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United States Government

US Leading Global Alliance To Counter Foreign Government Disinformation (theguardian.com) 122

Posted by BeauHD from the collective-approach dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A global coalition of democracies is being formed to protect their societies from disinformation campaigns by foreign governments, the US special envoy on the issue has said. James Rubin, the special envoy for non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts at the US state department's global engagement centre (GEC), said the coalition hoped to agree on "definitions for information manipulation versus plain old opinions that other governments are entitled to have even if we disagree with them." The US, UK and Canada have already signed up to a formal framework agreement, and Washington hopes more countries will join.

The GEC focuses solely on disinformation by foreign powers. Apart from trying to develop global strategies, it works to expose specific covert disinformation operations, such as a Russian operation in Africa to discredit US health services. The US, UK and Canada signed the framework to counter foreign state manipulation this month with the aim of addressing disinformation as a national security threat that requires coordinated government and civil society responses. "Now is the time for a collective approach to the foreign information manipulation threat that builds a coalition of like-minded countries committed to strengthening resilience and response to information manipulation," the framework says. It also encourages information-sharing and joint data analysis tools to identify covert foreign disinformation.

A hugely experienced US official and journalist who has worked with diplomats such as Madeleine Albright in the past, Rubin admitted his first year as special envoy had been one of his most intellectually taxing because of the complex definitions surrounding disinformation. In the continuum between hostile opinion and disinformation, he has tried to identify where and how governments can intervene without limiting free speech. The principle on which he has alighted is deception by foreign powers. "In principle every government should be free to convey their views, but they should have to admit who they are," he said an interview. "We want to promote more fact-based information, but at the same time find ways to label those information operations that are generated by the Chinese government or the Kremlin but to which they don't admit. "In the end that is all I know we can do right now without interfering with a free press. We are not asking for such covert disinformation to be taken down but a way to be found for the source to be labelled."
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US Leading Global Alliance To Counter Foreign Government Disinformation More

US Leading Global Alliance To Counter Foreign Government Disinformation

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  • Not a new problem (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Before the internet this issue was prevalent in magazines, newspapers and TV programs (and still is).

    Now we have the internet it's a problem with social media.

    Just wait till we're all fitted with AR eyeballs!

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 )

      US has been running disinformation campaigns through CIA for decades, are they feeling jealous or remorseful now?

    • Re:Not a new problem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @04:39AM (#64271818)

      The problem is not new, but it is now way more amplified and internationalized. If I wanted to influence your population before, I had to found a newspaper in your country. Sooner or later someone would dig up where the money for that comes from and the jig is up.

      Antisocial media are a godsend when it comes to destabilizing a country. First, you have to make sure you control the access of your own population to it, after all, you don't want to destabilize your own country. Then start astroturfing the living crap out of it. Launch desinformation campaigns where you simply spout some bull. It doesn't matter if that bull has anything to do with reality. Just name it "suppressed" and "hushed up" truth by "da man", that's good enough. Next, set up some webpages that people could find that support whatever bull you want to push and if people aren't jumping on it in time, have some other accounts point towards them. Have them pop up and get shot down and pretend it's The Powers That Are who want to keep that information under wraps. You'll need a couple thousand accounts to get that done, but hey, they're free after all, it's not like you have to spend money on that and people are cheap.

      You have to play the relevant antisocial sites, with some (Reddit) it's fairly easy to become a "trusted" and "reliable" source for your dupes, with others (Twitter) it's harder, mostly due to the competition and the fact that karma farming is way harder.

      You also have to play on all the fields. Make sure you launch some videos that support your narrative and keep it spinning. Wait for some dupes to jump on the train and hype their postings because they are (potentially at least) already known to be "genuine" and thus them repeating your bull gives it additional credibility, at least in the circles of Truthers and similar useful dupes for your spin.

      If everything fails, just buy one of them. They're for sale.

      Doing all that is way, way harder if you have to actually launch your own media channel in the country you want to destabilize. Moreover, the fact that some of the dupes actually start repeating your bull only adds to its credibility.

