Democracy Digest

Digital Resilience: Russia beating the West ‘hands down’ in information warfare

When it comes to information warfare, Russia is beating the West hands down, says a leading analyst.

The disinformation focused on the Skripal poisoning has many similarities with the Kremlin campaign following the downing of the civilian flight MH17, whereas the campaign on Syria is a predictable repetition of previous efforts discrediting civilian suffering, the EU Stratcom Task Force’s Disinformation Review reports.

Coda Story highlights the inside story of a Kremlin disinformation campaign in Georgia that is heating up because of the

EU Stratcom Task Force

Skripal case. Russian disinformation around the Syria strikes is a glimpse into the future of warfare, analysts suggest.

Russia’s neighbors are well-placed to advise Western democracies on how to counter the Kremlin’s active measures, argues Andrian Candu, speaker of the Moldovan Parliament.

What makes some people more susceptible to disinformation? Nick Monaco asks on Demworks, the blog of the National Democratic Institute, highlighting a Digital Intelligence Lab (above) paper he co-authored– State-Sponsored Trolling: How Governments are Deploying Disinformation as Part of Broader Digital Harassment Campaigns:

In this report, we explore how governments around the world are weaponizing surveillance systems and propaganda apparatuses to intimidate and silence individuals critical of the state. State-sponsored trolling sees many problems familiar to digital rights researchers – disinformation, unlawful hacking and surveillance, the usage of bots and computational propaganda – combine and metastasize into a larger phenomenon.

Digital Resilience

On June 22–23, 2018 the DFRLab is taking its 360/OS open source summit to Berlin, a city firmly focused on the future and a stark historical reminder of the divide between democracy and those who seek to undermine government by and for the people. Save the date for the gathering of #DigitalSherlocks from around the world building Digital Resilience ….

A British parliamentary committee has recommended that the government conduct further research into the manipulation of political information on social media and suggested that people of all ages receive training in digital literacy in order to recognize fake news, Reuters reports. So this initiative could not have been more timely…..

Facebook: Seeking Proposals for Global Literacy & Accessibility Challenge Grants

Lack of literacy skills has been shown as one of the top challenges for people to adopt technologies and take part in the social communications online, Facebook writes:

Facebook is pleased to invite the academic community to respond to this call for research proposals to better understand and address global literacy and accessibility issues. Research awardees will be expected to contribute to the field of literacy and accessibility through qualitative or quantitative research, including, but not limited to:

Novel, scalable methods on assessing individual or population literacy levels.

Understanding the experiences and challenges associated with literacy issues, eg learning disabilities or barriers due to English as a second language.

Understanding the social, structural, and technology issues that prevent people from improving literacy skills.

Understanding the impact of literacy skills on individuals and society.

Digital, social technologies used to improve literacy level, especially, closing the gender gap in literacy rate.

Design and development of technologies to elevate the literacy barrier, preferably with a focus on social and AI technologies.

Awards will be made up to $30K USD per proposal for projects up to one year in duration beginning August 2018.

Applications are now open. Applications close July 25, 2018, 11:59pm PST.

FULL DETAILS HERE.

Cyber-attacking the civil in civil society

EU Stratcom Task Force

In the face of authoritarian foreign influence* operations, the U.S. Congress should support public-private partnerships to tackle the challenge posed by disinformation and abuse of social media platforms, according to Jamie Fly and Laura Rosenberger, the co-directors of the Alliance for Securing Democracy.

Congress should create a fund with pooled public and private resources that would establish media literacy education and training pilot projects, helping to build resilience against foreign or other malign manipulation of our open society, they write for the Hill. In addition, Congress should:

improve election security and cybersecurity. Many state elections boards lack the funding and expertise to adequately secure their elections systems against foreign intrusion. …
improve disclosure requirements for online political advertisements. Americans should have the right to know who is funding political ads they see online, just as they do for political ads on radio, print and television. ….
tackle illicit foreign money in our political system. Dirty money should be prevented from entering the country. …RTWT

But Europe, not Congress, is more likely to address the threat posed to democracy by social media and disinformation, the Washington Post’s Michael Birnbaum & Tony Romm contend.

