Swell AI Transcript: Disinformation_S2E8.mp3

Paul Brandus Russian President Vladimir Putin in early September at an economic conference, you just heard him say that certain Western nations have been busy destroying the world order. The irony is as thick as it is tragic that the man behind the indiscriminate, vicious and unrelenting bombing of an innocent neighbor accuses others of destruction while he fancies himself as some kind of geopolitical savior.

clip audio So, in fact, a new model of development is emerging, but not according to the golden norms of certain people in the West, but in the interest of our nation.

Paul Brandus Running parallel to what the Kremlin dictator calls openness and cooperation is a campaign to seduce parts of the world to convince them that his path is the proper one. It's a message that has found traction in parts of Africa and elsewhere, but in his own backyard, his false narratives have pushed away most of his neighbors. There's another word for these false narratives, of course, disinformation. I'm Paul Brandes, and that's the name of this award-winning podcast series, Disinformation. As usual, I'll be joined by Meredith Wilson, Chief Executive Officer of Emergent Risk International, a global risk advisory firm, to offer her insights into this crucial topic. We're about halfway through season two of this series, and in this episode and the next two, we're going to focus on possible ways of combating disinformation. There are lots of interesting ideas. You heard Vladimir Putin a minute ago putting his spin on the geopolitical situation in Europe, That two of Russia's neighbors, Finland and Sweden, have now joined NATO, running to its safe embrace after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, is all the evidence you need to show how badly that invasion has backfired. But it would be wrong to say that Putin's overall campaign to advance his global interests has been without success. In prior episodes of this series, we have discussed Russia's footprint in Africa, for example, demonstrative of his belief that the so-called global south is in play. And the war in Ukraine notwithstanding, Putin does have some traction in Eastern Europe, for example, this anti-American rally in Slovakia, which has been a member of NATO for two decades. In fact, as I sat down to record this podcast, voters in Slovakia resurrected the career of former Prime Minister Robert Fitzoh, who will likely get his old job back. FITZO clawed his way back to power by running on an anti-American and pro-Russian campaign of economic and social grievances and a healthy dose of conspiracy theories. Perhaps this might sound familiar to Americans. Don't think Putin is jumping for joy over FITZO. A profile of him in foreign policy notes that, quote, Slovakia is currently one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine in its war against Russia. FITZO would institute a complete 180-degree turn and instead spread Russian propaganda. FITZO's comeback is evidence of democracy on the wane in Slovakia. Last year, the Economist Intelligence Unit called it, quote, a flawed democracy. While it's hard to quantify what impact Russia may have had on this, It's also hard to dismiss the notion that Moscow has somehow not been involved. But there are other factors in play.

Dominika Hajdu DOMINICA HAJDU, Director, Center for Democracy and Resilience at Globesec.

Paul Brandus Globsec is an organization based in Slovakia. And as you just heard, Dominika Hajdu runs its Center for Democracy and Resilience. One problem in Slovakia, in fact, in much of Eastern Europe, she claims, is an overall lack of media literacy and critical thinking skills, weaknesses that can make a population more vulnerable to disinformation. Tell me what media literacy is. What does that mean to you?

Dominika Hajdu It means to be able to consume information in a critical way, so looking at the information that a person sees with context first. being able to see the authorship, being able to see what are the possible manipulation methods being used, being able to see emotions that the context is trying to convey and that the text or information might be exploiting, and also the intent, which is of course important.

Paul Brandus Dominika says, as many people in this field do, that media literacy, like any kind of literacy, can be improved through better education. Some European countries take this issue seriously. Others, she says, have some work to do.

Dominika Hajdu So, from a European perspective, we really see Scandinavian countries doing very well. media literacy, this would be Finland, Estonia, but also Baltic countries like Lithuania, for example, Sweden. And then when it comes to the countries that are not doing that well, this would be countries further east, also where I'm from, so Slovakia, Bulgaria, countries of the Western Balkan region, so Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Paul Brandus Meantime, Emergent Risk International CEO Meredith Wilson says she's not surprised that the Russians have been successful, sometimes, anyway, in parts of Eastern Europe.

Meredith Wilson MEREDITH WILSON, Emergent Risk International CEO, Inc.: : From my vantage point, what I also see is, similar to the phenomenon we see here, you tend to trust what you know more, right? Eastern Europeans and Russians in general grew up with Russian propaganda as their primary mode of information gathering. And so that is more well known to them, almost like a mom and dad would be, you know, it's more well known to them. And thus, they are probably more comfortable trusting that because that's what they know. I remember having a conversation with a friend in Vietnam one time when I was when I was living over there and we were talking about a research project I was working on. And I brought up the issue of the dark side of some of the restaurants and things over there that sometimes operate as fronts for prostitution. And she asked me where I got this information from. And I said, well, it's, you know, it's a large body of research, you know, the World Bank, the UN, you know, academics have published on this. And she said, well, you should use a better source. And I said, well, what kind of source would that be? She said, well, of course, the Vietnamese government. And but, but, but, you know, she was as certain as I was that her source was correct. And this was an extremely educated young lady. But her background, you know, at that point, that was in the early 2000s. And by the, you know, by the, by that time, you know, she was in her 20s. But that's all she'd known growing up was, you know, the Vietnamese government and Vietnamese information.

