Here, they provided a historical overview and look at potential challenges that lie ahead. Cnn anchor kate bold one Kate Boulduan monitors the discussion. Afternoon. Impressive turnout for in august day. Congratulations to all of you. I always say the Wilson Center has the brightest audiences, and you are bright enough to know at ts will be a fabulous this is going to be a fabulous conversation on disinf. Harman, president and ceo of the Wilson Center and i am delighted to be here. That august, which Means Congress and the president are on vacation. But todays topic is not on vacation and will not be, at least through the 2020 election. So that will some center is not putting off a conversation. That being said, disinformation is hardly any problem. In the midst of the cold war, the u. S. And the soviet union both try to influence narratives on other parts of the globe. For example, a new article published by the Wilson Center tragic history and Public Policy program look at translated russian documents related to operation denver. A campaign in the 1980s not spread the lie that h. I. V. Was created as a result of the pentagons biological weapons research. So, disinformation was not infected in 2016 and is sadly unlikely to be buried in 2020, but today, we delve into the context. And we have the right moderator and speakers to do that. Our first panel, which starts right now is on historical patterns. Moderating is the very talented kate baldwin, the anchor of cnns show at this hour, and formerly the coanchor of new day and the situation room with wolf blitzer. Kate and her colleagues have done critical work on the topic. Earlier this year, cnn created an interactive website that shows the danger of fakes, doctrine but realistic videos sayingow public figures and do things they never did. Since 2016, the pentagon has spent at least 68 million on technology to detect deep fakes, but the issue is unlikely to go away before 2020. Were also joined by our very kowicz, global fellow with the canon is to q2 is writing the on russian how much do i get for this on russian disinformation. It is coming up next summer, called how to lose the information war, based on her on the ground experience in ukraine. We welcome jessica buyer, a lecture and Research Scientist at the university of washingtons Jackson School of international studies, Whose Research has focused on International Cyber security and nonstate actors, as well as online political activism. And finally, our last guest is the director of strategic projects, Cyber Security and diplomacy, and microsoft, drawing on years of in Political Campaigns. She worked on microsofts partnership with the Iowa Caucuses in 20 to create a Smart Phone App for caucus organizers to report the results of the vote more quickly and accurately than before. Conclusion, in todays complex world, it is more important than ever to provide real facts and trustworthy information. Everyone in every place is being tested, including the Wilson Center. We are doing our best and we really need our friends on this panel, including the fourth estate, the media, to do its part. So i look forward to. Panels. Panels, to death kate, over to you. Kate thank you so much. Out the issueys in the topic today really well. Before you look forward, you must look back, and i think that is why we should start with history. The patterns of the trends we are seeing when it comes to disinformation. Maybe it started with operation denver, as jane talked about but nina, i wonder disinformation , is not new and how far back do you look to where you would say the first real Disinformation Campaign youve been researching, where do you put it up . Nina i think a lot of people want to go back to the soviet period and compare what we were seeing then with what were seeing now. But there is an important difference. While the tactics are the same the tools have changed. Social media allows the information getting put out there and its not all fake. We have to say, it is all usually grounded in a kernel of truth or real feelings, real discontent that is weaponize to weaponized by bad actors, including russia and other foreign actors. The social media allows those bad actors to spread those messages much more quickly, to travel at lightning speed and also allow those messages to be targeted to the very people who will find the most appealing and that is what makes what were seeing today so much more difficult to counter. Looking at the modern era, at disinformation 2. 0 as you might call it, my book started in 2007 in estonia with the crisis when a lot of false stories about how ethnic russians in democratic estonia were being treated in this new era were spread among the population there. It led to riots and led to some real social discord that the estonian government that had to counter. They did that not by trying to tamp out the voices of the press or counter narratives that were grounded in truth about how the russian population was feeling , but they did that by bringing those ethnic russians back into the fold, by focusing on integration and education that something will come back to later today. Kate i can promise that, for sure. Know, at thisl point, especially everyone in this room, we all know what disinformation means generally and broadly. For us,ned the term this is what i am most interested in. Because it is not always what it seems. What is the difference between disinformation and propaganda . Nothing likee is being asked to define something as an academic. [laughter] most people talk about disinformation as information that is false and with an intent to deceive attached to it. Academics talk about misinformation as Bad Information that is spread unwittingly. The difference of disinformation and propaganda, there are people who also divide