Russia utilizes both overt and covert mechanisms to spread disinformation and interfere with democratic processes. Russian tactics include building influence networks and implementing proxies managed by Russian spy services. The aimis to influence the outcome of a democratic election. The aim appears to be to stoke authoritarianism over democracy.
With an extraordinarily successful Russian effort between 2020 and 2022 to make US citizens believe that the 2020 election was stolen, it is remarkable that this next major election in 2023 went off as planned, as it should have, without a sense of an election driven by fraud, demonstrating the difficulty of sustaining an illusion.
Russia has not been able to convince ordinary Americans that this last November 2023 election was stolen. Recapturing confidence in the integrity of the election contest is elusive. Russia has been encouraged to further intensify its election influence operations by its success in promoting the “big lie” that Biden was not really the winner in 2020. By amplifying disinformation about the 2020 U.S. election Russia was not able to influence this past 2023 election, possibly because of increased viligence on the part of the Americans.
Donald Trump, who refuses to accept the 2020 election results, falsely claims that he lost due to fraud. Concerted Russian operations between 2020 and 2022 sought to "undermine public confidence in at least 11 elections across nine democracies, “ including the United States. (US State Department)
Now the issue becomes: How can we continue to be vigilant? What does that mean? And will it be enough? Before this, Americans were not clear about the possibility of disinformation affecting the outcome of an election. Disinformation is difficult to discern in a nation that protects free speech. Disinformation is not necessarily discernably different from standard information and news. More sophistication is needed than we have now.
US President Joe Biden has taken a stand:
“There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders – leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation — to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.”
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
According to the OECD “The spread of disinformation around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reflects wider challenges related to the shift in how information is produced and distributed. Platform and algorithm designs can amplify the spread of disinformation by facilitating the creation of echo chambers and confirmation bias mechanisms that segregate the news and information people see and interact with online; information overload, confusion, and cognitive biases play into these trends.”
https://www.oecd.org/ukraine-hub/policy-responses/disinformation-and-russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-37186bde/
This blog seeks to garner a conversation among people interested in protecting democracy to see how we can achieve limiting the spread of disinformation and support the implementation of democracy.