And Photos To Life | Devin Coldewey | Tech Crunch  […]Read More

Brian Padden, May 21st 2019, VOA News https://www.voanews.com/a/audit-us-broadcasting-to-cuba-rife-with-bad-journalism-ineffective-propaganda/4926999.html The U.S. government service charged with delivering objective news into Cuba produces both “bad journalism” and “ineffective propaganda,” according to an independent audit released Tuesday. The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees taxpayer-funded international broadcasting, ordered the audit of the Office of Cuban Broadcasting (OCB) […]Read More

Austria shows the risks of dealing with the far right Ishaan Tharoor, May 21st 2019, Washington Post Sebastian Kurz’s partnership with the Freedom Party and its leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, dramatically ended after leaked videos showed Strache promising government contracts in return for donations from a woman posing as a wealthy scion of a Russian oligarch […]Read More

Highlights From the Video That Brought Down Austria’s Vice Chancellor By Christopher F. Schuetze, May 18th 2019, New York Times A secretly filmed video that led Heinz-Christian Strache, Austria’s far-right vice chancellor, to step down on Saturday is filled with eyebrow-raising moments, according to excerpts published by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel and the newspaper […]Read More