Disinformation

The contemporary debate in democracies routinely describes online information threats such as misinformation, disinformation and deception as security-issues in need of urgent attention. Despite this pervasive discourse, policymakers often appear incapable of articulating what security means in this context. Turning to EU policy and previous research on cybersecurity, this dissertation empirically unpacks, critically interrogates and theoretically rethinks the meaning of security in relation to online information threats. In so doing, the articles elucidate a new ‘referent object’ implicitly guiding securitization. Contemporary interventions can be seen as grounded in assumptions about the protection of human judgement. Using Hannah Arendt’s writings on ‘political judgement’ as a point of reference for critically evaluating contemporary policy, the dissertation points to several problems with existing approaches to security in a democratic context where free debate constitutes a legitimizing element of political authority. The rethinking of security departs from this problematic and shows that treating human judgement as a ‘referent object’ – if firmly grounded in the interplay between independent human communicating subjects – can better address some problematic questions about legitimate authority and political community currently haunting security interventions in cyberspace.

my theme is the question is there a US death squad?  I write about CIA assassination of honestly elected foreign leaders and of course the North American mafia make war against other families over territory.  I limit my list to only those cases with hard evidence or someone was scheduled to testify in court , at a grand jury, or at a Congressional investigative committee.

This paper proposes to discuss the problem of Fake News, its root problem disinformation and the path to resist it, critical information literacy. It initially distinguishes the concepts of fake news and disinformation through the views of authors as Allcott & Gentzkow (2017), Chomsky (2014), Serrano (2010) and Volkoff (1999). Our perspective considers that none of these phenomena are new or recent, and we do not consider the “combat” of fake news to be a simple task, considering that it involves issues related to the limits of freedom of speech and media censorship. Fake News are understood as intentionally and verifiably false articles created to manipulate people and disinformation as a bigger ensemble of techniques to manipulate public opinion for political gain with perverted (but not only false) information. One way to deal with these matters goes through a more complex process: the development of critical information literacy in the society as a whole. This concept is studied...

This work studies the use of disinformation to construct an image of otherness through the internet. We applied a content analysis methodology to the 161 racist, xenophobic or Islamophobic fake news pieces that were discredited in 2020 by the four Spanish information verification media entities accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network: Maldita.es, Newtral, Efe Verifica and Verificat. The results show that the most commonly used formats were image and video, that disinformation was most often based on taking information out of context and deception, and that the source could not be identified. The most shared characteristics associated otherness with receiving aid, violence and illegal immigration. The most commonly used images were photographs, which mostly showed people in a general manner (not individually). Despite this, disinformation was * This research has been carried out in the framework of the project entitled “Strategies, agendas and discourse in electoral cyb...

Naar aanleiding van Thierry Baudet’s overwinningsspeech
na afloop van de verkiezingen in maart 2019, probeert deze
bijdrage grip te krijgen op de veelgehoorde kritiek op de
populistische stijl van politiek bedrijven, aan de hand van
Plato’s bespiegelingen over de rol van mythes in de publieke
sfeer. De filosoof was kritisch over het populaire gebruik
van verhalen door bijvoorbeeld de dichters van zijn
tijd, maar maakte zelf veel gebruik van de verhaalvorm in
zijn zoektocht naar de waarheid c.q. het goede. Het roept
de vraag op wanneer de politieke mythe zuiver en wanneer
onzuiver wordt gebruikt, een vraag waar Plato wel
een abstract maar geen concreet antwoord op geeft. Zijn
genuanceerde blik op de mythe maakt wel duidelijk dat
het populisme zich niet onderscheidt door een gebrek aan
respect voor de feiten, want dat geldt voor de ervaring van
het politieke in het algemeen. Ook kan de klassieke denker
ons leren dat we alleen een positie kunnen bepalen in de
mêlee van beelden en verhalen waar wij tegenwoordig mee
te maken hebben, door de filosofische confrontatie met de
verbeeldingswereld aan te gaan.