Technological advances have played an obvious and fundamental role in new forms of hybrid attacks against the West, according to Northwestern University analysts Buddhika Jayamaha and Jahara “Franky” Matisek. The rise of “troll farms” contribute to hyper-polarized debates, leading many citizens with access to social media to subconsciously choose one side of a false-choice debate without realizing there could be a moderate choice and policy, they write for the AWC’s ‘War Room’:

It is also more than just a “weaponized narrative,” because propaganda-like efforts are no longer meant to shape the information terrain in favor of the aggressor. Instead, hybrid attacks on civil society are meant to weaken the system from within, by weaponizing grievances and social divisions, and even highlighting hallmarks of a liberal democracy (i.e. pluralist interest representation) as vulnerabilities. This is accomplished with an intent on making existing problems appear intractable and creating imaginary problems that fragment and polarize as many group identities as possible.

Much less promiscuous are the means of adversarial states using “sharp power” to silence critics as a way of shifting focus and commentary away from their own corrupt governments and authoritarian societies, they add. RTWT

The US and UK are accusing Russia of launching what they’re calling “malicious” cyberactivity, targeting government institutions, infrastructure and internet providers, and warning of growing disinformation and trolling in the wake of the Syrian chemical attack.

Russia’s trolls and propagandists have turned Soviet disinformation into a terrifying art form, argues Bob Seely, a British MP and expert on Russian information warfare . Information warfare is more important than ever – and Russia is beating the West hands down, he writes for the Daily Telegraph.

EU Stratcom Task Force

Beyond retroactively deleting fake news pages and accounts, what more can be done to prevent the spread of disinformation? Alexander Babuta, RUSI Research Fellow IN National Security and Resilience, asks.

“It seems that automated content removal is the only viable preventive action social media companies could take to ensure that disinformation does not appear on their platforms in the first place,” he writes. “However, tech companies’ experiences with extremist content-removal demonstrate the difficulties in developing systems to automate content takedown, for this technology inevitably results in large amounts of legitimate content also being blocked.”

*China’s overseas influence efforts come under the spotlight in the latest issue of the National Endowment for Democracy’s Journal of Democracy in articles by John Fitzgerald on Australia, Anne-Marie Brady on New Zealand, Donald K. Emmerson on Singapore, and Martin Hala on Central and Eastern Europe.

Putin’s regime: ‘a Titanic looking for an iceberg’

The growing awareness that Russia, growing ever more hostile, should be treated as a threat rather than a mere annoyance is pushing Western capitals toward a unified front in challenging Moscow over such serial transgressions as destabilizing its neighbors, assassinating its critics abroad, meddling in the elections of other countries, tolerating the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government and cyberskirmishing, the New York Times reports:

The confrontation is likely to only get worse, analysts say, for one main reason: Mr. Putin and his closest advisers are convinced they are justified in their policies and have persuaded important portions of the elite as well as the bulk of Russians that the country is thriving, rebuilding its global muscle rather than weakening itself.

“The party of war has won within the Russian elite,” said Yuliy A. Nisnevich, a political-science professor. “There are people in the elites who would like the confrontation to stop — these are the people who would like to spend or earn money abroad. But the party of war, the people who get their money inside the country and live here, is prevalent now.”

Putin’s regime is “a Titanic looking for its own iceberg,” according to a leading analyst.

The ruling elite wants to be inside the West for its own purposes, but also against the West, promoting militarization and patriotism in an efforts to consolidate its legitimacy, said Russian political analyst Lilia Shevtsova (right), addressing the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies (above). The elite is seeking a new incarnation, but with diminished resources, while militarization entails international isolation and marginalization. Ordinary Russians want change but the system can’t allow it, she added.

Western commentators “got Russia wrong”, especially in dismissing its international relevance,” said Miriam Lanskoy, NED’s Senior Director for Eurasia. But there is now a risk of overstating it strength, she said, recommending a speech by former National Security Adviser HR McMaster for recognizing that the US is in a new global completion needs to summon the will to advance democratic values.

