Tag: Cipher Brief

‘Historically unique threat to democratic discourse’: Autocrats waging ‘digital war’

     

A digital ecosystem that can “defend and promote democracy” is needed to counter autocrats’ digital warfare, a top EU official said Thursday. Russia and China* are waging a “digital war”… Read more »

‘Distortion, dissembling and digital skulduggery’: Disinformation becoming normalized in elections

     

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think-tank, is warning that ‘disinformation is becoming normalized‘ in elections, adding that it was ‘taken aback’ by the level of deceit in the… Read more »

Countering Truth Decay: Digital tech leaves democracy in ‘permanent flux’

     

Hillary Clinton says she’s “dumbfounded” that the U.K. government has failed to release a report on Russian influence in British politics before the country holds a national election next month…. Read more »

Facebook, Google, Twitter and the ‘Digital Disinformation Mess’

     

With platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, modern-day purveyors of disinformation need only a computer or smartphone and an internet connection to reach a potentially huge audience — openly, anonymously… Read more »

Democracies need ‘new capabilities’ to counter information warfare

     

Democracies need to develop “new capabilities” to counter authoritarians’ information warfare, says a senior U.S. official. “We need to give renewed emphasis to the information environment,” said Andrew Knaggs, deputy… Read more »

Can Saudi Arabia help win ‘Islam’s War of Ideas’?

     

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is in Washington, D.C., March 19-22, the third stop on his first foreign trip as crown prince, notes the Project on Middle East Democracy: Mohammed… Read more »

Democracies need ‘different narrative’ to counter populists and autocrats’ soft power

     

After the Chinese Communist party’s celebratory 19th congress, which ended last week, some observers proclaimed Xi Jinping a new emperor, notes Harvard University’s Joseph Nye: Mr Xi, for his part,… Read more »

Disinformation vs. democracy: how to ‘Shatter The House Of Mirrors’

     

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is engaged in a well-financed and determined campaign to undermine democratic political and social institutions as well as international alliances, and to remove resistance to Russia’s foreign… Read more »

Liberal democracies particularly vulnerable to information warfare

     

The joint Russian-Belarusian military exercise ‘Zapad 2017’ is a form of information warfare, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė told the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “The Kremlin is rehearsing… Read more »