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connecting convo ben bret 01 — Transcript

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0:00thank you for joining us for this
0:01disinformation misinformation and fake
0:04news teachout
0:05my name is benjamin morse and i'm with
0:07the center for academic innovation at
0:08the university of michigan
0:10and one of the members that designed
0:12this this teachout
0:13i will be moderating this connecting
0:15conversation today between ben nemo
0:17and brett shaffer two of our teachout
0:20experts and
0:21the connecting conversations are really
0:23designed to incorporate both
0:24your insights and questions as learners
0:27into the experience
0:28and create a unique opportunity for our
0:30guest experts to engage with each other
0:33so over the next 15 to 20 minutes we're
0:35going to talk through some of the
0:36connections that you
0:38and our other learners have made between
0:40the various videos that ben and brett
0:42had created for this teach out
0:44so ben and brett would you mind just
0:46reintroducing yourselves for our
0:47teachout learners starting with
0:49with you ben thank you i'm ben nimmo i'm
0:52the director of
0:54investigations at graphica which is a
0:56new york social media analytics company
0:59and i specialize in studying large-scale
1:02fake and online disinformation activity
1:06and i'm brett shafer i'm the media and
1:08digital disinformation fellow at the
1:09alliance for
1:10securing democracy which is a think tank
1:12in dc
1:13and i primarily look at state-backed
1:16information operations on social media
1:20wonderful well it's a pleasure to have
1:22both of you rejoin us for this
1:23conversation so
1:25just to jump right into it as we were
1:27going through the discussion forums and
1:29the teach out
1:30learners were commenting on how much uh
1:32brett's uh
1:33information laundering scenario matched
1:35up with different sections of ben's 4d
1:37model so what do both of you think about
1:40that
1:41uh does information laundering align
1:43with one of the four d's can you unpack
1:45us
1:45unpack that for us a little bit i would
1:48say i i look at them as being very
1:49different i'll let ben obviously cover
1:51the 4d since he created them
1:53but uh you know the information
1:55laundering is really about
1:56distribution where the four d's are more
1:59about the messaging
2:01itself so there's also another
2:03difference in that the four ds
2:05can happen kind of in the overt space or
2:07the covert space
2:08but i think you know many of the
2:09examples that that ben gave when he
2:11wrote that
2:12came from russian embassies around the
2:14world and from
2:15rt and sputnik when you look at
2:17information laundering that's usually
2:18something that's happening more in the
2:19covert space so that's effort
2:21to conceal a connection to a piece of
2:24information
2:25so for example uh when they hacked the
2:27podesta
2:28emails and wanted to leak those online
2:30they couldn't do that through rt and
2:31sputnik because they didn't want their
2:32fingerprints on it
2:33so they had to go through the process of
2:36getting that information
2:37into the information ecosystem and then
2:39moving it around so eventually
2:41it was picked up by you know major
2:43western
2:44media outlets obviously state back
2:46outlets have had a role in that and they
2:48continue to kind of
2:49give a little oxygen to it but uh you
2:51know i look at the two things
2:52as being quite different um although
2:55you know they obviously work in some
2:56ways in parallel but i guess the main
2:58difference is one is about distribution
3:00and one is about
3:01uh the messaging itself yeah i
3:04completely agree with that the
3:07the reason i developed the 4ds in the
3:08first place was as a predictive model
3:11but the question i was trying to answer
3:12is what are they going to say next um
3:14when i was
3:15developing the model that they in
3:16question was was the russian state
3:18because i developed it shortly after the
3:20annexation of crimea
3:22um one of the things which has come out
3:24with with studies since then is how many
3:26different actors
3:27use the same kind of model and use the
3:28same kind of pattern but the idea of the
3:31four d's is it's really answering the
3:32question
3:34what is the threat actor going to try
3:35and say um whereas with
3:37with um brett's study on on information
3:39laundering it's much more about
3:41how are they going to try and get it in
