Can Democracies Play Offense on Disinformation?
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2020
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth series on platforms and disinformation, Quinta Jurecic spoke with Alina Polyakova and Ambassador Daniel Fried, the former U.S. ambassador to Poland and the Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council. The two have a new paper out on “Democratic Offense Against Disinformation,” published by the Atlantic Council and the Center for European Policy Analysis. They have written previously on how democracies can defend themselves against disinformation and misinformation from abroad, but this time, they turned their attention to what it would mean for democracies to take the initiative against foreign purveyors of disinformation, rather than just playing defense.
So how effective are democracies at countering disinformation? What tools are available if they want to play offense? And is it even possible to do so without borrowing tactics from the same authoritarian regimes that democracies seek to counter?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | Hunt, which means seeking out the adversary, surveil, which means probing the foreign disinformation |
| 0:42.3 | systems to identify the bad actors and the details of the software they use, expose, |
| 0:49.5 | which means releasing the details of disinformation operations, including the methods, the campaigns |
| 0:55.4 | and maybe personnel, and then finally is disabled. |
| 1:00.8 | All four levels are different, but expose. |
| 1:05.5 | That's a useful tool because it can be exposed without the fingerprints of the US government. |
| 1:11.8 | I'm Quinted Jurassic and this is the LawFair podcast December 3rd, 2020. |
| 1:19.2 | It's another episode of our Arbiter's of Truth series on platforms and disinformation. |
| 1:24.0 | This time we turned tables a bit. |
| 1:26.6 | Instead of co-hosting, Alina Poliocova took a turn in the guest seat alongside Ambassador |
| 1:31.7 | Daniel Fried, the former US ambassador to Poland and the Weiser family distinguished fellow |
| 1:38.2 | at the Atlantic Council. |
| 1:40.5 | They have a new paper out on democratic offense against disinformation, published by the |
| 1:45.3 | Atlantic Council and the Center for European Policy Analysis. |
| 1:49.9 | The two have written previously on how democracies can defend themselves against disinformation |
| 1:55.0 | and misinformation from abroad. |
| 1:57.5 | But this time, they've turned their attention to what it would mean for democracies to |
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