Disinformation Smackdown: steps to build resilience

My clients express a lot of concern about the powerful effects of disinformation, with good reason.

This year the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducted a Truth Quest Survey to measure how well people identify false and misleading information online. More than 40-thousand people in 21 countries participated, including more than 2,000 in Canada.

Respondents correctly identified content as true or false 60% of the time. They also found it harder to detect truthful information.[i]

It’s only natural to want to know who is generating fake news stories, and doppelganger domains. But investigation is rarely worth the effort, given the use of automated bots, cross-border operations and other layers of obfuscation.

The priority for any organization that isn’t in the cyber counterintelligence business is to get ahead of disinformation through strategies such as prebunking. That’s where an organization anticipates and pre-emptively responds to misleading information and narratives. The goal is to equip voters, customers, kids, and the public with knowledge and skills to separate facts from fiction.

Internationally, few governments fight disinformation as well as Latvia. Late last year I attended an EU DisinfoLab webinar featuring Rihards Bambals, director of strategic communications department at Latvia’s Chancellery. He described an unrelenting barrage of Russian disinformation aiming to divide Latvians through harmful narratives. One campaign, for example, falsely claimed that Ukrainian migrants receive more aid and benefits from the state than local residents.

 Bambals oversees a well-coordinated government approach to information integrity upheld by three pillars:

 ·      A public administration with strong and effective strategic communications capabilities

·       An independent and secure media environment.

·       Societal resilience and engaged private, non-governmental and academic sectors.

Latvia’s “Black on White” website hosts video podcasts, shares information and tips about threats and invites people to report suspected disinformation.

Canada has a lot of work to do in this sphere.

I asked Bambals about the challenges in upholding the second pillar, given how traditional news media are struggling for their survival everywhere, including Canada and Latvia, Bambals replied, “We need to support news media. This is one of my calls. Most of our problems in the press come from leaders not being transparent and providing information in timely manner.”

 Here are some other strategies I recommend:

·        Share internal statistics that allow the public to measure progress and performance.

·        Use your annual report to share facts and relevant stories that illustrate the organization’s achievements.

·        Invite journalists to off-the-record briefings where you can share information and context that may correct misunderstandings and errors in news coverage.

 In a world where fake news spreads faster than a viral cat video, everyone has a role to play in building information resilience. Whether at work, home or school, it has never been more important to fight the destructive force of disinformation.

 [i] OECD (2024), “The OECD Truth Quest Survey: Methodology and findings”, OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 369, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/92a94c0f-en