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

Laura Rosenberger and Thomas Morley, March 11th, 2019, Alliance for Securing Democracy, German Marshall Fund of the U.S.https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/russias-promotion-of-illiberal-populism-tools-tactics-networks/ Understanding the rise of illiberal populism has been a focus of recent debate on both sides of the Atlantic. This “illiberal international” has many faces, often seemingly at odds: Donald Trump and Jill Stein in the United […]Read More

Chris Zappone, March 12, 2019, The Strategist https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/in-fighting-online-interference-the-first-line-of-defence-is-the-mind/ ‘Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests’, British statesman Lord Palmerston famously observed. Two centuries later, the adage of foreign policy remains true but the internet extends its relevance into a nation’s domestic affairs. That’s because the internet and social media give […]Read More

Social Media are being weaponizedEconomist, March 14th, 2019https://www.economist.com/special-report/2019/03/16/preparing-for-conflicts-by-cyber-means When Latvia conducted its biggest-ever national military exercise last August, which mobilized more than 10,000 people, a group of researchers discovered that using only open-source information they could identify about 10% of the individuals involved—and use that knowledge to track the exercise in real time. They also […]Read More

Our TakeIn a new paper, ASD Director Laura Rosenberger and Research Assistant Tom Morley show how the Russian government and its proxies nurture and shape illiberal populist movements as a means of destabilizing the West. Earlier this month, Rosenberger presented the paper to a conference, “Global Populisms and their International Diffusion,” at Stanford University’s Freeman […]Read More

The Department of Defense continued support for fundamental research by selecting 12 faculty investigators for awards through the fiscal year 2018 Minerva Research Initiative.  Several of the winners:The Role of Emotions in Adversarial Information CampaignsPI: Susannah Paletz (University of Maryland) Topic Area (ONR): Adversarial Information Campaigns Monitoring the Content and Measuring the Effectiveness of Russian […]Read More

‘Sealioning’ is a common trolling tactic on social media – what is it? Marshall Shepherd, March 7, 2019, Forbes magazinehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2019/03/07/sealioning-is-a-common-trolling-tactic-on-social-media-what-is-it/#710d87597a41 There are times in life that you know something when you see it. In competitive sports, a very talented player usually stands out above the others. I can identify within seconds whether I will dislike the […]Read More

The next generation of repressive technology will make past efforts to spread propaganda and quash dissent look primitive.By  Richard Fontaine and Kara Frederick, March 15, 2019, Wall Street Journalhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/the-autocrats-new-tool-kit-11552662637 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 […]Read More