3:42front of people without people realizing
3:45that this is actually a model from from
3:47a hostile state
3:48and there are various ways that that can
3:50be done um and to be in money laundering
3:52itself is a a useful parallel to look at
3:55i also love the idea of smurfs we have
3:57trolls and we have bots but we don't yet
3:58have smurfs in the disinformation
4:00space so i think we need to develop the
4:01smurf model of this info
4:03because anything which makes it more
4:05light-hearted at this point is a good
4:06thing
4:07but with um with the way the message
4:10spreads you're looking at a
4:11at a a different problem set and it
4:13really is as brett said
4:15from the point of view of the state
4:16actor how do you get your messaging in
4:18front of somebody
4:19without them realizing that it's coming
4:21from you so that's much more about
4:23obfuscation it's about disguise it's
4:25about using
4:26various different degrees of cutouts
4:28sometimes it's really clumsy i mean
4:30there was a there was an iranian
4:31operation called iuvm
4:33the international union union for
4:34virtual media which would basically take
4:37official iranian government statements
4:40it would take pronouncements from the
4:41ayatollahs
4:42website it would take stories from the
4:44official iranian state media
4:46and then launder them through a series
4:48of websites but but the content was
4:49verbatim
4:50what you were getting was more iranian
4:51government messaging just with the
4:52iranian government label removed
4:55it's really crude what we've seen in
4:58particularly the um
4:59the more disruptive russian operations
5:01it's not so much about landing
5:03russian information in front of you as
5:06disruptive or divisive
5:08information more generally so there are
5:10there are degrees to which
5:11the the distribution is is covert
5:15but ultimately the 4ds are about what
5:17they're going to say
5:19information laundering is much more
5:20about how are they then going to try and
5:21land it in front of the audience
5:24yeah and thank you for both of those
5:26answers i think that
5:27uh you know that provides a lot of of
5:30context and a really strong foundation
5:32for folks to start making sense of this
5:34space
5:34and how information flows and how
5:37certain actors
5:38you know actively and intentionally
5:39create these campaigns
5:41one of the pieces that we saw come
5:43through in the discussion forums
5:45is learners relaying personal
5:46difficulties with helping
5:48friends family colleagues interpret
5:51misinformation
5:52disinformation and fake news so thinking
5:55of kind of the
5:56the individual and what their role is in
5:59this what advice or thoughts do you have
6:01on how
6:01those people can encourage their
6:03personal circles to be more information
6:05literate
6:07that's one of the really tricky problem
6:10sets because you're
6:11at that point you're not just dealing
6:12with information you're dealing with
6:13emotion
6:14you're dealing with individuals who
6:16might have a particular reason for
6:17wanting to believe something
6:19and something we see a lot with
6:20disinformation campaigns is they try and
6:22leverage people's emotions they try and
6:24make people angry or they try and make
6:25them afraid
6:26because when somebody's angry or afraid
6:28they're much less able to
6:30analyze something rationally and they're
6:31much easier to manipulate
6:33and so when you're dealing with somebody
6:35who's already if you like ingest a piece
6:37of disinformation it's
6:39believing it's true the first thing you
6:41really need to do if it's particularly
6:43if it's somebody close to you is
6:44actually listen
6:45and ask them well why do you think that
6:47why do you believe that
6:49did this come to you in an unknown email
6:52chain or was it a whatsapp group did you
6:54find it on
6:55on facebook how did this get to you why
6:57do you believe it why do you think it's
6:58true
6:59and as you drill in you might find that
7:00actually they want to believe that
7:03because it answers something else
7:04they're worried about
7:05and and added to that you have the the
7:08the human feature none of us likes to be
7:09told we're wrong
7:11none of us likes to be told that we've
7:12been fooled particularly if it's fooled
7:13by a foreign information operation
7:16and so if you just tell somebody hey
7:18you're an idiot you fell for that one
7:20you're probably not actually going to
7:21engage their sympathy so you need to
