Geoshawk, a disinfo digest: Issue No.28
Meta releases new adversarial report, ex-FL Sheriff behind 150+ fake news sites, OpenAI uncovers IO ops by Russia/China/Israel/Iran, & Armenia suspends Russia's leading state TV channel
Hey, I’m Alan, & welcome to Geoshawk. Geoshawk curates news & research on influence operations (IO), covering tech, election integrity, miscellaneous stories, USA, MENA, Russia, Caucasus, & Central Asia.
I hope you are loving Geoshawk!
Tech Watch:
OpenAI says its tools were used in foreign influence campaigns (Axios, 30 May)
Meta shut down AI disinformation campaigns from China, Israel and more (Quartz, 29 May)
Meta Investors Reject Scrutinizing Risk of AI Misinformation (Bloomberglaw, 29 May)
EU monitoring new measures by Meta to tackle election disinformation (Reuters, 28 May)
Google research shows the fast rise of AI-generated misinformation (CBC, 28 May)
Too Small to Police, Too Big to Ignore: Telegram Is the App Dividing Europe (Bloomberg, 27 May)
Fake US election-related accounts proliferating on X, study says (Reuters, 24 May)
Election Integrity:
EU Policy. EU elections mostly safe from foreign interference online - Meta report (Euronews, 29 May)
Slovakia’s disinformation history serves as a cautionary tale for the EU (Euronews, 27 May)
2024 Election Warning Issued by Secretaries of State (Newsweek, 27 May)
Florida is using a fraud-hunting tool used by the right to look for voters to remove from the rolls (NBC, 24 May)
Miscellaneous News & Research:
You Think You Know How Misinformation Spreads? Welcome to the Hellhole of Programmatic Advertising (WIRED, 30 May)
Quantifying the impact of misinformation and vaccine-skeptical content on Facebook (Science, 30 May)
Study shows relatively low number of superspreaders responsible for large portion of misinformation on Twitter (Phys, 27 May)
Debunking misinformation failed. Welcome to 'pre-bunking' (WaPo, 26 May)
People who hold populist beliefs are more likely to believe misinformation about COVID – new report (Loughborough University, 24 May)
Regions:
USA
Blinken And Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky At the Signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Countering Foreign Disinformation (U.S. State Department, 30 May)
US pledges €124 million in aid to Moldova to counter Russian influence (Euronews, 30 May)
Raw Milk’s Risks Don’t Stop Right-Wing Commentators From Defiantly Pushing It (NYT, 24 May)
MENA
OpenAI says Russian and Israeli groups used its tools to spread disinformation (Guardian, 30 May)
Same story as above
What a viral, fake image of Rafah tells us about AI propaganda (WaPo, 30 May)
All Eyes on Rafah: The post that's been shared by more than 47m people (BBC, 30 May)
RUSSIA
Russian disinformation sites linked to former Florida deputy sheriff, research finds (NBC, 30 May)
Digital deceptions: How a European Democracy Shield can help tackle Russian disinformation (European Council on Foreign Relations, 28 May)
EU imposes sanctions on Voice of Europe, businessmen over Russian ‘disinformation’ (Euractiv, 27 May)
CAUCASUS
Georgia’s ruling party intensifies disinformation tactics amid ‘foreign agent’ law standoff (Euractiv, 31 May)
Armenia Suspends Russia’s State Channel Broadcast (Caucasuswatch, 30 May)
Russian diplomat labels European foreign ministers ‘US agents’ for marching with protesters in Georgia (Polygraph, 29 May)
NATO Helped Georgia Counter Russian Trolls. Then the Strategy Backfired (Newslines Magazine, 24 May)
CENTRAL ASIA
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan taking action to curb sorcery and charlatanism (Eurasianet, 23 May)