"Seit dem Terrorangriff der Hamas auf Israel am 7. Oktober 2023 spielen soziale Netzwerke eine bedeutende und vielfach unterschätzte Rolle bei der Verbreitung von Terrorpropaganda, Falschinformationen, Israelhass, Antisemitismus und Verschwörungsnarrativen. Die Bildungsstätte Anne Frank fasst in
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diesem Report, der im Februar 2024 publiziert wurde, die Beobachtungen relevanter Plattformen aus den ersten drei Monaten nach dem Terroranschlag in einer ad-hoc-Analyse zusammen. Der Report legt den Schwerpunkt auf TikTok – das unter Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen beliebteste und reichweitenstärkste Netzwerk– und schildert die drastischen Auswirkungen des TikTok-Konsums auf die politische Meinungsbildung der jungen Zielgruppe." (https://www.bs-anne-frank.de)
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"Disinformation is a form of offensive counterintelligence via deception and neutralization in order to strategically manipulate an audience or create further fractures in existing divisions. Disinformation strategies include leaking, lying, seeding, and smearing. These strategies vary according to
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whether the information conveyed is true or false, and whether the source uses or hides its identity. This study characterizes the strategic relationship between lying and leaking, and the extent true and false sources of disinformation are believed. Additional characterizations include noisy and neutralizing disinformation, the importance of medium versus message, echo chambers, and the half-life of secrets." (Abstract)
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"Between 2015 and 2017, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) – a Kremlin-backed “troll farm” based in St. Petersburg – executed a propaganda campaign on Twitter to target US voters. Scholarship has expended relatively little effort to study the role of Islamophobia in the IRA’s propaganda ca
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mpaign. Following critical disinformation research, this article demonstrates that Islamophobia, affect, and white identity played a crucial role in the IRA’s targeting of rightwing US voters. With an official release of tweets and associated visual content from Twitter, we use topic modeling and visual analysis to explore both how, and to what extent, the IRA used Islamophobia in its propaganda. To do so, we develop a multimodal distant reading technique to study how the IRA aligned users with contemporary far right social movements by deploying racial and emotional appeals that center on narrating a transnational white identity under threat from Islam and Muslims." (Abstract)
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"Online personal messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are now hugely popular around the world. Yet their role in the spread and social correction of misinformation remains under-researched. We carried out in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the UK public (N = 102) to exp
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lore how social relationships and technological design interact and foster norms regulating how people respond when their everyday social ties share misinformation on these platforms. Conceptualizing messaging as hybrid public-interpersonal communication, we develop a framework that situates online political talk in the context of everyday social interaction. We show that, among our participants, a norm of conflict avoidance is particularly powerful on these platforms and makes people reluctant to speak out. Conflict avoidance should therefore be taken seriously as a contributor to the diffusion of misinformation in everyday life. Policymakers and other stakeholders, including news organizations, should explore new, tailored ways to empower citizens to challenge misinformation in these important online spaces, where automated and algorithmic interventions are impossible." (Abstract)
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"Recent technological developments have raised concerns about threats to democracy because of their potential to distort election outcomes: (a) data-driven voter research enabling political microtargeting and (b) growing news consumption via social media and news aggregators that obfuscate the origi
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n of news items, leading to voters’ unawareness about a news sender’s identity. We provide a theoretical framework in which we can analyze the effects that microtargeting by political interest groups and unawareness have on election outcomes in comparison to “conventional” news reporting. We show which voter groups suffer from which technological development (a) or (b). While both microtargeting and unawareness have negative effects on voter welfare, we show that only unawareness can flip an election. Our model framework allows the theory-based discussion of policy proposals, such as to ban microtargeting or to require news platforms to signal the political orientation of a news item’s originator." (Abstract)
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"The use of the Internet to access news has an impact on African citizens’ perceptions of democracy. Using repeated cross-sectional data from the Afrobarometer survey across 35 African countries over the period 2011–2018, along with an instrumental variable approach, allows addressing potential
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endogeneity bias between Internet use and citizens’ perceptions. The results indicate that using the Internet to obtain information has a significant negative effect on both the preference for and the perception of the extent of democracy. This negative effect is due to several factors. First, Internet use erodes trust in government institutions, mainly in the parliament and the ruling party. It increases the perception that parliament members are involved in corruption. In addition, the erosion of trust is correlated with more political mobilization, in the form of greater participation in demonstrations and voting. These results echo the existing literature and, in particular, hint at the risks of reversal of nascent democratization processes. Finally, the Internet seems to act as a misinformation channel. On the one hand, Internet users’ perception of the extent of democracy and perception of the corruption of legislators diverge from experts’ assessments. On the other hand, Internet use increases the likelihood of inconsistency in respondents’ stances on their preference for democracy. The Internet is not a neutral information channel: it tends to undermine citizens’ preference for democracy while also altering perceptions about political institutions." (Abstract)
