The State of Play
Where we are in tackling info ops
I was very fortunate to attend recently the https://www.disinfo.eu/conference, that brought together many specialists from various parts of this industry. (There were, unfortunately, only a few representatives from government, though I shall return to this below.)
I am very grateful to EU Disinfolab for the opportunity to attend (and the excuse for a short mid-week break in Krakow). It was useful to learn about current topics of interest for various practitioners. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the conference was the chance to try to get an overview of the current state of play of the industry. And yet that was perhaps the most problematic aspect; it was very hard to gain holistic oversight of how various segments of the industry join together. It also revealed a profound disconnect in the various specialisms required to understand information manipulation.
Some of the conference presentations were relatively detailed, though tackled specific aspects of the problem in isolation. Some were very niche. I can’t have been the only one in the room who questioned why we watched an examination of social media responses to theories about an American music star’s sexuality. This, in the midst of a devastating war – that is relying on evolving informational attacks – on Ukraine, seemed less than pertinent (I’m fairly sure that some of the Ukrainians in the audience were even more miffed).
The balance between particularities and the universal of the problem were highlighted by other aspects of the conference. That is nobody’s fault, and is in no way shaped as criticism. But a lack of a holistic understanding of the intents and ways in which states manipulate their targets’ thinking appears a wider and serious problem.
Overall understanding of information manipulation
I hope to go into these issues in more detail in the coming weeks and months. But as a starting point, we need to return to the context of information manipulation. Such operations – especially state-backed information operations (we shall have to return to nomenclature at some point in the future) – should be understood as having four distinct components:
1. The strategic intent (how does the operation fit in with the state’s policy or political objectives)
2. The content of the messaging (what is the operation saying in order to achieve that)
3. The technological means of delivery (how does the actor aim the messaging at a specific target, which platforms are involved, frequency of messaging)
4. The impact (how the operation changes the target’s behaviour or results in another objective)
Examinations of information operations rarely examine the connections between these stages, or how these distinct parts all fit together. Crucially, specialism of these aspects is delineated. Each one of these points requires its own expertise, and there are few adequate entities or methodologies to bring all these fields together.
Russia analysts, for example, are rarely experts in the intricacies of information operations. Specialists in information operations understand very well theories of propaganda, principles of information operations, or the technical and data aspects of dissemination; they rarely display the detailed political knowledge of state actors and their motives to provide the important context thereof. (There are, of course, rare exceptions.)
Information manipulation is so specific to a particular state’s requirements, that it is reasonable to suggest that we need a dedicated field, ‘Russian information manipulation’. This would prevent us from assuming that all info ops are the same or can be studied in the same way. It would force us to make more nuanced conclusions about what Moscow is trying to do in its messaging, when we should be worried about their operations and how we should respond. (This goes against government efforts to build all-actor capabilities against information threats.)
Dotting the ‘I’s
The ‘so what?’ question ran through my mind throughout the conference. Many people discussed the ‘TTP’ approach to analysing information operations. However, nobody there grasped in detail the supposed intent of actors in conducting information operations, or their impact on their target. Interestingly, the relative lack of government representatives appeared to underline the disconnect between what the industry is providing, and what governments need to receive in order to inform their policy work. We need to update this approach to TTPI (adding ‘impact’ to our frameworks).
The failure to connect these various aspects of understanding hampers the industry’s ability to support policy makers (a prominent funder of work on this area). There are assumptions about how state-specific info ops may work and influence audiences, though this collective thinking needs updating in light of evolving events and techniques.
Moreover, nobody has really discussed how the consumption of information has evolved, especially since the start of this major stage of the war on Ukraine.
Take, for example, Telegram. I have called this phase of the war ‘the first Telegram war’. However, very few practitioners are discussing the role of Telegram and its ephemeral impact, especially in Ukraine.
Telegram is encouraging users to digest news in a specific way. Telegram’s infrastructure means that material is targeted at audiences at high speed, in an intensely specific manner. Its unique function as a point-to-point messaging service, combined with a point-to-group instant messaging system, surely brings the reader closer into real-time events in a way that feels highly personalised. Although this needs testing, it seems that Telegram has unique potential to influence audiences. The platform has likely played a crucial role in messaging in Ukraine; crucially I did not observe during the conference any panel discussions at all of Telegram and its impact.
Understanding the developing impact of various online platforms is highly complex, and the necessary research requires time and financial commitment. (Even government officials and industry professionals in Ukraine are divided as to how info ops impact audiences, or how to respond.) However, without this research – which is highly complex – we cannot understand the context or significance of information manipulation, or how to counter them.
This is why so many the talks at the conference left me thinking about the missing ‘so what’ of ongoing work, and how to fix this. Governments are going to have to fund more nuanced research as to the impact of material, on individual platforms on specific audiences over time. They must also be able to understand this impact within the political context or the hostile actor’s intent. Otherwise, research into info manipulation means little, and cannot feed properly into how we design mitigations. I’ll try to go into these points in more detail in the coming weeks. But for now, there is much work still to be done.