      • This also accelerates in an era where reading the morning paper has vanished, or even watching television news is very rare, and most people only get their news from snippets on youtube or facebook, where the legitimate stories sit side by side with conspiracy nonsense and partisan lies. Weird enough that obviously fake and humorous stories from Babylon Bee or the Onion are taken seriously. Social media algorithms have the effect of hardening the information bubbles that people see - they've read one cons

        • And it also has a pretty strong positive feedback loop. The more radical, outlandish and exaggerated you and your post are, the more "credible" you become and the more people listen to you. And of course everyone likes it when others are listening. So people get more and more radical in their position.

          And not only radical but also insane.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        The problem is not new, but it is now way more amplified and internationalized. If I wanted to influence your population before, I had to found a newspaper in your country. Sooner or later someone would dig up where the money for that comes from and the jig is up.

        Antisocial media are a godsend when it comes to destabilizing a country. First, you have to make sure you control the access of your own population to it, after all, you don't want to destabilize your own country. Then start astroturfing the living crap out of it. Launch desinformation campaigns where you simply spout some bull. It doesn't matter if that bull has anything to do with reality. Just name it "suppressed" and "hushed up" truth by "da man", that's good enough. Next, set up some webpages that people could find that support whatever bull you want to push and if people aren't jumping on it in time, have some other accounts point towards them. Have them pop up and get shot down and pretend it's The Powers That Are who want to keep that information under wraps. You'll need a couple thousand accounts to get that done, but hey, they're free after all, it's not like you have to spend money on that and people are cheap.

        You have to play the relevant antisocial sites, with some (Reddit) it's fairly easy to become a "trusted" and "reliable" source for your dupes, with others (Twitter) it's harder, mostly due to the competition and the fact that karma farming is way harder.

        You also have to play on all the fields. Make sure you launch some videos that support your narrative and keep it spinning. Wait for some dupes to jump on the train and hype their postings because they are (potentially at least) already known to be "genuine" and thus them repeating your bull gives it additional credibility, at least in the circles of Truthers and similar useful dupes for your spin.

        If everything fails, just buy one of them. They're for sale.

        Doing all that is way, way harder if you have to actually launch your own media channel in the country you want to destabilize. Moreover, the fact that some of the dupes actually start repeating your bull only adds to its credibility.

        Just the modern equvelent of yellow journalism.

        Ultimately two things changed it.

        1. Laws, making it illegal to print lies intended to harm, defame or slander without consequence.
        2. People got used to it. Bullshit is like a drug (or a bad smell) the more you're subjected to it, the less effect it has on you.

        As more of this stuff happens the less people will believe it. The more social media gets used for misinformation, the fewer people will believe and trust what they see on social media. I think Mu

        • The problem runs deeper. What you have here is the online equivalent of the Weekly World News, only that it's not just total nutters who think that the crap is true. Since there are so many sources and they all offer whatever crap you want to hear as the eternal and unwavering truth, because no matter what harebrained nuttery is your favorite one, you will find your fix on all antisocial media platforms, you will have your particular preferred kind of bullshit told to you. No matter what you want to hear. F

  • Introspection is unlikely to occur. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by paulidale ( 6575732 ) on Monday February 26, 2024 @10:49PM (#64271396)
    While by no means the worst offenders, although it's quite difficult to quantify, the western style democracies are also **very** guilty of this. Perhaps it would be best to start at home and remove undue influences over our media. Bring back true investigative reporting where dirty secrets routinely get uncovered and aired. Once that is done, we can expand elsewhere and try to influence others to adopt the same level of scrutiny and similar standards. If not, it is just a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I suspect that all governments are pretty black in reality.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Governments don't want a system of true investigative reporting because this would expose any source of disinformation including their own.

      What they want is to be able to spread whatever (dis)information they want, while preventing anyone else from doing the same. This is why the proposed "solutions" always amount to censorship in favor of one side.

      • Protip- These days when someone says "conspiracy theory" that's code for: it could be true but we're trying to make it sound crazy so you won't look into it.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Of course that's exactly what any conspiracy nut from any era claims to justify their nonsense.

