Fake News Nation by
How rumors, lies, and misrepresentations shaped American history. After the election of Donald Trump as president, people in the United States and across large swaths of Europe, Latin America, and Asia engaged in the most intensive discussion in modern times about falsehoods pronounced by public officials. Fake facts in their various forms have long been present in American life, particularly in its politics, public discourse, and business activities - going back to the time when the country was formed. This book explores the long tradition of fake facts, in their various guises, in American history. It is one of the first historical studies to place the long history of lies and misrepresentation squarely in the middle of American political, business, and science policy rhetoric. In Fake News Nation, James Cortada and William Aspray present a series of case studies that describe how lies and fake facts were used over the past two centuries in important instances in American history. Cortada and Aspray give readers a perspective on fake facts as they appear today and as they are likely to appear in the future.
Active Measures by
This revelatory and dramatic history of disinformation traces the rise of secret organized deception operations from the interwar period to contemporary internet troll farms We live in the age of disinformation--of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm. More than four months before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was "carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign" to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new. The story of modern disinformation begins with the post-Russian Revolution clash between communism and capitalism, which would come to define the Cold War. In Active Measures, Rid reveals startling intelligence and security secrets from materials written in more than ten languages across several nations, and from interviews with current and former operatives. He exposes the disturbing yet colorful history of professional, organized lying, revealing for the first time some of the century's most significant operations--many of them nearly beyond belief. A White Russian ploy backfires and brings down a New York police commissioner; a KGB-engineered, anti-Semitic hate campaign creeps back across the Iron Curtain; the CIA backs a fake publishing empire, run by a former Wehrmacht U-boat commander, that produces Germany's best jazz magazine. Rid tracks the rise of leaking, and shows how spies began to exploit emerging internet culture many years before WikiLeaks. Finally, he sheds new light on the 2016 election, especially the role of the infamous "troll farm" in St. Petersburg as well as a much more harmful attack that unfolded in the shadows. Active Measures takes the reader on a guided tour deep into a vast hall of mirrors old and new, pointing to a future of engineered polarization, more active and less measured--but also offering the tools to cut through the deception.
Broken Code by
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE * By an award-winning technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal, a behind-the-scenes look at the manipulative tactics Facebook used to grow its business, how it distorted the way we connect online, and the company insiders who found the courage to speak out "Broken Code fillets Facebook's strategic failures to address its part in the spread of disinformation, political fracturing and even genocide. The book is stuffed with eye-popping, sometimes Orwellian statistics and anecdotes that could have come only from the inside." --New York Times Book Review Once the unrivaled titan of social media, Facebook held a singular place in culture and politics. Along with its sister platforms Instagram and WhatsApp, it was a daily destination for billions of users around the world. Inside and outside the company, Facebook extolled its products as bringing people closer together and giving them voice. But in the wake of the 2016 election, even some of the company's own senior executives came to consider those claims pollyannaish and simplistic. As a succession of scandals rocked Facebook, they--and the world--had to ask whether the company could control, or even understood, its own platforms. Facebook employees set to work in pursuit of answers. They discovered problems that ran far deeper than politics. Facebook was peddling and amplifying anger, looking the other way at human trafficking, enabling drug cartels and authoritarians, allowing VIP users to break the platform's supposedly inviolable rules. They even raised concerns about whether the product was safe for teens. Facebook was distorting behavior in ways no one inside or outside the company understood. Enduring personal trauma and professional setbacks, employees successfully identified the root causes of Facebook's viral harms and drew up concrete plans to address them. But the costs of fixing the platform--often measured in tenths of a percent of user engagement--were higher than Facebook's leadership was willing to pay. With their work consistently delayed, watered down, or stifled, those who best understood Facebook's damaging effect on users were left with a choice: to keep silent or go against their employer. Broken Code tells the story of these employees and their explosive discoveries. Expanding on "The Facebook Files," his blockbuster, award-winning series for The Wall Street Journal, reporter Jeff Horwitz lays out in sobering detail not just the architecture of Facebook's failures, but what the company knew (and often disregarded) about its societal impact. In 2021, the company would rebrand itself Meta, promoting a techno-utopian wonderland. But as Broken Code shows, the problems spawned around the globe by social media can't be resolved by strapping on a headset.