7:23find a way of
7:26getting them to understand what's
7:28happened without making them feel like
7:30they've been a fool as soon as you tell
7:32somebody you're an idiot
7:33or you you've just got it wrong you need
7:36to be able to
7:38soften the blow somehow again
7:39particularly if it's somebody who's
7:40close to you
7:41because otherwise what you'll do is they
7:43they will hunker down they will think
7:44actually no i'm going to prove that i'm
7:45right and they'll
7:46they'll become their own amplifier of
7:48the disinformation and so so much of
7:50what you have to do is actually start by
7:51listening
7:53rather than saying straight out that's a
7:54full story that came from the russian
7:55troll farm
7:57start by asking how did you get there
7:59where did you find that how did it come
8:01to you
8:02why do you think it's true when all this
8:05evidence over here says it's not
8:06why do you believe it what's happening
8:08and it's it's it's slow and it's
8:10painstaking we've not yet found a way to
8:12reproduce it at scale
8:14which is a big challenge but the
8:16question is how do you engage with the
8:18human being
8:20who is trying to in digest that piece of
8:22information
8:23not just engaging with the information
8:25itself
8:27yeah i mean you know what ben was
8:28outlining is the the backfire effect
8:31if you tell someone they're wrong
8:32particularly in a way that
8:34uh causes them to become defensive you
8:36you often will harden their beliefs so i
8:38think the advantage you have it is
8:39someone
8:40you know um particularly you know
8:42someone who presumably trusts you
8:45you can have that conversation you know
8:47offline or at least in a sort of private
8:49chat in a way that doesn't have to
8:51publicly embarrass them
8:52so if you're going to have that
8:54conversation a i'd recommend
8:55not doing it in sort of a public feed
8:57where this is going to play out in a
8:59sort of tit-for-tat kind of way
9:01you know ping them offline and say hey
9:03you know i saw you post this
9:05just you know fyi you know i came across
9:09this piece of information questioning
9:11that i mean you know it's all about the
9:12context and understanding who the person
9:14is and
9:15you know if it is someone who generally
9:17you don't think is prone to believing in
9:20sort of conspiracy theories but
9:21seems to be promoting one um and if by
9:24presenting the facts you think that
9:26would be effective
9:26and kind of changing their mind then
9:28that would be an approach but ben is
9:30right that like
9:31the first step is is always listening i
9:33mean that when we talk about public
9:34diplomacy you know that's always sort of
9:37the
9:37the top of the chart is listening and
9:39kind of understanding where people are
9:40coming from
9:41and then the other thing you you need to
9:42be cautious of is you know sort of
9:44another thing the
9:45streisand effect so if you are kind of
9:49calling more attention to something
9:51getting into a public fight and public
9:53debate
9:54uh you know on your kind of facebook
9:56feed more people from your community are
9:58going to start paying attention
10:00to this you know rumor or piece of
10:02misinformation or disinformation so i
10:04guess the number one kind of strategy i
10:05would
10:06take it offline or at least take it into
10:08a private chat where it doesn't play out
10:09in any kind of public forum because it's
10:11unhelpful in many different ways
10:15that's that's incredibly helpful i think
10:16that we can all listen a little bit more
10:19these days and i think take
10:20take a moment to step back and recognize
10:22our our own backgrounds our own
10:24personal biases that we bring into any
10:26of those situations so
10:27that's incredibly helpful um zooming out
10:30to a much
10:32higher level in this topic um you know
10:35there's there's been a great deal of
10:37discussion within the connecting
10:38conversations forum specifically
10:41about the spread of disinformation uh
10:43specifically about how
10:44it can take on a life that's of its own
10:47and how it moves across these different
10:49platforms that we see and how we even
10:51see
10:51it getting picked up in uh you know
10:54legislative
10:55uh events and like actually turning into
10:58law
10:58in some instances uh so you know how do
11:01you think we can avoid allowing these
11:03pieces of information to take on lives
11:05of their own
11:06as they disseminate throughout our
11:07communities well
