Disinformation, deepfakes, democracy, data and Russia-Ukraine with Nina Jankowicz

Technology and Security (TS)

In this episode of Technology and Security, Dr Miah Hammond-Errey speaks with Nina Jankowicz, world leading disinformation expert and author. They discuss the necessity of an alliance among democratic nations to address technological challenges, and shape policies that have real impact. They discuss the security threats of disinformation campaigns, highlighting their real-world impact on human behaviour and the role of data in targeted manipulation. Russian disinformation tactics were examined, in the context of events in Ukraine, the treatment of Navalny, and broader global developments. Nina also shared examples of successful strategies used by countries like Estonia and Ukraine in countering disinformation through social policies and media literacy initiatives.

They explore content moderation and censorship equivalence and what it means for social media platforms and safeguarding democracy. The discussion touches on the impact of attention capture on our information environment. Looking ahead, they predict increased interference campaigns in 2024 as well as discuss the role of AI and watermarking, the necessity of improving legal frameworks for online harms, and the importance of transparency and oversight in social media to counter data and information warfare effectively. The conversation includes personal reflections from Nina and insights into the normalisation of misogyny and the alarming rise of deepfake pornography, with strategies to combat its proliferation and potential role for public figures like Taylor Swift in mobilising survivor communities.

Resources mentioned in the recording:

· Nina Jankowicz, How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict (Bloomsbury 2020) https://www.ninajankowicz.com/books

· Nina Jankowicz, How to Be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment and How to Fight Back (Bloomsbury 2022) https://www.ninajankowicz.com/books

· Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless. October 1978.

· Miah Hammond-Errey Big Data, Emerging Technologies and Intelligence: National Security Disrupted (Routledge 2024) (20% discount code for book AFL04)

· Miah Hammond-Errey, 18 December 2023, Did you Tech 2023? A wrap of the year’s tech news, with an Australian flavour, The Mandarin

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Dharawul people, and we pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge their continuing connection to land, sea and community, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Thanks to the talents of those involved. Music by Dr Paul Mac and production by Elliott Brennan.

Transcript: please check against delivery

Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: My guest today is Nina Jankowicz. Nina is a disinformation expert who advocates for those harassed online. She's the vice president of the centre for Information Resilience. In 2022 she served as the executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board in the US Department of Homeland Security. She has authored two fabulous books, How to Lose the Information War and How to Be a Woman Online. Thanks so much for joining me, Nina.

Nina Jankowicz: I'm really excited to be here.

Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: We're coming to you today from the lands of the Dharawal people. We pay our respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, We acknowledge their continuing connection to land, sea, and community and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Nina, you have written extensively about elections and the information environment, and we've both written about the significance of 2024 for elections. 76 countries are holding elections this year, which will see more than half the world's population casting a ballot. What are you most concerned about?

Nina Jankowicz: I think the the thing that makes me most worried is actually the change kind of sea change in how we think about content moderation and trust and safety as we head into this year. back in 2016, 2017, this was a field that didn't really exist yet. since then, we've seen kind of the emergence of the field, the emergence of a lot of cooperation between the public and private sectors to identify and mitigate disinformation that have resulted in some pretty big gains. Right? We've seen, you know, campaigns taken down by the French government, that the Russians were trying to interfere in the 2017 French presidential election. We've seen, the the Iranian interference in 2020 where Iranians were pretending to be Proud Boys in the US election and targeting Democratic voters and swing states, in order to try to suppress their their voter turnout. And all of that was a result of coordination between the public and private sectors, and had less of an effect than it might have otherwise. If, you know, if we didn't have that coordination. And now what we see, especially here in the US, is this equivalence between any content moderation and censorship, while we head into this critical election period, I'm just worried that we're not going to see as much attention, um, that is leading to actual change and mitigation of threats that we saw in previous election cycles. Um, and I'm also worried that we're not going to see as much robust research into this sphere, because in addition to all of that we're also seeing harassment campaigns against individual researchers and their research institutions. And we have a large section of the population, at least here in the United States, that is equating, uh, not only keeping our democracy safe, but keeping people safe online as as censorship.

Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: in your recent Foreign Affairs article, You said, uh, nearly eight years after Russian operatives attempted to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election, US democracy has become even less safe, and the country's information environment more polluted with the freedom of speech of US citizens more at risk. what do you think needs to be done about it?

Nina Jankowicz: I think we're in such an intractable place here in the United States right now where again, we've seen these threats laid out over and over. And yet we've done so little about it. And so I think the first order of business is like, yeah, let's have these hard conversations about what is the proper relationship between government and the social media platforms, what oversight should the social media platforms have? And so what I would like to see is a not even a regulatory regime, but a transparency and oversight regime over the social media platforms. So we understand the decisions that they're making, what they're moderating, why they're moderating it, how much they're responding to user ...