that out. Propaganda is an organized effort to spread disinformation or information that isnt necessarily entirely untrue or maybe it is the way it is talked about, that is another tactic. You focus on disorder rather than a narrative of people protesting for their rights. So there are different ways you can g look at different events and stress certain things over others. One of the things that academics are starting to point out is that we have this conversation about disinformation or misinformation, and we think that disinformation is something that a bad actor is doing, oil misinformation is my aunt whos sharing a story on facebook that is not true. At there are people who look the social context that people are a part of. That people share information, not just because they think its true, but also because it resonates with them or signals , showslace in a group that they are part of some Overall Group rather than other ones. And also, if you are looking at say disinformation in places violence,ulnerable to people may be are sharing misinformation and they dont know the thing they are sharing about someone coming to kidnap children isnt true, but that information is often grounded in existing societal hatred so , the idea that it is the purveyors of disinformation are the malicious ones, is not exactly true. Because even misinformation can be dangerous as well. Kate what are the tech takes, jenny, how have the tactics changed . Im interested from your perspective. Were talking about how the information spreads, but how have the tech vix changed how have the tactics changed . Jenny we are talking about things, how they used to be and how they are now and have never changed. Espionage is a thing that existed and that is not new but what is new is weaponization of the information you get. Its not new that even Political Campaigns are hacked. That happened in previous cycles in the u. S. And in recent history. What is new is the tactics the enemy uses when they get a hold of that information. One thing we think about it into anticipation, it is important to have Historical Context in order to anticipate and handle it, but also important not to solve yesterdays problems entirely and to think about what might come next. Thats what the conversation around deep fakes. I dont know how much everyone knows about the concept but it sounds like some might be more expert on it, but it is the idea that videos looking like someone saying what that individual did not say. There may not be a rise in it yet, but it is anticipating that it is what is coming next. How will the playbook from the enemy change, and it made new in the next cycle . Kate you all talk about something that is the goal of disinformation. Is it always the same, nina . Is it always to change hurts and minds or force a segment to do what you want them to do, or sometimes is it more insidious than that . Is the goal from estonia to today of disinformation the same . Nina i think what is interesting about what we are seeing from the kremlin is that it is not to change hearts and minds. That is how i would draw the line between propaganda and disinformation. Propaganda is agitating on behalf of a certain cause, whether it is government or a Political Movement et cetera. , disinformation particularly russian disinformation is a need is aiming to create as much chaos and disorder as possible. That is a theme that goes from estonia right through to georgia, poland, czech republic, ukraine, especially ukraine, as a matter of fact. It is trying to inspire a sense of distrust in the democratic system so that people dont go out and invest in that budding new democracy. Certainly since 2016, i think we are seeing more distress building in our democratic system as well whether thats in the media or in our election in infrastructure, or whether that is in campaigns and political structures themselves. In that regard the Disinformation Campaign we saw in 2016 that continues today has been successful in that regard. Kate to that point, is there a pattern best you would think if there was a pattern, people would wiser to it already. Is there a pattern to Disinformation Campaigns . Is the russian disinformation distinct from the Disinformation Campaign put out by iran, or how what happened in ukraine, is that different from what happened essentially in the United States . Is there a Common Element that you find in these things . Elementthink the common , which is what makes it so difficult to counter, is the fissures in our societies whether economic, or racial or political, especially political polarization, those are the things that all these campaigns weaponize to their advantage. It is not as simple as just deleting fake accounts, these are societal issues that take investmentance and from our politicians and Civil Servants and folks like you in the fourth estate. Kate . That is really interesting. Who are the worst offenders, jessica . There have been some research that has found patterns. There are more internal Disinformation Campaigns than external ones, for example where we have a nationstate acting a country, you are more likely to see internal. People seeking political power or acting for their own personal gain using disinformation. Kate within their own country . Jessica yes. And also people doing it to make money. You add money spreading out stories. We saw that in research out of 2016. Oxford institute, they have found that democracies and nondemocracies, you see disinformation inside both. A gets tricky trying to define what is disinformation when the government controls the media, but there have been some efforts to try to look for patterns across countries. I guessa question of, the worst offenders would have ,o be the worst offender Foreign Government trying to influence outside