Russia exhibits a range of contradictions, said Christopher Walker, NED’s Vice President for Studies and Analysis: weak economically, but dynamic, punching above its weight in foreign policy; politically stultifying but technically innovative; and insular but practicing malign internationalism.

The US lacks a clear strategy on Russia, Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The New York Times.

Macron calls for democratic renewal: ‘not authoritarian democracy but the authority of democracy’

21st Forum 2000 Conference

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that “there seems to be a European civil war” between liberal democracy and rising authoritarianism, the BBC reports.

The rapid changes in the today’s world require politicians to change their ways, but this must not mean a rejection of democracy, he added.

“Indeed, in these difficult times, the European democracy is our best chance,” Macron said. “The worst possible mistake would be to give up on our model and our identity.”

Speaking after the re-election in Hungary of Viktor Orban, the personification of “illiberal democracy,” and moves against the judiciary in Poland, Macron lamented “an increasing fascination with illiberalism” and said that Europe was in a conflict between a new populist authoritarianism and the liberal democracy that shaped its postwar vision and success.

“In the face of authoritarianism, the response is not authoritarian democracy but the authority of democracy,” Macron said, in a clear reference to Hungary and to Poland.

How does populism challenge liberal democracy? In the latest issue of the National Endowment for Democracy’s Journal of Democracy, William A. Galston explores populism’s logic and considers how liberal democracies can respond.

Has democracy lost its global appeal?

…. is the question addressed by a broad pool of experts and generalists in the May/June 2018 issue of Foreign Affairs, in which democracy is the lead package.

Among those who strongly agreed with the proposition that that democracy has indeed lost its appeal, Omar G. Encarnación, Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, said “I think the global appeal of democracy was always overstated and often confused with the loss of legitimacy of non-democratic forms of government, such as military rule.”

Duke University’s Timur Kuran took a similar position:

In advanced democracies, leaders no longer promote democratic values as their predecessors once did. And the publics they represent are themselves less committed to democracy. In certain key countries, including the United States, publics are divided into intolerant communities that will happily endorse undemocratic procedures, provided these bring harm to rivals.

Too soon to say, said Laurel Miller (right), Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, taking a neutral stance.

“Democracy surely never had much appeal for ‘strongmen’ who seem ascendant in various parts of the world.” But, she added, “I am concerned that the structures and processes that enable fulfillment of those aspirations may be eroding and that there is a lack of international leadership in countering that erosion.”

“It’s not that democracy per se has lost its appeal: it’s that there is a general resentment of non-responsive elites and ossified political party systems that generate policy consensus but do not address popular grievances,” said Stanford University’s Anna Grzymala-Busse (left), strongly disagreeing with the proposition. “Citizens are still voting, and they are demanding more from democratic systems and their representatives: whether the newly elected can deliver is another matter.”

Citizens of many democracies are very frustrated with their governments but most are not giving up on a basic belief in democracy as the most desirable political system, said Thomas Carothers, Senior Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Many autocrats continue to try to legitimate their regimes using some democracy processes and institutions, albeit compromised ones.

Established parties have lost their appeal in many countries, and people across the globe are often deeply dissatisfied with the performance of their elected leaders, but people in most countries still support most basic democratic institutions and freedoms, added Nancy Bermeo, Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University. RTWT

The global antidemocratic challenge is highlighted in the latest issue of the National Endowment for Democracy’s Journal of Democracy, in which Michael J. Abramowitz and Sarah Repucci report the troubling findings of Freedom House’s survey for 2017.

More and more people in the West are losing faith in democracy. And the younger they are, the worse the trend, the World Economic Forum adds:

Harvard lecturer Yascha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa, a political scientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, have published a study which looks at decades worth of data on attitudes towards democracy, revealing some alarming results.This chart (below), published in the New York Times, shows a systematic decline in the percentage of people who think that it is essential to live in a democracy, depending on what decade they were born in.

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