Il Movimento 5 Stelle rappresenta oggi il fenomeno politico più interessante nello scenario italiano. Tra crisi della rappresentanza e fine dei partiti tradizionali, disintermediazione e pubblici iper-connessi, la creatura di Grillo e Casaleggio si delinea come un vero e proprio dispositivo di potere. Dopo il ventennio videocratico berlusconiano, si tratta della prima forza politica italiana che abbia mai fatto uso massiccio dei nuovi media digitali. In questo libro viene presentata un’analisi estesa dei presupposti teorici e organizzativi del Movimento, con particolare riferimento alla dimensione utopica e al progetto di una democrazia diretta sul web. Studiare l’impianto mediatico che sorregge la politica del movimento permette di riconoscere continuità e cambiamenti rispetto agli strumenti di propaganda e persuasione utilizzati negli ultimi decenni, e di ricostruire l’evoluzione della comunicazione politica nell’era della post-verità. Grillodrome è un dispositivo che trasforma il corpo politico e sociale attraverso la nuova ideologia della comunicazione on-line, imprimendo una tensione viva nello spirito del tempo, che incarna un insieme di problemi, desideri e valori, vizi e virtù della società in rete.

Recently interview by the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS) on the topic of "Strategic Communication: Influencing Public Perception." In the interview, Walker discusses the role of strategic communication in countering propaganda and disinformation and also highlights the tenets of an effective counter-narrative.

Despite impressive strides toward proper health education about the pandemic, in resource-limited contexts, health information dissemination occurs within a structural context that restricts the enactment of agency and further marginalizes the most vulnerable. Through observations of and reflections about Ghana's work in health communication about the COVID-19 pandemic, this essay examines the key processes and outcomes of COVID-19 information dissemination in Ghana, highlighting the structural factors that contribute to health inequities during the pandemic. We argue that although Ghana has been commended continentally and globally for the country's efforts in containing the virus and vaccinating its populace, there is evidence of health information access disparities across the country, especially in rural communities. In doing so, we increase knowledge about health information needs and gaps, and conclude by making recommendations for public health practitioners in Ghana and similar contexts.

Anthropocene removed most of the essential components of our relevant environment beyond the range of our anatomical receptors, and doing so, Anthropocene rendered the original human paradigm of Truth dysfunctional: In today’s globalized and intensely interconnected world there are numerous objects and processes that are important enough to be constituted as components of an individual relevant environment, notwithstanding the reality that they exist or take place beyond her brain’s anthropologic operational range — in terms of time, geographic distance, selection, semantics or conceptualization.
Those changes have created intermediate zones between our individual anatomical receptors and the things that are important to us. In this way, the anthropologic intermediate zones, by distorting the meaning of the original reality, provide for third-party agents opportunities to aggressively intervene and to massively influence to their own benefit the behavior of huge numbers of human individuals.

The purpose of this chapter is to review Russian Information Operations as exercised in recent years and analyze their significance as part of a broader grand strategy scheme. In order to do that, we will first analyze the way information war/operations are conceptualized by the Russian political and military elite. There is a distinction between the Russian approach to information warfare, which is employed during both peacetime and wartime, and the Western approach, which is limited to tactical information operations carried out during a military campaign. The Russian approach is broader, and the recent evidence from Ukraine demonstrates that the Russian state and Russian nonstate actors have exploited the Internet, social media and cyber tools in order to conduct a
type of warfare that largely avoids using traditional military force. Instead, it is focused on influencing the populations and decision-making processes of targeted countries. Though the direct results of such operations are hard to measure, there is speculation that they have had some effect in both operational terms (e.g., the case of the Ukraine-Crimea crisis) and strategic terms (e.g., eroding liberal democracy in Europe and weakening NATO’s cohesion). Having conceptualized a theoretical framework for how Russia perceives and utilizes information operations, we will make some suggestions on how to counter this new challenge.