11:09ben's work at grafica uh you know he'd
11:11probably be best positioned
11:13to answer this at the sort of network
11:14level but i would say that the strategy
11:16of people running disinformation
11:18campaigns is to get that piece of
11:19disinformation to take on a life of its
11:21own
11:22um so it's very much kind of built in
11:25to what they're trying to do is to get
11:27real people to pick it up and run with
11:29it because
11:30you know that's where people start
11:32really kind of believing in a conspiracy
11:34is when their friends and their
11:36neighbors start talking about it if a
11:37bunch of russian trolls and bots were
11:39just talking to each other
11:40and it closed kind of ecosystem it
11:42wouldn't matter so there
11:43there is an intentional effort to try to
11:45reach people particularly influencers
11:47some members of the media
11:49celebrities politicians because once you
11:52get one of those
11:53genuine domestic voices to kind of pick
11:56up and run with that narrative
11:57the work of the original kind of
11:59disinformation agent for lack of a
12:00better term is done
12:01because now the wildfire has started
12:04spreading
12:05and the information ecosystem will just
12:07do the work for them
12:09that's right and and really the first
12:11rule is don't be a spreader yourself
12:14there's never a good reason for publicly
12:16sharing a piece of disinformation even
12:18if you found it and you thought hey look
12:19this one is really wacky
12:21everybody have a look at this one
12:22because it's really funny don't share it
12:25because somebody somewhere is going to
12:26fall for it and and something we've seen
12:29with many different operations from many
12:31different actors is that they will try
12:32and land it in front of journalists or
12:34celebrities or politicians or amplifiers
12:37who will then do the work for them and
12:39you know we know that the russian troll
12:40farm in 2016 was particularly good at
12:42getting itself picked up by the
12:44mainstream press for example
12:46we know that in 2019 operation secondary
12:49infection tried really hard to land a
12:50bunch of
12:51us uk trade leagues in front of
12:54opposition politicians in the uk just
12:56before the election
12:57because that was where they were wanting
12:58to get the amplification done
13:00so the first rule is really don't be a
13:02spreader
13:03if you see a piece that you think is a
13:05fake don't just start shouting it from
13:07the rooftops
13:08think hard about how you might engage
13:10with this and then that comes back to
13:12the engagement point do you then
13:14contact the the source offline if you
13:16know who they are if it's something that
13:18you're seeing publicly it's more
13:20difficult
13:21you might want to think of if there's a
13:23if there's a debunk out there already
13:25attach that to the conversation you'd
13:27run the risk of the blowback effect from
13:29the backfire effect effect from the
13:31person whom you're debunking
13:33but if you're attaching that into the
13:35conversation itself
13:36at least you're getting it marked as
13:38here is something where there is another
13:39point of view
13:41but it's really about but you know the
13:42first step is watch out for
13:45being targeted yourself and it
13:46particularly applies to journalists
13:48celebrities politicians they are high
13:51value amplifiers
13:53that information operations we know
13:55directly target we've seen
13:57too many cases of this where an
13:58operation will at mention a politician
14:01on twitter or they'll
14:02email them or they'll try and reach out
14:03to a celebrity to try and get celebrity
14:05endorsement and there's a reason
14:06celebrity endorsement is a thing
14:09but if you think as a celebrity if
14:10you're endorsing what turns out to be a
14:11piece of
14:12disinformation you've spread it far
14:15further through the ecosystem
14:17so the first step is really don't be a
14:20spreader
14:20and then when you beyond that step again
14:24think about how you can engage with the
14:25people who are spreading it in a way
14:27which is not going to explode in your
14:28face try and find a way to insert
14:32a more accurate portrayal of events into
14:34the story
14:35that's really helpful so kind of a
14:37follow-up thinking about the evolution
14:39that we're that we're kind of
14:41experiencing right now so we're less
14:42than 50 days away
14:44from the u.s presidential election among
14:46other major elections here in the u.s