    • the western style democracies are also **very** guilty of this.

      The disinformation is coming from inside the house!

      • The disinformation is coming from inside the house!

        After hearing President Biden speak on this for more than 45 seconds, I’m more convinced we need to address the delusion campaign at the voting booth.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Have you spent any time listening to Trump ever? "Delusion" doesnt even begin to explain the shit he says.

    • Perhaps it would be best to start at home and remove undue influences over our media.

      "Our" media?

      *looks at Newsmax, Fox News, WSJ, NYT, Huffpo*

      What in the FUCK are you talking about, undue influence? If you don't have a broad spectrum of competing news outlets in your country, maybe you do deserve to be on the receiving end of this program.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      YouTuber Shaun released a video yesterday that makes a really good point about journalism today.

      Now we have social media, often you read about news there before the mainstream journalists pick it up. When they do finally publish it, often the lies that go along with it are already obvious to you because you have seen the truth in a video someone made with their phone.

      As an example, last week we saw multiple videos of Israelis blocking aid trucks going into Gaza. They looked well organized too, with dozens o

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Shadow of Eternity ( 795165 )

        Your post is a fantastic example... just in the opposite direction you intend. The entirety of western media have been nothing but Hamas stenographers this entire conflict. From the very first day when they aired interviews insisting no civilians had been killed, the denial of rapes and torture, the denial of UN personnel being participants, the blood libels over Hamas and PIJ shootings and missiles, war criminals dressed as journalists and doctors using civilian infrastructure to store munitions and stage

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          That's actually a great example of a lie that was debunked early on, but which to this day mainstream journalists repeat because it's the official Israeli position.

          There were no rapes during the October 7th attack. The alleged victims have publicly withdrawn their statements, and Israel has not presented any evidence such as DNA or rape kits. In fact, one victim admitted she hadn't been raped, but was upset because she believed the propaganda and expected to be raped.

          Much like the "40 beheaded babies" one,

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by Shadow of Eternity ( 795165 )

            And another fantastic set of examples, thank you AmiMojo.

            Much like the "40 beheaded babies" one, which turned out to be untrue as well.

            You're absolutely right. Non-medical personnel who saw headless babies and thought they had been beheaded were completely wrong. The reality is that the bodies were in such bad shape that experts could not determine exactly how many there were or what had been done to get them into that state. It took CT scans to figure out that remains so mutilated they weren't even recognizeably human were actually multiple bodies, where families had been tied toget

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              I see your links are all Israeli sources, Twitter, or worse.

              It seems strange that Israel didn't think to invite international journalists or human rights organizations to look at the evidence, to gather it themselves. Now all we have is the word of proven liars.

              Now they have about as much credibility as that terrorist duty roster, that Arabic readers immediately identified as a calendar. It's actually quite mind boggling how shit at propaganda and lying they are.

    • The key problem is that until very recently, nobody really had any interest in a population that could actually verify information and call a spade a spade and bullshit bullshit. Everyone was very happy to have a population that can't do anything but simply believe what they're told. Sure, they were told different things, but in the end, all these things were to the benefit of someone. This or that political party, this or that corporation, just believe what you're told and of course, the other side is evil

    • While by no means the worst offenders, although it's quite difficult to quantify, the western style democracies are also **very** guilty of this.

      There is likely a hidden Federal agency that is responsible for the continuous bombardment of Western propaganda upon Westerners. The CIA does it for foreigners and since 2012, could even be that hidden agency for Western societies.

      Regardless, I doubt that this alliance of 'disinformation' debunking coordinates with the 'hidden agency'. The results should be hilarious. I wonder when they will start believing and reacting to the other 'official' propaganda arm and get swept up into a mental war to where nobo

  • Now that some information cannot be suppressed with conventional means, it's time to try something new for the Global Elite.

    • Information can easily be suppressed for the masses. Buying out the TV news networks and the print media is trivially done. It's not even buying them out, it just paying enough so that a sufficient number of the higher level folks follow along...

