Our picksFighting Domestic Violent Extremism | DOD: From Abstraction to Action on Climate Change | Retaliatory Cyberattacks against Russia, and more
· The Disinformation Threat to Diaspora Communities in Encrypted Chat Apps
· Biden Wants to Keep Trump Policy that Boosted Armed Drone Exports - Sources
· Hundreds of Far-Right Militias Are Still Organizing, Recruiting, and Promoting Violence on Facebook
· Big Tech CEOs Face Lawmakers in House Hearing on Social Media’s Role in Extremism, Misinformation
· DHS Weighing Major Changes to Fight Domestic Violent Extremism, Say Officials
· US Heading Anti-Jihadist Intelligence Sharing Operation — Report
· The Base Tapes
· On Google Podcasts, A Buffet of Hate
· How the Defense Department Can Move from Abstraction to Action on Climate Change
· Biden’s Retaliatory Cyberattacks against Russia Are Folly
The Disinformation Threat to Diaspora Communities in Encrypted Chat Apps (Jacob Gursky, Martin J. Riedl, and Samuel Woolley, Brookings)
Amid the deluge of misinformation surrounding last year’s presidential election in the United States, voters across the country encountered persistent false claims online that ballots had been inappropriately “thrown out.” Aimed at undermining confidence in the vote, the “discarded ballot” hoax spread widely across digital media, including in encrypted group chat applications used in diaspora communities.
The spread of disinformation on encrypted messaging applications poses a threat to diaspora communities, who have turned to WhatsApp and other messaging apps for the trust and intimacy they afford. Yet due to their encrypted and closed nature, conventional fact-checking and content moderation regimes are harder to implement. As a result, these platforms have become a promising new avenue for the spread of disinformation, particularly among diaspora communities. Last year in North Carolina, for instance, encrypted messaging applications were used to spread misleading information in a get-out-the-vote campaign targeting South Asian Americans.
Biden Wants to Keep Trump Policy that Boosted Armed Drone Exports – Sources (Mike Stone, Reuters)
The Biden administration wants to keep a controversial Trump policy that jump-started sales of armed drones to countries whose human rights records are under scrutiny in the United States and elsewhere, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
Hundreds of Far-Right Militias Are Still Organizing, Recruiting, and Promoting Violence on Facebook (Christopher Miller, BuzzFeed News)
A new report identified more than 200 militia pages and groups on Facebook as of March 18, more than two months after the insurrection at the Capitol.