In recent years, NATO and the EU have taken greater responsibility for countering hybrid threats. This group of threats covers a wide range of hostile methods used by states and non-state actors. It includes both military and non-military activities, for instance special forces operations and irregular warfare, and also disinformation and cyberattacks. NATO and the EU are involved in facilitating international cooperation on countering hybrid threats and protecting their own structures and institutions against them. In this way, both organisations reinforce the efforts at the national level, since fighting hybrid threats is primarily a task of the member states. Nevertheless, NATO’s and the EU’s actions in this respect are constrained by insufficient financing, and by the member states’ unwillingness to enhance the sharing of intelligence and sensitive information related to, for example, critical infrastructure protection or cybersecurity. The recent spike in anti-Western COVID-19 disinformation campaigns clearly shows that both NATO and the EU could do more to counter hybrid threats.

Hay en la Unión Europea, según los datos oficiales (nada aireados), muchos miles de muertos y muchos centenares de miles de enfermos por efectos negativos de las vacunas "de nueva tecnología" contra el Covid-19. No esperen oír esto en la tele ni leerlo en el periódico.

Political violence is unfolding in our pockets-on our phones and devices and across the social media we consume-and it is targeting women in politics. This paper analyzes trends emerging from IFES' global qualitative and quantitative social media research in 7 countries (Zimbabwe, Haiti, Afghanistan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka and Ukraine). Gender-based online violence is a global phenomenon; in each country IFES has researched, we find salient examples of online aggression linked to women's political participation and expression of free speech. Our research takes a nuanced look at the contours of violence against women in politics online (VAWP-Online). These interim findings of IFES' ongoing research reveal an intensifying spiral of online incivility, information disorders, hate speech and overt violence directed at women in public leadership roles.

The paper is an effort to conceptualize the combined effects of the evolution of populism and the present pandemic. Concepts from Social Psychology and Neuropsychology are used to create an explanatory framework for the development of internet based ideologies, which facilitate the spontaneous formation of self-organizing movements, which in turn lead to acts of stochastic terrorism.

El nuevo escenario que nos deja el primer año de pandemia plantea una
reflexión más comprometida sobre su impacto en las políticas de comunicación y en la alfabetización del conocimiento científico, pero también sobre las diferentes propuestas estratégicas necesarias para la divulgación y respuesta contra la desinformación. Durante los primeros meses de la crisis sanitaria por COVID-19 hemos visto cómo, junto a la desinformación relacionada con el conocimiento del virus y sus consecuencias, emergían los discursos pseudocientíficos.

The uncontrolled dissemination of User-Generated Content (UGC) through social media and video platforms raises increasing concerns about the intentional or unintentional spread of misleading information. As a result, people who are turning to the Internet for their daily news, need tools that help them distinguish between reliable and unreliable content. Here we present the Context Aggregation and Analysis tool, with the aim to facilitate the investigation of the veracity of User-Generated videos (UGVs). The tool collects and calculates a set of verification cues based on the video context, that is the information surrounding the video rather than the video itself, and then creates a verification report. The cues include information about the video and user that posted it, as well as the activity of other users surrounding it (what we call “wisdom of the crowd”), cross-checking with previous cases of fakes (“wisdom of the past”), and employing machine learning systems trained on pas...

Concepts such as “hybrid threat” or “grey zone” are used to define the wide range of “political warfare” actions that countries such as Russia, China, Iran or North Korea employ for projecting their influence, plausibly denying their responsibility and hampering any response by not crossing the threshold of an armed conflict. Those characteristics allow many actors to project their power asymmetrically by hindering the attribution of their actions, preventing the allocation of legal responsibilities, making retaliation more difficult and compromising the credibility of deterrence. Although many of these actions are carried out in the physical world, the virtual domain seems the natural realm for these activities. This is due to the ambiguity, anonymity, asymmetry, economy and ubiquity of cyberspace. This contribution focuses on the “grey zone” activities in the cyber and information domains conducted by two relevant powers – China and Russia – and discuss the problems and prospects related to those

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, stereotypes that associate Muslims with terrorism go far beyond depictions in newspapers and television. Recent research raises the alarm about rampant Islamophobia in digital spaces, particularly far-right groups’ use of disinformation and other manipulation tactics to vilify Muslims and their faith.