its borders. Who would be a worse offender than that . Russia . Absolutely. Also, any actor attempting to use or create a situation in which violence is likely to further their political goals, those of you the worst offenders generally. Kate what is it about russia . So a lot of times i get a question about why is what russia did in 2016 any different than the type of things the United States does all around the world . And i am talking overt operations, not what our intelligence agencies do. The answer that i give israel much grounded in my background, having worked at the National Democratic institute and supporting prodemocracy activists around the world. Whenever we do those programs. Open, anybody could come from in a Political Party and learn how to run a Petition Campaign or learn how to run a Political Campaign. And what russia did in 2016 was much more Surreptitious Campaign that didnt get anyone to two consent. Right . We didnt know we were being messaged to buy the russian government. That is what i find so objectionable about that, also illegal, clearly. This is not something anybody bought into. And we are seeing other nationstates mimicking the russian playbook. You mentioned iran, we have seen some saudi accounts, certainly china is doing that within its own borders. That lack of openness that goes against our very democratic being that i find to make russia most objectionable in this case. Kate here is rising there is good news. Some of theo playbook and methods, and now, it is all about education. And it not to move into the territory of the next panel, but it is solution focused. Being able to educate the public about what the operations look like. Dhs put out a great info graphic a couple weeks ago about the war on pineapple and essentially took an issue that is divisive but not political which is whether or not pineapple along pineapples belong on pizza. Pizza pineapple on this is going to get very real because i am very propineapple. [laughter] ginny they took this topic in five easy steps to using this info graphic to show what the adversaries are doing with the topic that is divisive. We have something we disagree on , so how do they take that thing and drive a wedge . Im encouraged because i see our government doing things and Civil Society organizations and th are doing things to educate the public around that. The awareness is so through the roof. Not saying that we fixed it, but it is encouraging to see that there is progress. It sounds like theyre really havent been effective defenses against disinformation, maybe not many examples historically, but have you seen effective defenses . A brokent to be record, but i think the biggest defense is educating the people on how to discern what theyre reading, understanding the techniques and being able to filter it better. Its also about weve been talking about disinformation versus misinformation and how do you define the different terms. If we can get on a similar page about what is happening kate that might be a difficult thing. But people are working hard on it. I would agree that education is important and i call it a citizen space solution, not just looking at children when we talk about education but voting age people. Helping them navigate the flow of Information Online but. Something that does give me cause, from what i have seen recently in ukraine during their president ial election is that bad actors are now adapting their tactics to the kind of obstacles that some of the social media problems have put up, but also post russia 20 . Nina yeah. I am talking this year, 2019. Rather than being stopped by the wall put up they are burrowing under or going around in different sorts of ways. Kate im interested in that. Is there a way, described as how owing. Re burr how do they take from that russia playbook that they have now grown or built upon . Nina so there was a lot of discussion about political advertisements in the 2016 election. Facebook has now put a lot of transparency measures in place that aren search ads being bought, there are records that outside actors and foreign actors cant purchase these ads. It was a helpful tool for researchers and journalists like myself. Anticipating this, russia, according to the Ukrainian SecurityService Based on activity i saw when i was throughads and looking all that information in ukrainian and russian, russia is trying to rent peoples Facebook Accounts in order to use them as ules. They pay them about 100 a month or so, which in ukrainian terms, is one third of an average ukrainian salary, in order to use their accounts to get around those ad restrictions. The Security Service found this out, alerted facebook and i dont think that will necessarily stop russia and its against their terms of service , certainly, but this is something that worries me. Those who dont have Strong Political press excesses and want to get extra cash or someone in a third world country is going to be happy to rent out that facebook account. Kate seems like a hacker for hire. Nina thats a scary thing and a lot of manipulation going on in groups. Its moving up in the facebook hierarchy in terms of what people are seeing. So folks are being told or manipulated to share more content that they are seeing in secret and closed facebook troops, and that is harder for researchers like me to track and notify the correct people about , and then theres also more trust in those groups. Right . So people are in a group about a politician they like someone politician they like, and someone says here share this , meme. They dont know where its coming from but if their trusted group. Things like that scary to me and its the nonmonetized content where news is traveling organically. Based on peoples real feelings and worries that is being amplified in a very au