Musings from Brussels

Takeaways from DFRLab's #360os

I’m just back from 36 hours in Brussels for the DFRLab’s ‘Contested Realities/Connected Futures Summit’. Inevitably I spent time chewing over the implications and applications for strategic communications professionals.

Over the last couple of years I’ve been asking ‘how can we harness some of the insights available through OSINT to achieve greater narrative impact for progressives?’

As a Digital Sherlock I was also able to attend events downstairs which were more practically focused as well as containing unique insights some of which I draw on here. This mix of the policy and practical worked well for me although if I was on a purely policy diet I’d have been keen for some mixed format/higher engagement sessions.

Happily, I’m as confident as ever there’s a lot to build on when investigating thematic public policy issues as well as the geopolitical ones that dominated the last few days. 

What about platform evolution?

As my train thundered through northern France last night a few random thoughts occurred. I was struck by how little discussion, if any, there was of how digital threats in the information space are likely to evolve as technology and the social media platforms also evolve. It was a genuine thrill to see Ben Nimmo speak after failed attempts to land him as a guest for Government Vs The Robots but his talk on coordinated inauthentic behaviour made no reference to Meta’s strategic intent for the metaverse. Maybe that wasn’t part of the brief but I certainly found myself wondering what risks they have already identified and what steps are being taken to learn from past mistakes. 

For obvious reasons the vast majority of discussions drew on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and broader Russian activities in the information space as a reference point. The number of times I heard people make reference to ‘Russia losing the information war with Ukraine’ made me uncomfortable. For sure, here in the UK this is true - the quality of Ukrainian social media content has been really high - benefitting as Nato’s Janis Sarts said, from the authenticity of ordinary Ukrainian voices. In the wider world the picture is less clear and assuming that perspectives in China, Africa, India and the Middle East don’t matter is short sighted.  

Code for Africa’s Allan Cheboi couldn’t escape the conflict when he was drawn into sharing some fascinating insights into the tactics Russia is using to recruit people into dark social groups on Telegram and WhatsApp in order to share propaganda on the continent. Allan’s session was a credit to the strength of the analysis being produced by Code for Africa and the iLab at ANCIR. The snapshot into the digital footprints and tactics of Raila Odinga and William Ruto will be interesting to look back on when the result of the ballot is known. 

A net gain for democracy?

Further food for thought when it comes to the perceived western fightback in the information space came as part of a fascinating presentation from Amaury Lesplingart as part of the Crossover programme at Check First which is monitoring recommendation algorithms on different platforms. By creating new user profiles and running regular searches for keywords across Belgium, Amaury and the team are building a picture of the outcomes from recommendation algorithms. Their work has revealed that since the YouTube ban of Russia Today the most recommended content on ‘Russia’ comes from China Global Television Network. You can judge for yourself whether this is a net gain for democracy.

Amaury was reluctant to be drawn on how the recommendation algorithms of different platforms appear to function. His argument was that it is nigh-on impossible to properly understand algorithms and that this task is only going to get harder. Of course a perfect, technical understanding is impossible but for those of us interested in how to get accurate information in front of the right audiences this research offers the potential to give a valuable insight into what makes different recommendation algorithms tick. Amaury did divulge that the engagement rates on CGTN videos relating to Russia are uncharacteristically high but he wouldn’t be drawn on comparing algorithms across platforms or what other than engagement might increase the chances of content being suggested to users. For those of us in the game of trying to get accurate information in front of the right audiences, informed speculation about the data algorithms are trained to consider would be really valuable even if it feels uncomfortable. 

Kudos to the team at the Atlantic Council for a slick event with an impressive range of voices on the policy focused panels - the cast list which was a who’s who of practitioners in this space where real attention had obviously been given to diversity of contribution (although if I was a harsh critic I’d say this didn’t always lead to diversity of discussion). 

If Government Vs The Robots was in production right now the questions I would be asking are likely to be focused on the evolution of our information ecosystems. We all know that a sustained regulatory response to information disorder is critical but it will also happen much more slowly than the pace of technological advance allows for. In the gap that emerges so will new forms of threat will appear in our information ecosystems- both to users and to the body politic. We cannot afford to simply suffer and wait whilst the institutions we need to protect us are weakened by the very lack of regulation they are meant to enact.

This community is well-placed to explore and prepare for the new (post?) reality in ways that go beyond policy and neutral observation and I for one am excited about how we might do that. Watch this space.