This briefing illustrates the role which recommendation algorithms play in amplifying and promoting potentially harmful content on online book retail platforms. Using the example of Amazon, it finds that users are recommended books which contain obvious disinformation, conspiracy theories and white nationalism.
The Digital Policy Lab (DPL) is a new inter-governmental working group focused on charting the regulatory and policy path forward to prevent and counter disinformation, hate speech, extremism and terrorism online. From September 2020 to January 2021, the first sessions of the DPL took place. These sessions were accompanied by a set of policy briefs and discussion papers, which can be accessed here.
This report aims to provide a first look into Irish far-right activity on the messaging app, Telegram, where the movement is operating both as identifiable groups and influencers, and anonymously-run channels and groups. This report was produced in conjunction with TheJournal.ie and its investigative platform Noteworthy.ie as part of their Eyes Right series.
This case study examines two websites and two blogging accounts which appear to be linked to News Front, a Crimean-based news organisation previously accused of being a source of pro-Kremlin disinformation and influence operations. While the impact of the site’s activity is low, the case study provides a glimpse into the inner workings of the broader disinformation ecosystem and sheds light on the long tail of state-linked online assets.
This report provides a series of evidence-based lessons for international NGOs, practitioners and activists working in Pakistan, to improve their capacities in developing counter-narrative campaigns to counter extremism and hate speech. Through YouthCAN, focus groups, bringing together 70 young people from Islamabad, explored how youth in the country understand extremism and hate speech.
This research briefing outlines findings from an analysis of the far-right and far-left Facebook ecosystem in Australia in the first seven months of 2020. It analyses how the far-right and far-left discuss each other on Facebook and how narratives about the other side of the political spectrum shape the online activity of these groups. It also seeks to understand how central discussion about the ‘other side’ is to the far-right and far-left and how it fits within the broader online activities of these movements.
This report provides a set of recommendations, which seek to inform the continuing efforts to counter disinformation and online harms at the EU level through the upcoming Digital Services Act and European Democracy Action Plan in 2020 and beyond.
This report details the findings of ISD’s research on disinformation activities during the European Parliamentary Elections in 2019. It lays out the tactics and actors involved in covert disinformation campaigns, the targets of their activities, and what that might mean for the future of disinformation around elections and beyond.
This briefing brings together the observations of a coalition of organisation who monitored the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections to identify distortion, disruption or interference campaigns and the technology companies response to them. You can read more about ISD's work monitoring the 2019 EU Elections in our interim report, published 24th May 2019.
For this research, ISD’s digital analysis unit have been monitoring a network of 208 channels distributing white supremacist content on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram. In an analysis of over a million posts, this briefing unpacks how the platform is being used to glorify terrorism, call for violence, spread extremist ideological material and demonise minority groups.