14:49how have we seen tactics change and how
14:52have we seen
14:53the role of say social media platforms
14:55for example change
14:57as we lead up to this this election
15:00what we've seen is particularly if you
15:02compare it with 2016
15:05there's been a fairly fundamental change
15:07in
15:08the environment that we're operating in
15:10i mean i think
15:12brett will will share my pained feelings
15:15of 2016 when there were a few of us out
15:17there who were raising the alarm of what
15:18was going on and
15:19and there just didn't seem to be
15:21awareness that this was a thing
15:23in 2020 we have much more awareness by
15:26the media by the research community by
15:27the platforms
15:29as to what's going on or what what the
15:31potential dangers are
15:33and you've got much more attempt by all
15:35the different parts of the community
15:37to catch this stuff early and and get it
15:39dealt with and there was a very good
15:41example a couple of weeks back where
15:43the fbi tipped off various platforms
15:45including facebook twitter and linkedin
15:47that they had found hostile state
15:50activity on the platform
15:52you then had all the different platforms
15:53reacted to it relatively quickly
15:56by early september you had the
15:57announcement of the takedowns it was
15:58attributed to
15:59people who used to be associated with
16:01the internet research agency in russia
16:03there was some very very strong
16:06reporting
16:08very thoughtful reporting by the
16:10mainstream media on here's how this
16:11operation worked
16:12and you you had a body of journalists
16:16who were actually willing to ask the
16:17questions like
16:18so how is this different from the last
16:19takedown what was the impact like
16:22it wasn't a sense of the reporting where
16:24people were saying oh my god it's the
16:25russians again it was
16:27okay interesting it's the russians again
16:30what's happening this time how is it
16:31different so you've got a much more
16:34experienced and if you like educated
16:38body of reporters there's much more
16:40research going into this um the
16:42platforms are certainly double down on
16:43trying to find this kind of thing law
16:44enforcement was double down on this kind
16:46of thing
16:46so so if you like the defensive game is
16:48much stronger than it was
16:50and what we've seen is that the
16:51operations they haven't given up they
16:52haven't gone away
16:54um but they're having to find the gaps
16:56that they can work through
16:57so just as an example back in 2016
17:01the most effective of the russian troll
17:02farm's twitter accounts tennessee gop
17:05was registered to a russian mobile phone
17:06number but it claimed to be the twitter
17:08account of the republican party in
17:10tennessee
17:11and somehow it survived well into 2017.
17:14you look back on it and just think
17:15how did that happen it happened back
17:18then i think it's fair to say that a
17:19signal like that
17:21this year would be a pretty bitter big
17:22red flag right away
17:24so what we've seen is that the
17:26operations are trying harder
17:29they're creating smaller groups of
17:30personas that they're trying to make a
17:32bit more believable
17:33they're creating the same persona on
17:34multiple platforms so in the latest
17:36takedown
17:38they were running fake personas which
17:41claimed to be journalists but they had
17:43their bios on a website they had their
17:44own facebook accounts they had their own
17:46twitter accounts they were on linkedin
17:48they were trying to create these more
17:49believable coherent personalities
17:52but the challenge for an information
17:54operation is twofold one if you're doing
17:55that you're putting a lot of investment
17:57into each asset
17:58which means you don't have the time to
17:59create so many assets
18:01and two is that if you send up one full
18:04signal actually when you get caught
18:05you've lost a lot of value if you spent
18:07months building up one persona
18:09and you lose it it's not just a question
18:11of creating one fake account and
18:13starting again
18:14you've got to start back at the
18:15beginning and start building that
18:16account again
18:17so what we've seen is
18:21the let's say the more sophisticated
18:23operations
18:25are putting in more and more obfuscation
18:26levels but what that means is that
18:29they're going to grow more slowly they
18:32have to work harder to get the same
18:33amount of impact