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"This study observes content-related indicators of the editorial decisions made by factcheckers during the 2022 Brazilian run-off election. Specifically, it aims to investigate factcheckers’ outputs regarding verification genres, scrutinized actors, types of verified falsehoods, and inspected plat
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forms. The focus on Brazil stems from its reputation as a disinformation hub, owing to social polarization, populist communication, high social media use, low media trust, and intense WhatsApp penetration. Consequently, factchecking agencies have proliferated within Brazil’s media landscape. To provide some hints about the fact-checkers’ editorial choices, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of verification articles (n = 349) published during the second round of the presidential election by four leading fact-checking organizations: Lupa and Aos Fatos (independents), Estadão Verifica (press), and AFP Checamos (global news agency). The results reveal a prioritization of combating online falsehoods (82.2%) spread by anonymous sources, as opposed to verifying public figures’ statements (5.5%), a trend already observed in other media systems. Although Meta’s social networks and Twitter are primarily monitored, other platforms such as TikTok, Kwai, and Telegram are increasingly gaining fact-checkers’ attention. Fact-checkers predominantly scrutinized anonymous disinformation agents. Moreover, they primarily debunked falsehoods targeting the opposition, legacy media, social networking companies, and the Supreme Electoral Court. Despite the anonymity, 77.4% of the verified falsehoods were found to be beneficial to Bolsonaro, while 12% were advantageous to Lula da Silva." (Abstract)
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"This article investigates the production culture and routines of “troll farms” in three Arab countries—Tunisia, Egypt, and Iraq—from a production studies approach. A production studies approach enables us to focus on the working conditions of paid trolls. We employed qualitative methods to
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look inside the “black box” of Arab troll farms. From February to April 2020, we conducted semi-structured interviews with eight disinformation workers at both managerial and staff levels. We propose to understand disinformation work as a specific type of digital labor, characterized by very intense shifts and emotionally burdensome daily tasks, absence of legal job contracts, and highly surveilled work environments. The article contributes to understand disinformation practices outside and beyond the West; it situates disinformation activities within the broader context of digital media industries; it provides a detailed analysis of the features that distinguish troll farms in the Arab world from those that emerged in other regions of the Global South; and it reconnects the research on disinformation to digital labor studies." (Abstract)
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"Digital technology has revolutionized how political ads are delivered and consumed, giving political campaigns increased possibilities to target and tailor their messaging to specific audiences—a practice known as political microtargeting (PMT). While PMT has potential benefits for society, it al
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so entails significant risks that have yet to be adequately addressed by regulators around the globe. This report offers fundamental guidance on PMT for policymakers, civil society, and other relevant stakeholders, providing recommendations for action and an overview of possible protective measures. Public discourse has so far mostly focused on PMT cases in the Global North, such as US elections or Brexit, whereas the practice is becoming increasingly adopted worldwide. In lower-income countries, the impact of PMT may be felt even more strongly due to context-specific factors such as lower levels of digital skills and media literacy, higher prevalence of political violence, weaker or non-existent legal and regulatory frameworks, and less resilient democratic institutions. This report contributes to balancing the global coverage by focusing on cases and examples from the Global South. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have added to the urgency of investigating PMT, as they amplify the capabilities of targeted messaging and intensify the risk of online disinformation though automated generation and manipulation of content." (Executive summary, page 5)
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"This policy paper provides an overview of Russian information warfare in the Middle East. It includes a brief overview of Russian information warfare methods and Russian foreign policy in the Middle East. It then delves into Russian information warfare in the Middle East, evaluates its effectivenes
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s and differentiates Russia’s strategy towards Israel and the Arab states. The report ends with a list of recommendations that any state and organization can adopt to fight disinformation and Russian information warfare in particular. The paper focuses on a very recent time frame, especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. To ensure a comprehensive report, a wide variety of sources was used: academic research, think tank reports, military intelligence reports, news articles and interviews with topic experts. It includes many real examples (screenshots) of Russian content." (Executive summary)
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"This report draws on insights from the workshop, along with recent academic and journalistic publishing. It highlights three major issues: How generative AI can make disinformation campaigns faster, more targeted, and more persuasive. How newsrooms’ adoption of AI tools can lead to inaccuracies a
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nd other risks. How AI may threaten the viability of professional journalism, including through automation and content generation that replaces human journalists. In response, journalists are developing investigative practices to expose disinformation campaigns, experimenting with AI tools to make their own work more efficient, and developing ethical guidelines and labour protections to defend professional journalism. Likewise, the news industry, policymakers, and platforms are considering responses that range from workforce training to newsroom innovation to new professional guidelines to AI regulation. Through this report, CSDI hopes to contribute to important public conversations about the impact of new technologies on journalism and our information environments. Ultimately, the responses developed by journalists, policymakers, technologists, and citizens will shape our efforts to understand the world and act as democratic citizens." (Abstract)
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