Copyright © 2021 Euromaidanpress.com

The work of Euromaidan Press is supported by the International Renaissance Foundation

When referencing our materials, please include an active hyperlink to the Euromaidan Press material and a maximum 500-character extract of the story. To reprint anything longer, written permission must be acquired from [email protected].

Privacy and Cookie Policies.

EU vs Disinfo: Data analysis and disinformation from insight to action in 2020

EU vs Disinfo: Data analysis and disinformation from insight to action in 2020
Edited by: Yuri Zoria
[editorial]

The East StratCom Task Force running the website EU vs Disinfo is a part of the administration of the European External Action Service. It is the disinformation watchdog challenging Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns. In this brief article, the EU vs Disinfo is sharing its plans for 2020.

[/editorial]

2019 marked the year where data analysis became an integral part of EUvsDisinfo’s work to support the objective of improving the detection, analysis, and exposure of disinformation as laid out in the EU’s Action Plan against Disinformation and to aid fact-checking and debunking efforts.

It was also the year where we saw several organizations demonstrating excellent examples of analyses and research. Graphika, for example, discovered a disinformation campaign targeting the UK elections before they took place; NATO’s Stratcom Centre of Excellence showed how to test the abilities (or lack thereof) of social media companies to identify and remove manipulation; Buzzfeed uncovered how your blog may be hacked and used to help disinformation rank higher on search engines. When EUvsDisinfo published insights on an outlet that massively syndicated Russia Today (RT) material to a Belgian audience, the anti-disinformation expert network looked even further and uncovered a worldwide network of false news websites.

We have more insight, however, also more actors targeting more systems with continually evolving techniques. Thus, seeking to automate the detection of disinformation operations before they had the chance to realize their impact becomes even more relevant but also complex.

In their 2019 report “The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation“, researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute found that social media manipulation campaigns, tactics, and tools spread to at least 70 countries, up from 48 the previous year. Social media companies like Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter continue to find disinformation operations by various foreign actors – some new, some known – on their platforms, targeting protests, issue areas, and elections. The University of Stanford found evidence that Russia expanded their disinformation activities to Africa’s information space.

The list goes on. 2019 was the year of mainstreaming disinformation tactics. What once fell under the domain of a handful of highly specialized actors has become a manipulative service for hire business model available to anyone with a few dollars to spare. Disinformation actors learn from each other, they try and test, observe, optimize and choose the tactics and techniques that work best to further their objectives to distort, confuse and divide.

Fortunately, disinformation analysts also can and do learn from each other. At EUvsDisinfo, we follow and cooperate with many think tanks, NGOs, agencies, and researchers that regularly share their insights. This open community and exchange is strength but it also poses a challenge: with increasing research and analysis, how do we avoid duplication and blind spots? How do we organize our activities across a decentralized network of researchers? How can we speed up mutual learning and move from insights to action?

Confronted with similar challenges, the cyber- and information security (InfoSec) community developed the Att&ck framework which successfully addressed a complex challenge by providing a structure for organizing adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that allows analysts to organize adversary behaviors and communicate them in a way that is actionable by defenders.

This initiative, alongside many other new ones from the EU Member States’ governments and private sector, will be at the core of the anti-disinformation community resilience-building work in 2020.


Read also:

Edited by: Yuri Zoria
You could close this page. Or you could join our community and help us produce more materials like this.  We keep our reporting open and accessible to everyone because we believe in the power of free information. This is why our small, cost-effective team depends on the support of readers like you to bring deliver timely news, quality analysis, and on-the-ground reports about Russia's war against Ukraine and Ukraine's struggle to build a democratic society. A little bit goes a long way: for as little as the cost of one cup of coffee a month, you can help build bridges between Ukraine and the rest of the world, plus become a co-creator and vote for topics we should cover next. Become a patron or see other ways to support. Become a Patron!
Total
0
Shares
Related Posts