This policy brief is part of CIGI’s project on freedom of thought: Legitimate Influence or Unlawful Manipulation? Find out more at: www.cigionline.org/fot
Policy Brief No. 4 — January 2024
Protecting Freedom of Thought: Mitigating Technological Enablers of Disinformation Alexa Raad Key Points → The internet and ad-supported business models facilitate the targeting, dissemination and amplification of false information online. → Algorithmic designs, cognitive biases and platform structures enable false information to spread faster than truth on the internet and are synergistically exploited in influence operations, compromising freedom of thought. → Conceptual frameworks like DISARM and RICHDATA provide insights into disinformation campaigns’ stages and tactics, emphasize the importance of countering harmful content amplification, and recommend strategic measures to increase cost and complexity for influence operators. → The United States needs to enact national data collection laws, data brokerage industry regulation, social media company oversight, regulation of third-party players facilitating disinformation, and other measures to enhance media literacy and protect the information ecosystem.
Introduction The advent of the internet and ad-supported business models that capitalize on capturing attention has introduced powerful technological enablers that greatly enhance the targeting, dissemination and amplification of false information (such as misinformation, disinformation and malinformation) to an unprecedented degree. Influence operations leverage a synergistic blend of factors, including algorithmic designs that prioritize engagement, human cognitive biases and platform structures that incentivize content sharing, to adeptly manipulate and compromise our freedom of thought. Freedom of thought is the right to keep our thoughts and opinions private, the right not to have our thoughts and opinions manipulated, and the right not to be penalized for our thoughts and opinions alone (Alegre 2022). To understand the technology enablers of disinformation, new conceptual frameworks have emerged that lay out the specific stages and the associated tactics, techniques and procedures (sometimes abbreviated as TTPs) used by malicious influence operators. The most applicable framework, called DISARM, also provides specific countermeasures for each tactic. Effective remediation efforts need to prevent amplification of harmful content, and increase the risk, cost and complexity to the influence operator. In the United States, regulation is needed in at least four