Routledge Handbook of Disinformation and National Security by
This interdisciplinary Handbook provides an in-depth analysis of the complex security phenomenon of disinformation and offers a toolkit to counter such tactics. Disinformation used to propagate false, inexact or out of context information is today a frequently used tool of political manipulation and information warfare, both online and offline. This Handbook evidences a historical thread of continuing practices and modus operandi in overt state propaganda and covert information operations. Further, it attempts to unveil current methods used by propaganda actors, the inherent vulnerabilities they exploit in the fabric of democratic societies and, last but not least, to highlight current practices in countering disinformation and building resilient audiences. The Handbook is divided into six thematic sections. The first part provides a set of theoretical approaches to hostile influencing, disinformation and covert information operations. The second part looks at disinformation and propaganda in historical perspective offering case study analysis of disinformation, and the third focuses on providing understanding of the contemporary challenges posed by disinformation and hostile influencing. The fourth part examines information and communication practices used for countering disinformation and building resilience. The fifth part analyses specific regional experiences in countering and deterring disinformation, as well as international policy responses from transnational institutions and security practitioners. Finally, the sixth part offers a practical toolkit for practitioners to counter disinformation and hostile influencing. This handbook will be of much interest to students of national security, propaganda studies, media and communications studies, intelligence studies and International Relations in general.
Misinformation and Disinformation by
This book, geared towards both students and professionals, examines the synthesis of artificial intelligence (AI) and psychology in detecting mis-/disinformation in digital media content, and suggests practical means to intervene and curtail this current global 'infodemic'. This interdisciplinary book explores technological, psychological, philosophical, and linguistic insights into the nature of truth and deception, trust and credibility, cognitive biases and logical fallacies and how, through AI and human intervention, content users can be alerted to the presence of deception. The author investigates how AI can mimic the procedures and know-hows of humans, showing how AI can help spot fakes and how AI tools can work to debunk rumors and fact-check. The book describes how AI detection systems work and how they fit with broader societal and individual concerns. Each chapter focuses attention on key concepts and their inter-connection. The first part of the book seeks theoretical footing to understand our interactions with new information and reviews relevant empirical findings in behavioral sciences. The second part is about applied knowledge. The author looks at several known practices that guard us against deception, and provides several real-world examples of manipulative persuasive techniques in advertising, political propaganda, and public relations. She provides links to the downloadable executable files to three AI applications (clickbait, satire, and falsehood detectors) via LiT.RL GitHub, an open access repository. The book is useful to students and professionals studying AI and media studies as well as library and information professionals. Examines how artificial intelligence (AI) and psychology can aid in detecting mis-/disinformation and the language of deceit in digital media content; Suggests practical computational means to intervene and curtail the global 'infodemic' of fake news; Presents how AI can sift, sort, and shuffle digital content, to reduce the amount of content needed to be reviewed by humans.
