This podcast was recorded in April 2020. Sadly, it has aged well.
(Scroll down to the April 15 podcast to listen.)
Truth, Fiction and Lies in the New Media Environment
The rise of social media and the fragmentation of traditional news media has led to a global crisis of disinformation. Governments, non-government actors, and shadow groups are spreading misleading and often false information, which undermines democracy around the world. Democratic nations that depend on a certain level of social and political trust to function properly face an existential crisis as that trust is eroded. How can democratic governments face this crisis to rebuild faith in democratic practices and values?
Information and Influence in Sweden
Sweden is overhauling their approach to national defense, greatly expanding military budgets, restoring conscription, and hardening defenses.
Part of the increasing pressure on Sweden comes in the form of insidious information campaigns, some originating within the country, some coming from right-wing political groups beyond Sweden’s borders, and some sponsored by antagonistic states.
Since 2016, the FDR Foundation has been honored to periodically work with the Swedish government on countering disinformation campaigns. Now we’re taking the work from Harvard to Stockholm, where four professors will work directly with Swedish decision makers and practitioners in November, 2019. We look forward to both being of assistance and to bringing our findings back to Harvard for further research
Covering & Uncovering Disinformation 9/5
The 2016 U.S. elections saw the weaponization of information with unexpected sophistication and on an unprecedented scale. Russia, Iran, and others have continued to refine this tradecraft.
Journalists increasingly find themselves caught in the middle. How can you cover news that comes from a cyber attack or suspicious sources? Are there better ways to examine its credibility and consider the motivations behind its release? What comes next in the age of modern information warfare?
The FDR Foundation will host an introductory exchange with journalists on some of the key skills and strategies they can use when navigating these issues.
Event in cooperation with CNN. By invitation, only.
September 5, 2018
5PM
Foreign Interference in Elections: Advice for 2018 (from Denmark)
The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, after fourteen months evaluating the Intelligence Community’s work on Kremlin interference in the American election, announced on May 16 that the foreign effort was “extensive” and “unprecedented.” Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the Committee’s Vice Chairman concluded that “one thing is already abundantly clear – we have to do a better job in the future if we want to protect our elections from foreign interference.”
How does one go about doing that? In an effort to find out, we interviewed officials and academics from eleven countries, asking them how they go about defending their elections, what the U.S. should learn from them, and what keeps them up at night. Country by country, we’re going to share their advice here at FDRfoundation.org. Up first: Denmark!
It turns out the Danes were already paying attention to us. “The real wake-up call for Denmark was in 2016, when we saw the coordinated Russian influence campaign that targeted the US election, Jesper Møller Sørensen, Political Director at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explained. “This was an example of the whole Russian toolbox of active measures which we need to counter with democratic means.”
The Danes, like many others, suggested a focus on education and coordination. Helping the general public understand that sometimes “fake news” is actually fake news is key. “In the end,” said Sørensen, “psychological resilience comes down to education.” “In our view an important part of education is also making public the ways influence campaigns are conducted and engage openly in these debates.”
Unfortunately, the U.S. (for now) lacks the Dane’s superpower: trust in institutions. “We have a well-educated and informed population, Sørensen noted, “but the greatest strength the Danes possess is the high amount of trust toward our government and institutions in general. This makes it harder to sow distrust and polarize debates.” Distrustful and polarized nations, like America, are easier to manipulate with disinformation.
Another Danish superpower is their ability to coordinate with friendly neighbors. “Close cooperation with like-minded countries is crucial to exchange experiences about the threat, said Sørensen, “we are engaged in a well-established and extensive cooperation with the Nordic and Baltic countries on this issue.” Can America do this?
Awareness, education, coordination: advice from Denmark for defending our 2018 elections.
The Disinformation Vaccination
By Nina Jankowicz, in “The Wilson Quarterly”
The most illuminating conversations I’ve had about Russian disinformation have not been with ex-Cold Warriors, Russia hands, or government officials. They have been with the people that – according to many of those I just listed – are purveyors of disinformation themselves.
“I don’t believe in fighting [against] information. That’s what the communists did,” Jaroslav Plesl, the editor-in-chief of Dnes, the Czech Republic’s second-largest daily newspaper, told me in January 2017, just after the Czech government unveiled a new center to fight terrorism and so-called “hybrid threats,” including disinformation.
I caught a lot of flak for publishing a quote from that conversation in an editorial on how to fight fake news. A Czech friend in the anti-disinformation field told me that while he didn’t think Plesl was on the Kremlin payroll, he might as well be, given all he and his publication do to amplify the Russian state’s narratives.
My friend won’t be happy to find out that on my last trip to Prague, I met with an editor at Parlamentní Listy, one of the most popular fringe media outlets in the country. It is often accused of having Kremlin ties. Whether or not that’s true, Jan Rychetský, the editor with whom I spoke, described his employer’s strategy very simply: “We try to speak to the people that no one from the mainstream media speaks to.” …
Read the rest of Nina Jankowicz’ piece in “The Wilson Quarterly,” here:
https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/the-disinformation-age/the-disinformation-vaccination/