Break the Fake Toons is an outcome of a project #CheckTheFake on #COVID19, which has coincided with the month of April, 2020 that started with fooling others as a celebration of April fool’s day worldwide; the issue of fake news has been realized on the very forefront of this month that has toed the same line of converting the last 30 days in its entirety as a fake month. It seemed that with increasing number of fake news surrounding the pandemic, each passing day is celebrated as April Fool’s day; and from there it starts the journey of this small but an honest, illustrated and attractive way of awareness campaign by the Dr. Anamika Ray Memorial Trust, a non-profit educational and research organisation.

Fake news is hardly new in journalism, and a sense of historical perspective is clarifying. A thumbnail history in Columbia Journalism Review has pointed to some superficial similarities in hoaxing over the ages “in editorial motive or public gullibility, not to mention the blurred lines between deliberate and accidental flimflam.” It cautions that “the great fake news panic of 2016” is an overreaction to “macro-level trends” that do not indicate real, significant changes in the media. But before agreeing to shrug off the significance of this recent spate of hoaxing, it is worth reviewing the history more carefully.

Medya ile yanıltmanın tarihi yeni değildir. Neden-sonuç ilişkilerini irdelemek, bilgi ve enformasyonu toplayarak sorgulamak, onların doğru ya da yanlış, hakiki veya yolundan saptırılmış, ahlaki olarak doğru ya da yozlaşmış olup olmadığını belirlemek sıradan vatandaş için başlı başına bir sorun haline gelmiştir. Daha da kötüsü, bunun farkında olan ve sorgulayan bireylerin, toplumun egemen “doğru” larına uymadığı kanaatiyle radikalleştiği yargısıdır. İletişimsel ortam, anlatılan/kurgulanan hikayeler ile kanaatlerini oluşturan ancak içerikteki yönlendirme/yanlış bilgilendirmeyi sorgulamayan kişilerin çoğunlukta olması durumunda sorunlu bir karaktere bürünmektedir. Elbette ki gerçeklik, “hakikat” ile özdeş değildir. Hakikate ulaşmadaki sorunlardan birini, egemen anlatılara kolayca “uyum sağlamak” olarak varsaymak mümkündür. Anlatının içeriğini sorgulamamak ve körü körüne inanmak, - medya profesyonellerinin yönetimsel çıkarlar uğruna, ekonomik ve politik bağlamda halkın çıkarını ört bas ettiği hikayelerde, halkı oluşturan herkes için sahte biliş(ler)e kapılma tehlikesini içermektedir. Halkın yararına inşa edilen ve çok ciddi yanılsamalar içeren anlatıların yol açtığı iletişimsel illüzyonlar bu çalışmanın vurguladığı konulardan biridir. İlişkili diğer bir sorun, bu kişilerin, kendi referans çerçevelerine denk düşen gerçeklikler üzerinden dünyayı olumlaması ve gerçekliklerinin dışında kalanları tamamen reddetmesi ile manevi gettoların içine sıkışıp kalması olarak varsayılabilir. Çalışmanın temel varsayımı, aslında incelenmeye değer soruları da beraberinde getirmektedir: Toplum, hep birlikte ve aynı anda “hakikat ötesi durum” da mı yaşamaktadır? Hakikati yaratmada medyanın rolü nedir? Hakikat ötesi çağda illüzyonlar nasıl üretilir? Medya aktörleri hangi ekonomi-politik bağlarla eyleme geçer?

El auge de la desinformación propicia el debate sobre su impacto en la sociedad y las posibilidades y herramientas para luchar contra ella. Los profesionales de la comunicación se encuentran ante nuevos contextos que afectan a la credibilidad de su trabajo. Este estudio trata de conocer cómo perciben el fenómeno los expertos, identificando posibles cambios en sus rutinas de trabajo. Se realizaron 24 entrevistas estructuradas a consultores políticos, verificadores de información, periodistas y responsables de redes sociales de medios digitales. Se evidencia que los cambios en los protocolos de trabajo resultan aún menores, aunque todos los actores sociales se hayan visto directamente afectados por el impacto de la desinformación. Tampoco hay consenso en torno a la creación de un posible marco legislativo que la aborde. Los resultados pueden ayudar a enfocar nuevas investigaciones en este campo, así como ofrecer una aproximación al estado actual de los profesionales de la comunicación ante el fenómeno.