Disinformation by
The highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official ever to defect to the West, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is at it again.A quarter century ago, in his international bestseller Red Horizons, Pacepa exposed the massive crimes and corruption of his former boss, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, giving the dictator a nervous breakdown and inspiring him to send assassination squads to the U.S. to find his former spy chief and kill him. They failed. On Christmas Day 1989, Ceausescu was executed by his own people at the end of a trial whose accusations came almost word-for-word out of Red Horizons.Today, still living undercover in the United States, the man credited by the CIA as the only person in the Western world who single-handedly demolished an entire enemy espionage service--the one he himself managed--takes aim at an even bigger target: the exotic, widely misunderstood but still astonishingly influential realm of the Russian-born science of disinformation.Indeed, within these pages, Pacepa, along with his co-author, historian and law professor Ronald Rychlak, expose some of the most consequential yet largely unknown disinformation campaigns of our lifetime. Here the reader will discover answers to many crucial questions of the modern era: Why, during the last two generations, has so much of the Western world turned against its founding faith, Christianity?Why have radical Islam, jihad and terrorism burst aflame after a long period of apparent quiescence?Why is naked Marxism increasingly manifesting in America and its NATO allies? What really happened to Russia after the Berlin Wall came down? Like the solution to a giant jigsaw puzzle lacking one crucial piece, Disinformation authoritatively provides the missing dimension that makes the chaos of the modern world finally understandable.By its very nature, a disinformation campaign can work only if the seemingly independent Western press accepts intentionally fabricated lies and presents them to the public as truth.Thus, Pacepa and Rychlak also document how the U.S. mainstream media''s enduring sympathy for all things liberal-left has made it vulnerable to--indeed, the prime carrier of--civilization-transforming campaigns of lying, defamation and historical revisionism that turn reality on its head. In Disinformation, you''ll discover:How destroying the reputation of good leaders has been developed into a high art and science.How Pope Pius XII --a generation ago the world''s most high-profile Christian leader, who personally saved countless Jews from Hitler''s Holocaust--was transformed, through the magic of disinformation, into a Nazi sympathizer.How Christianity and Judaism have been targeted for constant denigration and defamation through an ongoing campaign of disinformation.How the Soviet bloc planted 4,000 agents of influence in the Islamic world, armed with hundreds of thousands of copies of the most infamous anti-Semitic book in history, to fan the flames of ancient Arab resentments against the U.S. and Israel and sow the seeds of anti-Semitism that would later bloom in the form of violence and terror toward Jews and Christians.How the defamatory attacks on American soldiers John Kerry made before Congress upon his return from Vietnam--charges later discredited and repudiated--were identical to a contemporaneous KGB disinformation campaign concocted to turn Americans against their own leaders.How supposedly respectable institutions like the World Council of Churches have long been infiltrated and controlled by Russian intelligence.How much of the world came to believe that the U.S. government itself masterminded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.How the Soviet Union has been transformed into the first intelligence dictatorship in history.How disinformation is still very much alive in the age of Obama, remaining a powerful engine in the ongoing socialist transformation of America.All this and much more is meticulously documented in Disinformation, with the credibility of an eyewitness who was not only there, but actively involved as a Soviet bloc spy chief--who, thanks to a crisis of conscience, left the dark side and came to America to help shine a light on the greatest source of political evil of the modern age. This remarkable book will change the way you look at intelligence, foreign affairs, the press, and much else besides. - R. JamesWoolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence
Disinformation by
Does the idea of a world in which facts mean nothing cause anxiety? Fear? Maybe even paranoia? Disinformation:The Nature of Facts and Lies in the Post-Truth Era cannot cure all the ills of a post-truth world, but by demonstrating how the emergence of digital technology into everyday life has knitted together a number of seemingly loosely related forces-historical, psychological, economic, and culture-to create the post-truth culture, Disinformation will help you better understand how we got to where we now are, see how we can move beyond a culture in which facts are too easily dismissed, and develop a few highly practical skills for separating truth from lies. Disinformation explains: How human psychology--the very way our brains work--can leave us vulnerable to disinformation. How the early visions of what a global computer network would and should be unintentionally laid the groundwork for the current post-truth culture. The ways in which truth is twisted and misrepresented via propaganda and conspiracy theories. How new technology not only spreads disinformation but may also be changing the way we think. The ways in which the economics of information and the powerful influence of popular culture have contributed to the creation of the post-truth culture. Unlike the far-too-numerous one-sided, politically ideological treatments of the post-truth culture, Disinformation does not seek to point the finger of blame at any individuals or groups; instead, its focus is on how a number of disparate forces have influenced human behaviors during a time when all of humanity is struggling to better understand and more effectively control (for better or worse) challenging new technologies