Information operationsInformation operations in the digital age

From the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the spread on social media of anti-Rohingya content in Myanmar and the interference with elections the world over, the past decade has seen democracies around the world become the target of a new kind of information operations. Analysts say that Russia’s broad efforts in support of its favored parties and candidates in the recent election to the European parliament provide another example of why action is urgently needed to counter these information operations.

Demos says that so far, governments have frequently failed to prepare for, recognize or respond to these operations effectively. This report aims to change that.

A new report from Demos, Warring songs: Information operations in the digital age, finds that the widely held focus on “fake news” is overblown. Data analysis of content targeting Germany, Italy, and France found the news stories used to be overwhelmingly from reputable sources. Information operations frequently involve tactics not easily fact-checked: the selective amplification of reputable, mainstream media stories to fit an agenda, harassment, abuse, emotional manipulation and poisoning of channels of communication.

A previous report from Demos examined the St. Petersburg’s based Internet Research Agency’s efforts in the United Kingdom. It found that exploiting division after Islamic terrorism proved the central part of Russia’s strategy. The current report’s case studies paint a more mixed picture. However, opposition to migrants and the amplifying of stories related to the number of migrants, and migrants failing to integrate, are present across all the data. This is a phenomenon which has been previously seen in cases of information operations and misinformation in Europe, including in Italy and Germany.

— Read more in Alex Krasodomski-Jones et al., Warring songs: Information operations in the digital age (Demos, May 2019)