18:34and the critical thing is we're now less
18:36than two months out from the election
18:38if they've just been taken down they're
18:40going to really struggle to build
18:42up a significant operation in the next
18:44six weeks
18:45and get it back up to scale and really
18:47that that's one of the key things if you
18:49think about
18:50the difference between the ira and 2016
18:52and the latest ira takedown now
18:55the 2016 ira was taken down the
18:57september after the election
18:59the latest bunch were taken down the
19:00september before the election
19:02and that makes a really important
19:03difference as to what they can achieve
19:05around the election itself
19:07yeah i mean i would agree with ben that
19:09our defenses are certainly
19:10much much better now um but i think the
19:13difference that ben also kind of laid
19:15out is in 2016 and even through 2017 we
19:18were seeing this sort of carpet bombing
19:20approach
19:20where now we're looking at really these
19:22sort of surgical strikes
19:24and you know my fear is some of the
19:26surgical strikes can still be
19:27quite impactful particularly if you're
19:28talking about a hack and leak
19:30kind of operation i think it's almost
19:32impossible that we'll see
19:33a kind of recreation of the tennessee
19:36gop account just because it wouldn't be
19:38able to stay up
19:39long enough to gain that amount of
19:41followers and and you know when we also
19:43talk about the like
19:44massive amounts of accounts that were
19:46pretending to be black activists
19:48for example i think it'd be very
19:50difficult to carry that out now
19:52but for an account to come online uh and
19:55to at least start the
19:56fire of spreading um something around
19:58hacked or leaked information that that
20:00can certainly still happen
20:01and i get you know if i'm also being a
20:03bit pessimistic i think
20:05the place that we're in now where it's
20:07different from 2016 2016 we really were
20:09only concerned about the russians
20:11um you know a few other players maybe
20:14now
20:15um the sort of threat landscape has
20:17exploded
20:18so you know just yesterday i think there
20:20was news about
20:22some of the takedowns around a um you
20:24know trump-connected kind of youth
20:26organization that was doing some of the
20:27stuff that's quite similar to
20:29sort of russian troll farm kind of
20:31activity so we're seeing both on the
20:32left and right of the political spectrum
20:34but we're also seeing
20:35other nation states get involved we're
20:37now seeing these sort of disinformation
20:38as a service
20:39companies pop up everywhere both in the
20:42u.s but also overseas who will run these
20:44kind of operations for you if you have a
20:45little bit of money
20:47so our defenses have definitely gotten
20:49way way better
20:50um obviously the bad actors will sort of
20:52adapt what they're doing to try to work
20:54around that
20:55but i guess the thing that makes me uh
20:57concerned this time around
20:59is that just there's a lot more
21:01disinformation
21:02players out there in the space so it's
21:04just kind of harder to police the entire
21:06world
21:08and and on top of that the you know the
21:10danger that brett says about hack and
21:11leak
21:12that's the one that's hardest to deal
21:14with um particularly if the documents
21:16are genuine
21:17and they're out there somebody is going
21:19to argue that there's a public interest
21:21in having these documents known
21:23and and particularly in in
21:27a situation as polarized as the united
21:29states is right now
21:31if you have a hack and leak operation
21:32which makes one side that makes one
21:34party look bad
21:37the temptation for the other party to
21:38jump on it and say we don't care where
21:40it came from it's important it's going
21:42to be
21:42huge and so that's an open door for a
21:45hack and leak operation to jump into
21:47and and the problem is that that's not
21:49something that you can
21:51you know you can't drop it on guys like
21:52brett and me you can't drop it on the
21:53platforms and just say
21:54hey prove that this is fake and make it
21:56go away if they're real documents then
21:58sure we will do the research to say how
22:00did they get online in the first place
22:01who spread them what's the amplification
22:03pattern can we trace this back
22:05to a known operator but ultimately it
22:08goes
22:09far beyond that you need to ask the
22:10mainstream media how are you going to
22:12handle this