that are straining the limits of human intellectual and emotional capacity. in which truth is twisted and misrepresented via propaganda and conspiracy theories. How new technology not only spreads disinformation but may also be changing the way we think. The ways in which the economics of information and the powerful influence of popular culture have contributed to the creation of the post-truth culture. Unlike the far-too-numerous one-sided, politically ideological treatments of the post-truth culture, Disinformation does not seek to point the finger of blame at any individuals or groups; instead, its focus is on how a number of disparate forces have influenced human behaviors during a time when all of humanity is struggling to better understand and more effectively control (for better or worse) challenging new technologies that are straining the limits of human intellectual and emotional capacity. in which truth is twisted and misrepresented via propaganda and conspiracy theories. How new technology not only spreads disinformation but may also be changing the way we think. The ways in which the economics of information and the powerful influence of popular culture have contributed to the creation of the post-truth culture. Unlike the far-too-numerous one-sided, politically ideological treatments of the post-truth culture, Disinformation does not seek to point the finger of blame at any individuals or groups; instead, its focus is on how a number of disparate forces have influenced human behaviors during a time when all of humanity is struggling to better understand and more effectively control (for better or worse) challenging new technologies that are straining the limits of human intellectual and emotional capacity. in which truth is twisted and misrepresented via propaganda and conspiracy theories. How new technology not only spreads disinformation but may also be changing the way we think. The ways in which the economics of information and the powerful influence of popular culture have contributed to the creation of the post-truth culture. Unlike the far-too-numerous one-sided, politically ideological treatments of the post-truth culture, Disinformation does not seek to point the finger of blame at any individuals or groups; instead, its focus is on how a number of disparate forces have influenced human behaviors during a time when all of humanity is struggling to better understand and more effectively control (for better or worse) challenging new technologies that are straining the limits of human intellectual and emotional capacity. but may also be changing the way we think. The ways in which the economics of information and the powerful influence of popular culture have contributed to the creation of the post-truth culture. Unlike the far-too-numerous one-sided, politically ideological treatments of the post-truth culture, Disinformation does not seek to point the finger of blame at any individuals or groups; instead, its focus is on how a number of disparate forces have influenced human behaviors during a time when all of humanity is struggling to better understand and more effectively control (for better or worse) challenging new technologies that are straining the limits of human intellectual and emotional capacity.
Disinformation and Fake News by
This book is a collection of chapters penned by practitioners from around the world on the impact that disinformation and fake news has had in both the online and social sphere. While much has been said about individual disinformation campaigns in specific countries, this book offers a panoramic view of how these campaigns are conducted, who they target, and how they are spread. By bringing together research on specific countries and international data mined from questionnaires and online studies, the understanding of the term 'fake news' is greatly expanded and the issues we face are brought to light. The book includes contributions by experts such as Jean-Baptiste Vilmer (Macron Leaks), and includes case studies from Asia, such as Singapore and Myanmar, written in an accessible manner for the general interested reader, practitioners and policymakers in the field.
The Disinformation Age by
In this book Eric Cheyfitz argues that our contemporary political crisis is marked by the prevalence of "disinformation," where the political mythologies that people use to make sense of the world are no longer tied to the reality that they seek to explain. He argues that foundational national myths like the American Dream and American Exceptionalism only ever held true for a privileged few, and that today those myths are coming apart completely. In a historical analysis that moves from indigenous genocide through the war on terror, and from the writing of the US constitution through the speeches of Barack Obama, "The Disinformation Age" traces the contradiction between the reality of American imperialism and the ideology of American innocence and exceptionalism. Cheyfitz argues that a way out of our political crisis would require a fundamental re-thinking of the world and thus a political horizon beyond capitalism.
Bad News by
Psychologist Rob Brotherton asks, "how can we all be smarter consumers of news?" Today we carry the news with us, getting instant alerts about events around the globe. And yet despite this unprecedented abundance of information, it seems increasingly difficult to know what's true and what's not. In Bad News, Rob Brotherton delves into the psychology of news, reviewing how psychological research can help navigate this post-truth world. Which buzzwords describe psychological reality, and which are empty sound bites? How much of this news is unprecedented, and how much is business as usual? Are we doomed to fall for fake news, or is fake news ... fake news? Much psychological research attempts to answer the fundamental questions lurking behind fake news. How do we form our beliefs, and why do we end up believing things that are wrong? How much information can we possibly process, and what is the internet doing to our attention spans? This brilliant book presents psychological research pertaining to one of the great concerns of the age: how can we all be smarter consumers of news?