The rise of disinformation increases debate about its impact on society and the possibilities and tools to fight it. Communication professionals are faced with new contexts that affect the credibility of their work. This study tries to know how experts perceive the phenomenon by identifying possible changes in their work routines. Twenty-four structured interviews were conducted with political consultants, information verifiers, journalists and digital media social network managers. It was evidenced that the changes in working protocols are still small, although all social actors have been directly affected by the impact of disinformation. There is no consensus neither on the creation of a possible legislative framework to address it. The results can help to focus new research on this field as well as offer an approximation to the current state of communication professionals in face of the phenomenon.

The social and democratic implications of deepfakes (also deep fakes) technology are widely debated in the United States and elsewhere. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how online users engage with this newer form of disinformation. This study is one of the first to explore the inadvertent deepfakes sharing behavior of the citizenry. Drawing on survey data collected in the United States and Singapore, this study investigates the role of political interest, cognitive ability, and social network size in inadvertent deepfakes sharing. The findings suggest that those with higher political interests are more likely to share deepfakes inadvertently. Those with lower cognitive ability are also more likely to share deepfakes inadvertently. The moderation findings suggest that the relationship between political interest and deepfakes sharing is significantly moderated by network size. As such, the likelihood of politically interested citizens sharing deepfakes intensifies in more extensive social networks. These results are consistent across both contexts.

This report summarizes powerful research on the Philippines’ human rights sector in “survival mode” under Rodrigo Duterte’s violent regime. Historically known as the most active civil society in Asia, the Philippines human rights movement has faced an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy while burdened with the responsibility to advocate for the many victims of abuses. Drawing on interviews with human rights workers and their allies in journalism and the academe, this study captures diverse interpretations as to how human rights has become “broken,” “tarnished,” and “a bad word” within a short span of four years. It also describes sectoral, organizational, and generational conflicts in how seasoned veterans and younger activists have been strategizing differently in their efforts to win back public trust.

This study identifies the long- and short-term trade-offs behind organizational strategies of frontlining and speaking out on the human rights abuses of the Duterte regime versus more under-the-radar backchanneling work focused on service delivery and grassroots organization. Taking a strategic communication perspective and worker-centered approach, our study specifically places the voices of the communication and technology workers in the human rights sector at the heart of our analysis. What our research uncovers is that despite their many creative experiments to connect with diverse constituencies, human rights organizations have still failed to invest material resources in sustainable  communication infrastructures and empower their communication personnel. Almost half of the organizations we interviewed still had no staff member dedicated to communication or branding; communication workers continued to play peripheral roles in their organizations.

Memes that are destructive to the cohesion of a complex social system should be defined as pathogenic memes. As a result, it is my belief that a cognitive prophylaxis model is necessary, and feasible, when it comes to preventing a pathogenic meme outbreak.

The debate on how to regulate social media platforms is today of paramount importance. Should we allow them to regulate speech by themselves (without any state intervention), in hopes of being a public space to denounce authoritarian regimes? Or should we make them liable for the disinformation spread on their websites and its negative consequences?

This essay will attempt to show that the lens of legal pluralism can describe this issue better than a “centralist” paradigm, taking into account that the terms of service of these platforms are private normative systems that in some instances can complement, challenge or even replace state law. Likewise, it will try to shed a light on the debate of how these platforms should be regulated (state regulation vs. self- or co-regulation), through its reinterpretation as a discussion of whether this pluralist state of affairs is desirable to attain the goal of combating online disinformation in our society.