Paul Brandus So these matters of media literacy, conspiracy theories, critical thinking, and all the rest, what is being done in Europe to push back? That and more after this short break.

ad read This series on disinformation is a co-production of Evergreen Podcasts and Emergent Risk International, a global risk advisory firm. Emergent Risk International. We build intelligent solutions that find opportunities in a world of risk.

Paul Brandus Welcome back. It has always been Vladimir Putin's goal to weaken NATO, to loosen the bonds which have held the North Atlantic Alliance together since 1949. Instead, thanks to his invasion of Ukraine, he has achieved the opposite. The alliance has found a new vitality and reason for being. In addition to key things like upping defense spending and reducing reliance on Moscow for energy, another thing that NATO countries are doing to bolster their collective defense against Putin is by trying to thwart his regime's massive disinformation machine. On the Kaunasiema Ijela, a cobblestone street in Riga, Latvia, once part of the Soviet Union, but since 2004 a member of NATO, you will find something called the NATO Stratcom Center for Excellence. The rationale behind it is an understanding that hostile actors, like the Russians, see information as a weapon, potentially effective in its own way, as missiles, artillery and all the rest are in theirs.

Soenke Niedringhaus Hostile actors try to exploit military conflicts, election processes, and, just recently, a global pandemic for their strategic goals by means of communications.

Paul Brandus Sohnke Niedringhaus, a lieutenant colonel in the German army, is posted at the Stratcom Center.

Soenke Niedringhaus They enforce battles of narratives, information laundering techniques, or robot trolling tactics. To counter those threats, And to account for a shift towards hybrid means of warfare, NATO developed a capability called Strategic Communications, or short STRATCOM. Our role as a center of excellence is to support the further development of this capability, especially in the field of education and training.

Paul Brandus The U.S. and its NATO allies have a mantra, train as you fight and fight as you train. Within the context of information warfare, this means that words, messages, and the ways in which they are communicated and received by both friend and foe can possibly provide an edge. Way back in the very first two episodes of season one of this series, we gave examples of how communications played a role in defeating the Nazis and Japanese in World War II, and how the Soviet Union used its own communication efforts in the never-ending battle for hearts and minds during the Cold War. Moscow's efforts, then as now called, quote, active measures, continue using every high-tech strategy and tool available. At its essence, the Stratcom Center's efforts are an attempt to thwart the Kremlin. A robust messaging strategy, as the Stratcom Center notes, can have a direct impact on the success of NATO operations and policies. Keys to this include leveraging traditional media and the internet to engage with the public to build awareness, understanding and support for its decisions and operations. The Europeans are also trying to thwart Moscow and its disinformation machine in other ways. Starting back in August, 19 so-called Very Large Online Platforms, or VLOPs, were required to take measures to improve their content monitoring and remove things considered illegal. Claudio Lusco, an intelligence analyst for Emerging Risk International, says the European Union is doing this through something called the Digital Services Act or DSA.

Claudio Lusco And what the DSA essentially does in this case, it is holding those the so-called very large online platforms and search engines accountable for detecting and tackling illegal content and disinformation among others on their platforms. Now the VLOGs must establish the necessary mechanisms to do this or else face fines, you know, simple as that.

Paul Brandus Reaction to the DSA and its provisions has been mixed, with everyone from tech companies, civil society organizations, and others weighing in. There are also basic questions that are likely to prove thorny going forward, such as who's to say what's false? Who's the judge? And remember, disinformation can often have a shadowy aspect to it, meaning it can be hard to actually see it. Here's what I mean. That's the old RT, the Kremlin-controlled propagandist TV channel that until a few years ago had fairly wide distribution in the U.S. Not everything RT broadcast was false. For example, in a story, a video, an online post, it could say some things that might have been true, but then subtly mix in one thing that was decidedly not true. That one falsehood mixed in with everything else can make it difficult for folks to discern fact from fiction. This deliberate and, again, subtle tactic can be highly effective. All this content, how much of it is true, how much of it is not? This dynamic is disturbing and, as Meredith Wilson says, speaks to a broader long-term problem.

Meredith Wilson I think the problem we have now is that this flood of literal flood of disinformation means that, first of all, it's going to be hard to find the signal in the noise. It's going to be really hard to find what is true. And the verification process is going to take much longer. Because there is no necessarily traceable path back to where things were sourced for, from at least from what I what I know right now. But the bigger thing is, will people even believe it? Will they believe anything that they read? Will you go out to do research and be like, well, I mean, I can't believe anything anymore, so I'll just make it up. Living in a post-fact world is a scary place to be, as we learned during the pandemic, right? People don't believe anything. And I think we risk that more than anything, is just people drawing their own conclusions. and having no real way to know for sure if what they believe is true or not.

Paul Brandus A post-fact world. Let that sink in. Thanks to Dominika Hajdu of GlobeSec's Center for Democracy and Resilience and Claudio Lusco of Emergent Risk International. Sound from Slovakian TV and the NATO Stratcom Center. Our sound designer and editor, Noah Fouts. Audio engineer, Nathan Corson. Executive producers, Michael D'Eloia and Gerardo Orlando. And on behalf of Meredith Wilson, I'm Paul Brandes. Thanks so much for listening.