DisinfoDocket 9 August

Hi! I'm Kate and welcome to DisinfoDocket. DisinfoDocket curates influence operations-related academic research, news, events and job opportunities.  

Did you know that DisinfoDocket takes requests? If you have suggestions or relevant work that you'd like to see included, simply reply to this email and send us the details!  

Highlights:

LISTEN - Read With Me: The Jan. 6 Indictment (Benjamin Wittes, Dog Shirt Daily, 8 August)

1. Journalists punched, kicked and tear-gassed: inside ‘the darkest month for Kenyan media’ (Reuters Institute, 8 August)
2. People share misinformation because of social media’s incentives — but those can be changed (Nieman Lab, 8 August)
3. The Government Shouldn’t Be Barred from Countering False Information (Brennan Center for Justice, 8 August)
4. One woman's Orwellian experience with disinformation (The Record by Recorded Future, 8 August)
5. How to counteract false narratives around ineligible voters (IJNet, 7 August)

Today we announced that we have been the subject of a complex cyber-attack, and our systems were accessed by hostile actors.

— Electoral Commission (@ElectoralCommUK) August 8, 2023

Here's my analysis on the Electoral Commission hack. The sky is always falling in the cyber security world and most hacks can be brushed off but this is serious: https://t.co/8UBYv8I7fn pic.twitter.com/6qgLl3S9eT

— Joe Tidy (@joetidy) August 8, 2023

1. Academia & Research

1. Controlling bad-actor-AI activity at scale across online battlefields (ArXiv)
2. No evidence linking Facebook adoption and negative well-being: Oxford study (OII, 9 August)
3. What Makes an Influence Operation Malign? (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 7 August)
4. Artificial-intelligence search engines wrangle academic literature (Nature, 7 August)
5. A US agenda for action in Sudan’s information environment (Atlantic Council, 8 August)
6. As Ohioans decide on Issue 1, local outlets have been raising alarm about a dark-money group attempting to sway voters with misinformation (Media Matters for America, 8 August)

2. Platforms & Technology

Again and again, Big Tech rolls out products without any regard for user wellbeing. @ccdhate's research shows that the AI rush is being handled no differently, as models produce outcomes that encourage and glamorize eating disorders. https://t.co/UQmRikf7hO

— Tech Transparency Project (@TTP_updates) August 7, 2023

1. Mongolia signs digital skills partnership with Google as landlocked nation seeks closer ties with US (South China Morning Post, 6 August)
2. Why ChatGPT Is Getting Dumber at Basic Math (The Wall Street Journal, 4 August)
3. AI is acting "pro-anorexia" and tech companies aren't stopping it (The Washington Post, 7 August)

AI’s real-life harms are happening to real-life people, right now. At our #SXSW panel featuring @Abebab @wilneidanegron @mbogen @undersequoias, we'll dig into the evidence. But we need your vote! #PanelPicker https://t.co/PwXdAIFeNT pic.twitter.com/6H18BfF3mj

— Data & Society (@datasociety) August 8, 2023

Twitter

1. X Corp accuses climate group of helping anti-hate researchers target Twitter (The Guardian, 8 August)
2. Elon Musk offers to pay legal bills for people ‘unfairly treated’ by employers over Twitter use (Euronews, 7 August)