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1. Covid-19 Disinformation & Social Media Manipulation

Author:
Elise Thomas, Albert Zhang, and Jake Wallis
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
ASPI ICPC has investigated a campaign of cross-platform inauthentic activity, conducted by Chinese-speaking actors and broadly in alignment with the political goal of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to denigrate the standing of the US. This appears to be targeted primarily at Western and US-based audiences by artificially boosting legitimate media and social media content in order to amplify divisive or negative narratives about the US. This has included highlighting racial tensions, amplifying criticisms of the US’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, and political and personal scandals linked to President Donald Trump. However, there’s no clear indication of a partisan lean in this campaign. President Trump appears to be criticised in his capacity as a leader of the US rather than as a presidential candidate. This activity has been conducted primarily in English, with a smaller amount of Chinese-language content. It relies on a high degree of automation and appears to have achieved low engagement across both Facebook and Twitter. The divergent tactics used in this campaign suggest that’s unconnected to the state-linked operations studied by ASPI ICPC in Tweeting through the Great Firewall and Retweeting through the Great Firewall. There’s no clear actor—state or non-state—to which attribution can be made from this investigation. It does appear that those behind the campaign commonly type in double-byte fonts used for Asian languages, including Chinese, and that a small number of accounts appear to have been used in an earlier campaign targeting the Falun Gong / Falun Dafa community in the US. This activity is valuable as a case study because it highlights the ways in which social media platforms provide a vector for small-scale actors to engage in covert political influence campaigns targeting citizens and voters in other nations in ways that can complement state-driven propaganda. The investigation offers insights into behavioural patterns that can reveal coordinated inauthentic activity designed to drive influence, even when it is disguised through selective sharing of authentic content by accounts with profiles that offer a veneer of legitimacy
Topic:
Internet, Social Media, COVID-19, and Misinformation
Political Geography:
Australia, North America, and United States of America

2. ID2020, Bill Gates and the Mark of the Beast: how Covid-19 catalyses existing online conspiracy movements

Author:
Elise Thomas and Albert Zhang
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
Against the backdrop of the global Covid-19 pandemic, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has become the subject of a diverse and rapidly expanding universe of conspiracy theories. This report takes a close look at a particular variant of the Gates conspiracy theories, which is referred to here as the ID2020 conspiracy (named after the non-profit ID2020 Alliance, which the conspiracy theorists claim has a role in the narrative), as a case study for examining the dynamics of online conspiracy theories on Covid-19. Like many conspiracy theories, that narrative builds on legitimate concerns, in this case about privacy and surveillance in the context of digital identity systems, and distorts them in extreme and unfounded ways. Among the many conspiracy theories now surrounding Gates, this one is particularly worthy of attention because it highlights the way emergent events catalyse existing online conspiracy substrates. In times of crisis, these digital structures—the online communities, the content, the shaping of recommendation algorithms—serve to channel anxious, uncertain individuals towards conspiratorial beliefs. This report focuses primarily on the role and use of those digital structures in proliferating the ID2020 conspiracy.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Internet, COVID-19, and Misinformation
Political Geography:
Australia and Global Focus

3. Retweeting through the Great Firewall: A persistent and undeterred threat actor

Author:
Jake Wallis, Tom Uren, Elise Thomas, Albert Zhang, Samantha Hoffman, Lin Li, Alex Pascoe, and Danielle Cave
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
This report analyses a persistent, large-scale influence campaign linked to Chinese state actors on Twitter and Facebook. This activity largely targeted Chinese-speaking audiences outside of the Chinese mainland (where Twitter is blocked) with the intention of influencing perceptions on key issues, including the Hong Kong protests, exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and, to a lesser extent Covid-19 and Taiwan. Extrapolating from the takedown dataset, to which we had advanced access, given to us by Twitter, we have identified that this operation continues and has pivoted to try to weaponise the US Government’s response to current domestic protests and create the perception of a moral equivalence with the suppression of protests in Hong Kong.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Internet, Social Media, COVID-19, Misinformation, and Twitter
Political Geography:
China and Asia

4. Covid-19 attracts patriotic troll campaigns in support of China’s geopolitical interests

Author:
Albert Zhang and Elise Thomas
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
This new research highlights the growing significance and impact of Chinese non-state actors on western social media platforms. Across March and April 2020, this loosely coordinated pro-China trolling campaign on Twitter has: Harassed and mimicked western media outlets; Impersonated Taiwanese users in an effort to undermine Taiwan’s position with the World Health Organisation (WHO); Spread false information about the Covid-19 outbreak; Joined in pre-existing inauthentic social media campaigns.
Topic:
World Health Organization, Non State Actors, Geopolitics, Social Media, COVID-19, Misinformation, and Twitter
Political Geography:
China, Taiwan, Asia, and Australia

5. Covid-19 disinformation and social media manipulation trends

Author:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
A range of actors are manipulating the information environment to exploit the Covid-19 crisis for strategic gain. ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre is tracking many of these state and non-state actors online and will occasionally publish investigative data-driven reporting that will focus on the use of disinformation, propaganda, extremist narratives and conspiracy theories. The bulk of ASPI’s data analysis uses our in-house Influence Tracker tool—a machine learning and data analytics capability that draws out insights from multi-language social media datasets. This report includes three case studies that feature China, Taiwan, Russia and Africa
Topic:
Internet, Social Media, COVID-19, and Misinformation
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, China, Taiwan, and Asia

6. Countering Misinformation Via WhatsApp: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic in Zimbabwe

Author:
Jeremy Bowles, Horacio Larreguy, and Shelley Liu
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
We examine how information from trusted social media sources can shape knowledge and behavior when misinformation and mistrust are widespread. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe, we partnered with a trusted civil society organization to randomize the timing of the dissemination of messages aimed at targeting misinformation about the COVID-19 virus to 27,000 newsletter WhatsApp subscribers. We examine how exposure to these messages affects individual beliefs about how to deal with the COVID-19 virus and preventative behavior. The results show that social media messaging from trusted sources may have substantively large effects on not only individual knowledge but also ultimately on related behavior.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Internet, Social Media, Pandemic, COVID-19, Misinformation, and WhatsApp
Political Geography:
Africa and Zimbabwe

7. Beyond evidence versus truthiness: toward a symmetrical approach to knowledge and ignorance in policy studies

Author:
Katharina Paul and Christian Haddad
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP)
Abstract:
Current political developments in established liberal democracies in both Europe and North America have fundamentally called into question the normative relations between truth, knowledge and politics. Whether labeled “posttruth” or truthiness, commentators lament the willful spread and deployment of nonknowledge and ignorance as important political forces. In this paper, we discuss ignorance in its strategic dimension by weaving together insights from the sociology of ignorance with a policy-scientific approach. By means of three empirical vignettes, we demonstrate that ignorance is more than the flipside of knowledge or merely its lack: it is a constitutive feature of the policy process and is thus not uniquely symptomatic of the current era. We conclude by arguing for what we call a symmetrical approach in which ignorance receives the same quality of attention that knowledge has historically received in the policy sciences. To make fully visible the different forms of ignorance that shape policy processes, policy scholars must hone their “agnoto-epistemological sensibilities” to cope with the current challenges and advance a policy science for democracy.
Topic:
Post Truth Politics, Public Policy, Truth, and Misinformation
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, and United States of America