Life in the Disinformation Age ****************************************************************************************** * Life in the Disinformation Age ****************************************************************************************** Michal Smetana on what is needed to counter fake news Disinformation online by malicious actors by now will surprise few people – but the big qu best to tackle the problem. Increasingly, some are saying more damage than good is committed when the issue is framed terms and described solely as conflict or war – shutting down critical thinking. Together with Vienna-based colleague Dagmar Rychnovská, Dr. Michal Smetana (a researcher a Security Policy who teaches at Charles University) responded to the debate in the Czech Re recent article in A2LARM, arguing that for solutions to be effective, proper research, a w hear different views and a deeper understanding of the problem are needed. Some may still remember the Police lyric “Too much information running through my brain”… between real information and disinformation today? That was my first question for Michal Smetana. “With the rise of social media in the public space and the use of social media for politic has obviously become increasingly difficult to navigate the flood of different information in an era when information becomes very hard to sort, to identify which is relevant for yo daily life.” I would have thought in some respect it might be a little bit easier now because people ar aware than they were in 2016. Certainly by now there aren’t many people who haven’t heard to most it is more obvious how much manipulation was going on. So I was wondering if we we more savvy today… “It’s a good point but even if people are aware of a certain dynamics taking place, it sti it is obvious or clear to everyone across the board to what extent information can still b fake, or half-baked. It’s not like on the one end of the spectrum you have completely trut in all its aspects and on the other end complete lies. There is a big spectrum in between where all these battles are taking place – these ‘battles over the truth’ or however we wa That is sort of the crux of the discussion: we are in a situation where it is, as you say, difficult to parcel these different types of information. In the old days, it was the sole organisations who would be the gatekeepers for how information was verified and presented. know many times what the actual source is, if there is good intent or malicious or just a these can morph. “Anyone who has been following these dynamics can see that the role of media, as it was in changed or is no longer there. Certainly, the media have lost their gatekeeper function an have turned to alternative sources, which is a development that also carries risks. Simila is that many media outlets no longer have so many resources to devote to fact checking and stories. Everything is much faster and they are trying to push out as much information as pace. That is also a breeding ground for mistakes.” Once the news cycle definitely became 24-hours that also changed everything… Obviously, th types of fake news. Back in 2016, I was surprised that even satire or what one would consi obvious parody (such as News Update on Saturday Night Live) would be included in that defi But if we get to more serious matters, here we would be talking about malicious actors, wh a state sowing disinformation for its own political ends: that is the danger and there the or cyber warfare come to the fore. There, we know who the usual suspects are… why, in your mistake to describe the conflict as a battle or war? “Why not call it a battle or a war? Just because you shout loudly that you are in an infor does not mean you are changing anything dramatically. It is part of a broader problem we c ‘militarisation of the public debate’. If you look at this very complex problem only throu of ‘war’, you put it in the very forefront and therefore conceal or ignore other problems space and create a great sense of urgency.” “That can make it difficult to react in an adequate or rational manner; there is also a te down all alternative interpretations or voices and matters are simplified into clear categ collaborators, allies, or unsuspecting people influenced by propaganda. It shuts down prop public space and it is very often counterproductive.” “This kind of framing leads only to a greater polarisation of the debate and the growing s between camps. At the end of the day, this is exactly what a malicious actor wants. This k urgent reaction is exactly what Russia wants and is welcomed for example by hawkish elemen government or Russian society.” “If they can elicit this kind of strong reaction and polarisation and plant discord, which having a rational debate, [that is a success for them].” I imagine that one counter-argument for using strong rhetoric to describe what is going on stress how serious the situation really is, so it is not taken lightly and is something th dealt with. If you take the U.S. as an example, 17 intelligence agencies there alleged that there had the 2016 U.S. presidential election by Russia, yet the president himself largely chose not their findings. “I absolutely understand that and I should stress that there are many well-intentioned par warning about the danger. I don’t dispute the intention of bringing attention to the issue at the bigger picture, it has been two years already that we have been hearing shouting th that we have to do something urgently. “For two years, we have heard actors in the public arena shouting dramatically that the ho And it becomes the equivalent of ‘crying wolf’ all the time. “That makes it hard for the public to believe that the problem is really that urgent. “In the last couple of years, there has also been a tendency to have a more emotional and of events and people are losing sensitivity. If you hear about war in ‘January, February a every day you hear about another assault on American democracy by Trump (although the asse correct)… you get worn down by the constant sense of urgency. Then, when something happens year’, you no longer know how to assess the information.” This is the difficult question: what do we do about it? Because it seems we are at a point have stopped trusting or following the mainstream media, but we don’t know the background information being processed out there, and the situation is very polarized. There are groups that don’t leave their echo chambers and see things only as a battle betw regardless of which side they are on. How do you defuse the situation? “First and foremost, how we react should be a matter of public debate. That is something w article. There is debate but there is also a tendency to really shut down or delegitimize because they do not perceive the problem in the same way as the mainstream in the public s this can serve as a departure point: first, we need to understand what is actually going o react rationally. “We know of course that there are malicious actors in Russia and other countries that are spreading disinformation and propaganda that is harmful to our society. We know this but w the ratio, to what extent it is the core of this chaos as well as how deep the influence i is effective… but how effective? This should be the subject of research. We also don’t kno narrative is effective. “In the U.S., they are working on this extensively but we don’t have proper data for the C the U.S., many papers are being published and some of the findings are surprising. They ar into the disinformation dynamic and trying to see how disinformation is spread between dif the population and what their motivations are. “It’s quite clear that disinformation chaos – however you want to call it – will be with u time and eventually the whole system will adjust somehow. But we can help this adjustment measures now to make the adjustment much more resilient. We need to adjust ourselves to th even then, nobody is saying it will be easy.” By Jan Velinger January 30, 2019