The pandemic of COVID-19 has created a pandemic of disinformation known as an infodemic. In Japan, disinformation has been circulating on social media and SNS, and it often affects our health. However, there are various types of online disinformation, and depending on the nature of the disinformation, there may be different ways to respond to it. It is safe to say that the pandemic and the U.S. presidential election have revealed the threat of conspiracy theories. The year 2020 could be said to be the year of conspiracy theories, and I have seen people around me who have been pushed around by them. The anxiety brought about by the pandemic seems to have accelerated conspiracy theories. Today, the question is not just about disinformation, but about dealing with the threat of conspiracy theories.

This paper outlines the online information evaluation education in Japan and considers the checklist-based online information evaluation as a stage of "awareness of information evaluation". Specifically, the "Imagination Switch" practice by Kenichi Shimomura, the practice using NHK's "Media Times" TV program, and the practice in school libraries will be discussed. However, there is a challenge in these online information evaluation practices, because it is difficult to acquire the skills for actual evaluation through awareness alone. The next step after "awareness of information evaluation" is "exploration of information evaluation". One way to do this is through the°Civic Online Reasoning" curriculum developed by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) and a method of exploring information called "lateral reading." I conducted the "lateral reading" practice in addition to the checklist method at Hosei Daini Junior High School in January 2020.

This was the first step towards the practice of online information assessment using computers in Japan. However, is this kind of "exploration of information evaluation" really effective as a countermeasure to the problem of disinformation, including conspiracy theories? It seems to me that there is more to the problem than just online information evaluation. What are the basic principles of education to counter disinformation and conspiracy theories in the pandemic? This paper ultimately seeks to answer that question, and considers media and information literacy as pluralistic literacy based on the value of human trust and dignity as one way of thinking about it.

This article draws attention to how the ethics of democratic representation operates as a discreet factor in a crisis of representation afflicting Western democracies by identifying the ways a disregard for truthfulness can harm democratic representation. We argue that such a disregard undermines democratic representation by (a) reducing freedom and equality, (b) weakening accountability, (c) undermining citizens' trust in democratic institutions, and (d) jeopardising the ability to compromise.

We illustrate the processes that produce these effects by analysing examples of untruthful communication about Brexit by senior British politicians in the post-referendum debates. We show how all four of these effects were triggered by the ways they misled the public by (1) making claims about overwhelming popular support for their policy, (2) misrepresenting the power relations between the EU and the national government, and (3) seriously downplaying the complexity of negotiations involved in leaving the EU and reaching trade deals thereafter.

Con la irrupción de internet las campañas de desinformación y propaganda, intrínsecas a los conflictos armados, han pasado a estar vehiculadas a través de nuevos canales, obligando a los gobiernos a adaptar nuevas formas y lenguajes. Como medios, las redes sociales permiten nuevas formas de comunicación de conflictos con conexiones en directo en las que sus protagonistas narran las intervenciones, como en la batalla de Mosul. Asimismo, también son útiles herramientas para influenciar y manipular a la opinión pública. En este nuevo contexto, los ciberejercitos, las fábricas de trolls, los bots forman parte de la propaganda computacional que busca manipular e influenciar a la opinión pública aprovechando la democratización de los medios.

Lucrarea de față încearcă să ofere un ghid de informare corectă în mediul online. Într-o vreme în care omenirea este bulversată de volumul și impactul dezinformărilor instrumentate cu ajutorul unor tehnologii aflate la îndemâna oricui, este imperios ca utilizatorii internetului să-și dezvolte capacitatea individuală de evaluare a informațiilor pe care le accesează în acest mediu și să învețe cum să folosească mijloacele de comunicare digitală într-un mod benefic atât pentru ei înșiși cât și pentru cei cu care interacționează online. Educația media și informațională trebuie să devină un obiectiv strategic al politicilor educaționale dacă ne dorim să trăim într-o societate funcțională, populată cu semeni capabili să facă distincția între adevăr și fals, între fapte și opinii, între realitate și „fapte alternative”. Cartea abordează problematica evaluării informațiilor dintr-o perspectivă atât teoretică, cât și practică, propunând instrumente și metode de evaluare care pot fi folosite de orice utilizator al mediului online.