Network Propaganda by
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives.Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analysing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment. The authors argue that longstanding institutional, political, and cultural patterns in American politics interacted with technological change since the 1970s to create a propaganda feedback loop in American conservative media. This dynamic has marginalized centre-right media and politicians, radicalized the right wing ecosystem, and rendered it susceptible to propaganda efforts, foreign and domestic. For readers outside the United States, the book offers a new perspective and methods for diagnosing the sources of, and potential solutions for, the perceived global crisis of democratic politics.
Manipulated by
Cybersecurity expert Theresa Payton tells battlefront stories from the global war being conducted through clicks, swipes, internet access, technical backdoors and massive espionage schemes. She investigates the cyberwarriors who are planning tomorrow's attacks, weaving a fascinating yet bone-chilling tale of Artificial Intelligent mutations carrying out attacks without human intervention, "deepfake" videos that look real to the naked eye, and chatbots that beget other chatbots. Finally, Payton offers readers telltale signs that their most fundamental beliefs are being meddled with and actions they can take or demand that corporations and elected officials must take before it is too late.
True or False by
"If I could pick one book to hand to every teen--and adult--on earth, this is the one. True or False is accessible, thorough, and searingly honest, and we desperately needed it." --Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda A former CIA analyst unveils the true history of fake news and gives readers tips on how to avoid falling victim to it in this highly designed informative YA nonfiction title. "Fake news" is a term you've probably heard a lot in the last few years, but it's not a new phenomenon. From the ancient Egyptians to the French Revolution to Jack the Ripper and the founding fathers, fake news has been around as long as human civilization. But that doesn't mean that we should just give up on the idea of finding the truth. In True or False, former CIA analyst Cindy Otis will take readers through the history and impact of misinformation over the centuries, sharing stories from the past and insights that readers today can gain from them. Then, she shares lessons learned in over a decade working for the CIA, including actionable tips on how to spot fake news, how to make sense of the information we receive each day, and, perhaps most importantly, how to understand and see past our own information biases, so that we can think critically about important issues and put events happening around us into context. True or False includes a wealth of photo illustrations, informative inserts, and sidebars containing interesting facts and trivia sure to engage readers in critical thinking and analysis. This title has common core connections.
Disinformation and You : Identify Propaganda and Manipulation by 
Disinformation and Electoral Campaigns by 
The Dark Side of Our Digital World by
An all-in-one guide to understanding and managing the dark side of our digital lives. It all started out so well: the online world began as an effective tool for communication that carried with it a great promise to level the playing field and eliminate borders. But it's morphed into something totally unintended. We've all had to endure the troll that derails a generally benign conversation; or received that scam email from a wealthy Nigerian prince; or felt the strange feeling of being watched and tracked by advertising companies as we navigate the web. Welcome to the modern internet. These are but a few of the topics that The Dark Side of Our Digital World: And What You Can Do about It examines to get at the root causes of our current problems with information technology, social media, and problematic online behavior. The book explores the issues raised by the negative side of information technology, including surveillance and spying, declining privacy, information overload, surveillance capitalism and big data analytics, conspiracy theories and fake news, misinformation and disinformation, trolling and phishing. What's ultimately at stake is how we are able to cope with increasingly invasive anti-social behaviors, the overall decline of privacy in the face of total surveillance technologies, and the lack of a quality online experience that doesn't devolve into flame wars and insults. The future of the internet as well as our societies depends upon our ability to discern truth from lies and reality from propaganda. The book will therefore also examine the possible directions we could take to improve the situation, looking at solutions in the areas of psychology and behavioral conditioning, social engineering through nudging techniques, the development of e-democracy movements, and the implementation of public policy.