22:13are you just going to report what's in
22:15the leaks or actually are you actually
22:16going to try and report
22:17where did they come from was this hacked
22:20if it was hacked was it hacked by a
22:21hostile state
22:23there's a lot of broader conversation
22:26needs to go on which touches the
22:28media and it touches the campaigns as
22:29well so that's a much harder one to
22:32manage
22:33and in such a polarized environment
22:37i think the threat actors know that you
22:39have a constituency there which are
22:41really going to have an interest in
22:42spreading the story for you so coming
22:44back to the idea of
22:45of you know a story taking on a life of
22:48its own
22:49hack and leak is absolutely one of the
22:50big dangers in that front
22:53it also goes to a loophole in how the
22:55platforms are defending themselves
22:57against hack and leak operation so both
22:59twitter and facebook has
23:00have said if stolen uh material
23:03is posted to their platform they will
23:05take it down but that's
23:07very limited what that means essentially
23:09is if an account on twitter
23:11is the first place where a bunch of
23:13hacked emails show up
23:15they will take that down but if a media
23:18organization
23:19reports on hacked material that first
23:21appears elsewhere
23:23then it stays up and i understand that
23:25honestly from a facebook and twitter
23:26perspective i mean if there is
23:28hacked material public interest and the
23:30new york times covers it we can't expect
23:31facebook to start
23:33scrubbing the new york times reporting
23:35on it but of course i think bad actors
23:37has been
23:38alluded to kind of understand this and
23:39will leak it to the party
23:41that is going to benefit from that
23:42information and as soon as that party
23:45who party or parties who are genuine
23:48people or genuine news outlets
23:50report on it post about it then the the
23:53platform's hands are kind of tied
23:55in terms of what they can do about it so
23:57the hack and leak
23:58kind of operation is what i'm most
24:00concerned about because i just don't see
24:04i don't see a great defense for it right
24:06now because it's been
24:07mentioned again it pulls in a lot of
24:09different elements and how you know the
24:10media reports on it how it's covered
24:13more broadly so it's just not a simple
24:16thing
24:16to deal with thank you so much for that
24:19that inside both of you my last question
24:22here is relatively open-ended so
24:24uh you know as as everyone is you know
24:26continuing to go through this teach-out
24:29are there any other thoughts that you'd
24:30like to share given the moment that
24:32we're all collectively living through
24:35i was gonna let you take that first ben
24:38i have a chance to think about that
24:41uh yeah i mean so
24:45for me the biggest thing is ultimately
24:49whatever comes up keep calm and look at
24:52the evidence
24:53so much of disinformation so many
24:55information operations are designed to
24:57trigger people
24:57they're designed to make people afraid
24:59they're designed to make them angry
25:01they want you to click on that button
25:02quickly and share it and as soon as
25:04we're in that dynamic
25:05when people start panicking then there's
25:08so much dis info that can slip through
25:09the net
25:10and and fundamentally it's bad for you
25:12if you're on your phone all day just
25:14clicking on panic stories then at some
25:15point you're going to burn out
25:17so it's really important for all of us
25:20to
25:21take a step back and if a really
25:23sensational story comes in particularly
25:25if it's got a really frightening or
25:26really really dramatic headline
25:29the first question is who's trying to
25:31manipulate me with this headline
25:33why are they trying to manipulate me
25:34what are they trying to get me to do
25:36is this actually real if it's real then
25:39yeah it's dangerous and it's a problem
25:41but actually what's the proof and and
25:44getting people to to break the emotional
25:47connection with what they're reading
25:49is really hard and it goes well beyond
25:52just
25:53just the the digital disinformation
25:55space
25:56but particularly in a time which is as
25:59polarized as this
26:01where there are so many actors who have
26:02an interest in spreading
26:04really dangerous scare stories not
26:06letting yourself get sucked into that
26:08vortex is hugely important and so it's
26:12really important as a discipline
