Tag: Prebunking

To Be Updated: USAID is sponsoring YouTube channels

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

How Democracy Can Win: The Right Way to Counter Autocracy

The most important step the United States can take to counter foreign influence campaigns and disinformation is to help our partners promote media and digital literacy, communicate credibly with their publics, and engage in “pre-bunking”—that is, seeking to inoculate their societies against disinformation before it can spread. In Indonesia, for example, USAID has worked with local partners to develop sophisticated online courses and games that help new social media users identify disinformation and reduce the likelihood that they will share misleading posts and articles.

The United States has also helped Ukraine in its fight against the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation. For decades, USAID has worked to enhance the media environment in the country, encouraging reforms that allow greater access to public information and supporting the emergence of strong local media organizations, including the public broadcaster Suspilne. After Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, our work expanded to help the country’s local journalists produce Russian-language programming that could reach into Kremlin-occupied territories, such as Dialogues With Donbas, a YouTube channel that featured honest conversations with Ukrainians about life behind Russian lines. We also helped support the production of the online comedy show Newspalm, which regularly racks up tens of thousands of views as it skewers Putin’s lies. And even before Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, we worked with the government of Ukraine to stand up the Center for Strategic Communications, which uses memes [memetic warfare], well-produced digital videos, and social media and Telegram posts to poke holes in Kremlin propaganda.

I still need to look into Newspalm. I’ll update if I find anything. As I don’t know Ukrainian, or Russian, I’m using Google translate for the following information. Note, this is all speculation!

Speculation:

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Google to expand misinformation ‘prebunking’ in Europe

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Google to expand misinformation ‘prebunking’ in Europe

The tech giant plans to release a series of short videos highlighting the techniques common to many misleading claims. The videos will appear as advertisements on platforms like Facebook, YouTube or TikTok in Germany. A similar campaign in India is also in the works.

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Google will announce its new German campaign Monday ahead of next week’s Munich Security Conference. The timing of the announcement, coming before that annual gathering of international security officials, reflects heightened concerns about the impact of misinformation among both tech companies and government officials.

Perfect timing!

TRUTH COPS: Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks, Freedom of Information Act requests, and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public reports — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.

TRUTH COPS: Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation

Related:

Disrupt The Cognitive Infrastructure

H/T: Unorthodox Truth

Massive Study Involving YouTube Finds ‘Pre-Bunking’ Inoculates People Against Misinfo

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Massive Study Involving YouTube Finds ‘Pre-Bunking’ Inoculates People Against Misinfo

One question that naturally springs to mind is: who gets to determine what counts as a false or “manipulative” narrative? Is it the government? A corporation like Google? A select panel of academic experts? In short: who gets to be the arbiter of this very important epistemological function? And how do you maintain confidence in that arbiter when so much of the misinformation crisis is driven by public distrust in official narratives?

When you look at recent examples of “pre-bunking,” you can see that it hasn’t always gone so smoothly. One of the most prominent instances of “pre-bunking” occurred during the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the State Department controversially announced that Russia was planning to distribute a professionally produced propaganda video that involved pyrotechnics and “crisis actors.” The video would be used to blame Ukraine for terroristic attacks on civilians and would help to justify the invasion, the U.S. said. Unfortunately, not everybody bought what the State Department was selling: an Associated Press reporter expressed incredulity at the claims and blatantly called out the government for spreading “Alex Jones” style bunkum.

Even more problematically, the video never materialized. Was it because America’s “pre-bunking” efforts stopped the Russians from releasing their video? Or was it because the video never existed in the first place? Under the circumstances, it’s impossible to say—and, therefore, it’s also impossible to gauge whether the U.S. was being a good-faith “pre-bunker” or was actually spreading its own disinformation.