    • Who exactly might that be?

      I hear a lot about that "Elite", but whenever I ask who the hell that would be, nobody can tell me. By now I would have thought we have them identified.

  • 100k people die in this country every year from fentanyl overdose coming in from China through our open southern border and these dumbasses think some noise on social media is where we should focus on foreign powers attacking us?

    I'm sure those 100k dead annually and their families are deeply concerned about what Putin and Xi are posting on Twitter and Facebook.

    • Mod down by Chinese 50 cent shill. Expected. Do this one, too.

    • Well, if you had to rank issues by importance and then address them in order, I would be right with you. And we all know what the solution to the crisis with fentanyl and harmful drugs is, but it is not currently achievable.

          But you don't have to address them in order and solving one does not preclude attempting to solve the others. I am skeptical about the solution, and alarmed at how we might define "disinformation" but your point doesn't make logical sense.

      • And we all know what the solution to the crisis with fentanyl and harmful drugs is, but it is not currently achievable.

        Make them available for free, in high-quality controlled doses, to anyone who asks a medical professional for them and use that interaction as an opportunity to point the users at free services to help them reduce their use? https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com].

        At a stroke, smashes the criminal gangs trafficking the drugs, removes the incentive to push drugs onto new users, removes the cost involved in prosecuting drug crime, and maximising the chance of people on hard drugs recovering.

      • It has nothing to do with order.

        It has to do with the focus on silly shit like Putin/Xi posting crap to social media while _ignoring_ more serious issues.

        If they can do both at once, which they can, they how come the more serious issue gets zero effort?

      • And we all know what the solution to the crisis with fentanyl and harmful drugs is, but it is not currently achievable.

        Ah, but let's ban assault weapons (again), because kitchen knives killing far more will prevent harm, right? /s

        Unfortunately, "we all know" is no longer a valid stance. Just because we all know, doesn't mean corrupt leaders will DO something with all that knowledge. They do what the money tells them to do.

        What we all know, is the voting age should be raised, because root cause.

    • 100k? That all? Peanuts.

      The Covid disinformation campaign alone cost a magnitude more people their life.

      • Yes because some other thing kills people we should ignore this one over here.

        Over time fentanyl will kill more people than the entire total of all covid deaths with or without vax and the rest.

        • The key difference is here that I cannot die from Fentanyl because someone next to me is irresponsible and stupid. I'd have to be the one who takes it. That is the difference here.

          Which in turn opens the question: Why do these people take it? It's not like you can accidentally take a drug. It's not like someone sits next to you, talks to you and suddenly you're a Fenta addict.

          Maybe taking a look at this angle could solve the problem way better than trying some ridiculous "war on drugs"? Because by now we sh

        • Yes because some other thing kills people we should ignore this one over here.

          Hey, if you're going to whatabout foreign government disinformation with the border crisis,
          Then Opportunist should be allowed to whatabout the border crisis with the Covid pandemic. Right?

          Is that how it works really? We are only allowed to focus on one problem at once? We can't possibly deal with more than one issue at a time?
          So let's just endlessly debate which one kills the most people and is theoretically the most important, rather than doing anything about any of it at all.

  • This is just more BS from this admin. (Score:3)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday February 26, 2024 @11:43PM (#64271506) Journal
    It is Trivial to solve this. Simply have (western) gov give out packet of X.509 Digital Certificates with each vetted person ( for America, upon REAL ID). Once you have that, even social media can use that to discern where a user is from( or point out that poster is true anonymous and could be from anywhere ).

    But any simple treaty will mean nothing to Putin, Xi, and Trump. They will back all the manipulation possible.

    • Simply have (western) gov give out packet of X.509 Digital Certificates with each vetted person ( for America, upon REAL ID). Once you have that, even social media can use that

      You didn't think of Publius at all during your solutioning. :(

      https://guides.loc.gov/federal... [loc.gov]

      • No.
        I thought of the fact that we are being destroyed by others, and with a SIMPLE VETTED ID for the internet (no different than having 1 for the road, buying firearms, alcohol, cigs, porn, homes, getting government funding, etc) that is not mandated, but available, we solve many many issues without compromising anonymity on the net.