False information and by extension misinformation, disinformation and fake news are an ever-growing concern to modern democratic societies, which value the freedom of information alongside the right of the individual to express his or her opinions freely. This paper focuses
on misinformation, with the aim to provide a collation of current research on the topic and a discussion of future research directions. It argues that a major current issue is the lack of reliable verified datasets and, by extension, the algorithmic learning models based on them. Through the
understanding of different variations of false information, it has been possible to see the impact this absence is currently having on society. At the core is a focus on misinformation. A deeper investigation shows that artificial intelligence-based techniques are widely used to counter the
effects and confusion caused by misinformation. Potential consequences of misinformation are being highlighted to allow insight into potential issues that may arise from this form of false information to highlight the severity of the issue and to demonstrate the growing need for reliable
detection and prevention systems. Journal of Information Warfare (2022) 21.2: 105-120 105
ISSN 1445-3312 Print/ISSN 1445-3347 Online

In preparation for the military operation against Ukraine, Russia intensified its disinformation efforts against that country and Western states. By attributing responsibility for the escalation of the situation in the Donbas to the Ukrainian armed forces and accusing them of genocide, Russia has sought to fabricate a justification for its decision to recognise the statehood of the self-proclaimed republics and the subsequent launch of its “special military operation”. The Russian invasion has been accompanied by further disinformation activities aimed at the Ukrainian public, NATO, the EU, and their member states. The aim is to create an image of Ukraine as a failed state that is unable to defend its citizens and lacks the support of the West. An increase in the intensity of Russian disinformation activities against Poland, NATO, and the EU should be expected.

Younger people are exposed to misinformation that circulates rapidly on their mobile devices through instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp. Under the guise of news, an attractive format and outrage discourse, fake news appeal to their emotions by inviting them to distribute them impulsively. All of this is supported by a device—the mobile phone—in which the action of sharing is a matter of trust. Therefore, they are less likely to check a piece of content before resending it if it comes from a contact in their personal address book. To understand young people’s habits when receiving informative content through WhatsApp and the reasons why they choose to share it or not, this study designed a “Questionnaire on Student Habits for Sharing Fake News on the Mobile” (CHECK-M), to measure young teenagers’ exposure to “fake news” and their behavior. Empirical data, from a sample of 480 adolescents, confirmed that (1) they are more likely to share content if it connects with their interests, regardless of its truthfulness, that (2) trust affects the credibility of information, and that (3) the appearance of newsworthy information ensures that, regardless of the nature of the content, this information is more likely to be shared among young people.

The recent spread of online disinformation has been profound and has played a central role in the growth of populist sentiments around the world. Facilitating its progression has been politically and economically motivated culprits who have ostensibly taken advantage of the digital freedoms available to them. At the heart of these freedoms lie social media organisations that only a few years earlier techno-optimists were identifying as catalysts of an enhanced digital democracy. In order to curtail the erosion of information, policy reform will no doubt be essential. The UK's Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Disinformation and ‘fake news’ Report and Cairncross Review, and the European Commission's Report on Disinformation are three recent examples seeking to investigate how precisely such reform policy might be implemented. Just as important is how social media organisations take on more responsibility and apply self-regulating mechanisms that stifle disinform...

Since the rising to notoriety of the present ‘genre’ of malicious content peddled as ‘fake news’ (mostly over social media) in 2016 during the United States’ presidential election, barely three years until Nigeria’s 2019 general elections, fake news has made dangerously damaging impacts on the Nigerian society socially, politically and economically. Notably, the escalating herder-farmer communal clashes in the northern parts of the country, ethno-religious crises in Taraba, Plateau and Benue states and the furiously burning fire of the thug-of-war between the ruling party (All Progressives Congress, APC) and the opposition, particularly the main opposition party (People’s Democratic Party, PDP) have all been attributed to fake news, untruth and political propaganda. This paper aims to provide further understanding about the evolving issues regarding fake news and its demonic impact on the Nigerian polity. To make that contribution toward building the literature, extant literature an...