26:14sometimes just put the phone down and
26:15walk away from it or put the close the
26:17laptop and walk away you don't have to
26:19engage with the stories
26:21give yourself the space to think okay
26:23this sounds like a panic story
26:25so why is somebody trying to panic me
26:27are they trying to sell me something
26:28are they trying to get me into trouble
26:29are they trying to put me in danger are
26:31they just trying to fool me
26:33or maybe it's a real story but that
26:34means it being a real story is one of
26:36about
26:37five different options you have so
26:39before anything else
26:41keep calm step away from the panic
26:44stories step away from the stories that
26:45make you angry
26:47and think about the actual evidence
26:48involved what's the source for this
26:50story where is it coming from
26:52what's the evidence they're reducing is
26:54it a single screenshot of a facebook
26:55post without a link if so
26:57how do you know it wasn't photoshopped
26:59how do you know where it's coming from
27:01it's the piece of evidence somebody told
27:03me that somebody else told them that
27:04somebody else told them well that's not
27:06a reliable chain of custody
27:08so before anything else particularly as
27:10november comes around
27:12just keep calm and take the time to
27:14actually think things through before you
27:16read them and before you share them
27:19i would just add kind of have realistic
27:21expectations for what you can do
27:23in the broader fight against false news
27:25or disinformation i think
27:26you know it's been my job to look at
27:29this and to try to fight it and i
27:31consistently feel overwhelmed with the
27:33limitations of my own work because in
27:36the amount of time it takes me
27:38to try to get to attribution if you can
27:40do it which often you can't
27:41but to even just to understand where the
27:44story is coming from what the intention
27:46is to do all the work and debunking
27:47something
27:48there's 150 news stories that have
27:51popped up
27:51that are equally if not more problematic
27:54so you just sort of constantly feel like
27:56you're
27:56you know trying to plug it down with
27:58your finger but i think
28:00you know if you're talking about the
28:01individual what you can do is is just be
28:03responsible in your own
28:05space in your own community when i have
28:06these conversations with
28:08activists for example you know i try to
28:10preach to them
28:11like you are not going to be able to
28:13fight every piece of false information
28:15that comes out
28:16if we're talking in the election context
28:18for example that deals with the election
28:20what you can do is make sure
28:21your family your neighbors whatever
28:24community groups
28:24you're involved in that those people
28:26have accurate information
28:28and you just kind of own your own space
28:30to a degree
28:31and worry about kind of making a
28:33healthier information
28:35environment in your local community as
28:37opposed to the whole of the internet
28:38because you will feel like you're
28:39constantly losing
28:41if that's your goal to somehow uh you
28:44know
28:44clean up 4chan and 8chan it's just an
28:46impossible sort of task
28:48so i think kind of narrow the scope of
28:50what you can do be realistic about it
28:52but take ownership for your own space
28:54and then going back to a point ben made
28:56earlier like
28:57ultimately you are responsible for what
29:00you share and what you spread and if you
29:02share a piece of false information you
29:04become that source for your community
29:06so you know both work on making sure the
29:08people around you do better but
29:10all you know primarily make sure you're
29:12doing better
29:13and what you're sharing what you're
29:14spreading how you're engaging with
29:16information online
29:17um you know because if we all kind of
29:19practice better
29:20digital media literacy habits um you
29:23know these kind of campaigns would be
29:25less effective
29:28that's incredibly helpful advice and i
29:30think a wonderful note
29:31to end this connecting conversation on
29:33so ben and brett thank you so much for
29:36joining us thank you thanks very much
29:41and thank you to our learners for
29:42joining us in this connecting
29:44conversation we look forward to
29:45continuing the discussion with you
29:47in the disinformation misinformation and
29:49fake news teach out from the university
29:51of michigan

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