Set up to monitor and combat disinformation, the UK’s Rapid Response Unit was established last April to monitor online trends, identify issues, and figure out the best way to response, quickly. They secured continuing funding. Read the government’s announcement here and below. The team monitors digital trends to spot emerging issues, including misinformation and disinformation, […]Read More

The Alliance for Security Democracy posted their first of a three part series on Advanced Persistent Manipulators (APM). READ THE ARTICLE HERE by Clint Watts, a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Non-Resident Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy.Read More

Selected Washington Post Articles – Week Ending February 20th, 2019 Nigeria in Battle against Fake News Ahead of Elections Rodney Muhumuza and Sam Olukoya, Associated Press in the Washington Post In Nigeria fake news can be so outlandish, yet widely believed, that the president recently felt compelled to declare that he had not died and […]Read More

Selected New York Times Articles – Week Ending February 20th, 2019 Chinese and Iranian Hackers Renew Their Attacks on U.S. CompaniesNicole Perlroth, New York Times, February 18th, 2019Businesses and government agencies in the United States have been targeted in aggressive attacks by Iranian and Chinese hackers who security experts believe have been energized by President […]Read More

Dispatch (February 19th) from the Alliance for Securing Democracy Our Take ASD’s Brad Hanlon and Tom Morley examined the hidden relationship between trendy, English-language social media programs on allegedly independent media networks and Russian state-sponsored media company RT, in a story picked up by CNN. They demonstrated how the Russian government has “resorted to hiding […]Read More

Russia is backing a viral video company aimed at American millennials By Donie O’Sullivan, Drew Griffin, Curt Devine and Atika Shubert, CNN, February 16, 2019 Three online video channels designed to appeal to millennials have collected tens of millions of views on Facebook since September. But the pages pushing the videos do not disclose that they […]Read More

A Newsletter of Political Warfare, Influence, and Information Campaigns from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University Sign up for the Active Measures Newsletter here.  Top stories for this week: Private Mossad For Hire | Adam Entous & Ronan Farrow | The New Yorker Russia is Backing a Viral Video Company Aimed at American Millennials | Donie O’Sullivan, Drew […]Read More

Lithuania fears Russia will attempt to sway its elections Andrius Sytas, Reuters, February 5th 2019 VILNIUS (Reuters) – Lithuania’s intelligence agencies fear Russia will interfere in its forthcoming elections, including one in May to find a successor to the staunchly anti-Kremlin president, Dalia Grybauskaite. The Baltic state, ruled from Moscow for much of the 20th […]Read More

Researchers create ‘malicious’ writing AI Dave Lee, BBC News, February 15, 2019 The article follows – see an example at the bottom of this post. A team of researchers who have built an artificially-intelligent writer say they are withholding the technology as it might be used for “malicious” purposes. OpenAI, based in San Francisco, is a research institute backed by Silicon Valley luminaries including Elon Musk and […]Read More

Facebook Toughens Political Ad Policies in India Ahead of ElectionReuters on the New York Times, February 7th, 2019Facebook Inc is toughening up the rules governing political advertisements in India to create more transparency ahead of the country’s general elections due before May, the social media giant said late on Thursday. A Call to Putin, and […]Read More