Das Funktionieren moderner Demokratien hängt von der Informiertheit der Öffentlichkeit ab. Durch den Erfolg von Fake News und post-faktischer Politik ist die Informiertheit der Öffentlichkeit jedoch in Gefahr, zumal parallele Öffentlichkeiten zunehmend sogenannte alternative analoge und digitale Medienangebote nutzen. In diesem Beitrag untersuchen wir, wie sich Fake News verbreiten und Einfluss auf Öffentlichkeit und Politik gewinnen. Dazu analysieren wir das Zusammenspiel einer Reihe kognitiver Verzerrungen mit der Funktionsweise sozialer Medien sowie die strukturellen Anreize, die der digitalisierte Medienkapitalismus setzt. Beides spielt der Verbreitung von Fake News in die Hände, was einige politische Akteure auszunutzen wissen. Fake News werden in diesem Fall als Propaganda eingesetzt. Wir unterscheiden vier Funktionen von Fake-News-Propaganda: (1) die Täuschung der Öffentlichkeit, (2) die Stärkung von Gruppenidentitäten, (3) die Demonstration von Macht und (4) die Destabilisierung der politischen oder öffentlichen Ordnung.

Russian development of enhanced informational capabilities has attracted wide academic attention following the invasion of Crimea in 2014. The approaches traditionally employed in relative academic debates are however considered unfit for the assessment of Russian disinformation campaigns in the European Union. This study hence aims to propose a new interpretative framework for the evaluation of online Russian disinformation by problematizing the current definitions of the threat and exploring its capacity as a challenge for security and communication alike.
To the scope, it firstly interrogates the role of disinformation in the projection of Russia’s soft power in the EU. Secondly, it investigates the exemplary value of known cases of pro-Kremlin disinformation campaigns in various European states to identify their main traits and objectives. Thirdly, it explores the extent to which Russian informational interferences impact on the elaboration of anti-disinformation measures throughout the EU.
The methodology employed in the research consisted in the review of existing literature through a constructivist approach and the referencing of primary sources, including false news cases, retrieved on recognized disinformation outlets or available databases, qualitative research interviews and legislative texts of different EU bodies.
The study concluded that the Kremlin employs disinformation as a legitimate means for the construction of strategic narratives and the achievement of foreign policy interests that are not necessarily predetermined. The variety of the presented case studies highlighted the distinctive traits of Russian disinformation campaigns online and their tactical flexibility. The analysis of legislative and policy initiatives in the EU revealed the structural and political limits of current anti-disinformation measures. Finally, valid provisions have been identified for the elaboration of effective policy proposals and for the conduct of future research.

The Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) advocated for "propaganda literacy" against the backdrop of rising nationalism before and during World War II (1937-1942). Through a historical analysis of unpublished archival papers, notes, correspondence, newspaper articles, and the Institute's publications, this article shows how the IPA raised awareness and highlighted the need for information literacy during a time that precedes modern attempts to promote critical thinking and counter one-sided views. Supported by a network of public opinion scholars, educators, and editors, these anti-propaganda efforts gained momentum. Initially, the IPA's monthly newsletter Propaganda Analysis and its educational programs, specialized leaflets, and publicity campaigns were received favorably by the public. But critics in government and the press attacked the IPA's platform. By early 1942, the IPA could neither overcome its financial struggles nor thwart social and political pressures to cede its work, perceived as "un-American" in light of the US's war mobilization.

Many organizations are drowning in a flood of corporate bullshit, and this is particularly true of organizations in trouble, whose managers tend to make up stuff on the fly and with little regard for future consequences. Bullshitting and lying are not synonymous. While the liar knows the truth and wittingly bends it to suit their purpose, the bullshitter simply does not care about the truth. Managers can actually do something about organizational bullshit, and this Executive Digest provides a sequential framework that enables them to do so. They can comprehend it, they can recognize it for what it is, they can act against it, and they can take steps to prevent it from happening in the future. While it is unlikely that any organization will ever be able to rid itself of bullshit entirely, this article argues that by taking these steps, astute managers can work toward stemming its flood.