  • pot meet kettle (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 )
    I guess the best way to ensure your own disinformation isn't front and center is to run the organisation for counter misinformation.
  • How about disinformation from our own govt? Like how Hillary's lawyer Clinesmith gave the FBI a thumb drive showing Trump's connection to Russia? That misinformation, attempting to frame a sitting president (insurrection?) and interfere with an election. How about how the govt got together and said the Hunter Biden laptop was fake foreign disinformation? Literally disinformation itself. Or the "safe and effective" vaccine that appears to be harmful and ineffective. The spike was supposed to stay at the inje

    • Sure, there's always two sides of everything, but that's not important. What is important is, what is good for you, society, the country or whatever you consider important. That's it. That's all that matters.

      Detach yourself from the idea that there is some inherent "fairness" that is supposed to exist. Life ain't fair, and the outcome is neither. In the end you're dead. What matters is the time 'til then.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ksevio ( 865461 )

      This post right here is a prime example of what people start to think when exposed to misinformation. Basically a bingo card for discredited conspiracy theories.

  • Let's say the Kremlin has hired hundreds or thousands of human "bots" to spread disinformation on the internet (he has, [wikipedia.org] and it's a small line item compared to the rest of the war budget).

    Let's even say we can even detect and label 90% of disinformation within 48 hours as state-sponsored (although perhaps only 1% of fake social profiles are caught in reality [washingtonpost.com]).

    Even then you haven't solved the problem, because the Kremlin is throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks. So in that 48 hours, som

  • to listen to our disinformation.

  • Democracy (Score:3)

    by gillbates ( 106458 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @10:14AM (#64272490) Homepage Journal

    The real threat of disinformation is that the people might interfere with Democracy.

    Democracy's most sacred notion is that the people - for better or worse - actually control the government, not the other way around. If we, as a people are so stupid as to believe disinformation, well, we live and learn. That's the point of democracy - that people get learn from their own mistakes. And society, as a consequence, grows collectively wiser.

    Who is worried about disinformation? It is the arrogant, will to power types who honestly believe that you, dear voter, are too stupid to think for yourself. And maybe you are. If so, just reply to me with how disinformation led you to do something stupid, and I'll be forced to concede the point.

  • That seems to be the message being preached.

  • It is all geopolitical - and the gloves are off (Score:3)

    by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @10:38AM (#64272594)
    Congress Proposes $500 Million for Negative News Coverage of China:

    “When the United States funds ‘independent’ media to report critically on China, very serious guardrails must be adhered to so that the U.S. government doesn’t simply appear to be pushing its own form of propaganda and to protect the safety and credibility of reporters who cover China with a critical lens,” one congressional progressive staffer said. “Otherwise, this funding is just an exercise in crude soft-power projection, with many sources at risk of being much more easily dismissed or repressed as pawns of a U.S. geopolitical strategy.”

    https://prospect.org/politics/... [prospect.org]

  • Selling the preferred narrative, as always... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm a US citizen, love my country. But, it's fairly clear our gov't wants certain narratives out there, our media is so blatantly moderated and that influence has extended to companies like Youtube, Google, Facebook. We are sold narratives that certain countries are bad, their leaders corrupt, so we start wars and get the public riled up on false narratives. If you speak against that, and you become a bigger problem, you can expect trouble. It's how it works. We do it, other countries do it. But you

    • The topic was countering FOREIGN government disinformation ... DOMESTIC government misinformation is still promoted.

  • Why would anyone allow the US government to be the arbiter of truth?

  • And who's going to counter all of the domestic misinformation they spam us with, such as "The vaccines are safe and 100% effective", "You can't transmit the virus if you're vaccinated", "masks are effective", "double masking makes a difference", "staying indoors will help protect people", "the great Barrington declaration needs to be taken down", "people should socially distance 6 feet", "the unvaccinated face a winter of severe illness and death", "the virus wasn't man made", "Fauci didn't have Ecohealth A

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