Defending democracy against disinformation

Australia needs an integrated approach to fighting disinformation from hostile foreign states.

Under siege

The growing cyber, foreign interference, and disinformation threat from hostile state and non-state actors motivates a call for Australia to use all tools of statecraft to help shape the information space.

The enemy within

Tucker Carlson’s lickspittle ‘interview’ with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was yet another shot fired by Russia and his American apologists in the propaganda war against Ukraine and NATO, but what more can be done to counter the disinformation campaigns undermining Western democracies?

How they get you

Disinformation peddled by hostile foreign states, misinformation spread by ignorant individuals and scams perpetrated by con-artists abound on social media, so how can we protect ourselves – and our sanity – against them?

Weeding out disinformation

A recent OECD conference on the global challenge of online disinformation to the world’s democracies highlighted a number of strategies which Australia could adopt or consider.

Australia’s bid to curb online disinformation

After years of laissez-faire policy making, the world’s biggest tech companies are finally becoming subject to more stringent regulation, and Australia’s attempts to encourage platforms to take more responsibility is a useful way forward.

Mapping the disinformation war

Aggressive, hostile nations such as Russia, China and Iran maintain huge disinformation campaigns designed to discredit the West and shift global opinion in their favour. A new ASPI website helps track these assaults on truth and democracy in real time.

Defunding the disinformation machine

Peddling disinformation on behalf of hostile states or vested interests is a profitable business, so one of the most effective ways to slow its spread is to take away the advertising money unwittingly funding it.

Information, disinformation and democracy in a volatile world

We need to focus on the hard business of cyber defence as well as long-term trust-building and real-time information interventions to counter the attacks of hostile states on our democracy.

Protecting ‘cognitive security’

Australia and other democratic nations must do more to protect their societies from foreign propaganda designed to foment conflict and conspiracies.

The case for a ‘disinformation CERN’

The scale and reach of the disinformation problem is now so vast that only research cooperation across the democratic world can address the shared threat to our societies.

Disinformation threatens evidence-based policy making

The prime minister says the public service needs to focus on ‘getting the right data, the right evidence, and the right reporting’. More importantly, a reliable evidence base supports a sharper focus on long-term thinking and planning.