The Global Engagement Center’s Fight Against Foreign Disinformation: A Technological Approach
The Global Engagement Center (GEC), a unit within the State Department dedicated to combating foreign disinformation, faces an uncertain future. Despite its potential elimination due to funding cuts at the end of the year, the GEC emphasizes its crucial role in countering foreign influence operations and the importance of leveraging technology in this fight. Acting Deputy Coordinator Carrie Goux highlights the GEC’s commitment to understanding the evolving information landscape, particularly how emerging technologies are exploited to spread disinformation. This involves building in-house technical expertise and developing technical solutions to identify and counter these threats. Goux stresses the urgency of this effort, emphasizing that the pace of technological advancement necessitates continuous investment and adaptation.
A core challenge for the GEC, akin to challenges faced by academics and private sector entities combating disinformation, lies in measuring the real-world impact of online influence operations. Linking online behavior to tangible outcomes, such as electoral results, remains a complex task. However, Goux underscores the imperative of maintaining the GEC’s capabilities, pointing to successes like disrupting foreign interference in the Moldovan elections. While causation is difficult to definitively establish, the GEC’s efforts coincided with a positive outcome, suggesting the potential efficacy of their interventions. Conversely, the GEC acknowledges limitations, noting their limited involvement in instances like Georgia where pro-Russian forces retained control, highlighting the nuances and complexities of their operational landscape.
The GEC defines disinformation specifically as false or misleading information disseminated by foreign actors with the intent to manipulate public opinion or interfere in political processes. This disinformation often masquerades as organic content from local sources, concealing its foreign origins and manipulative intent. Goux explains that the speed and reach of disinformation has been significantly amplified by technology, allowing foreign actors to rapidly disseminate narratives through various channels, especially social media platforms. One example of GEC’s work involves exposing a Kremlin-backed disinformation campaign targeting Africa, showcasing the sophisticated use of technology by foreign adversaries. Goux stresses the GEC’s dual focus: mitigating the risks posed by new technologies used for malicious purposes while also harnessing their benefits to counter disinformation.
The GEC leverages cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, to analyze and understand disinformation campaigns. One prominent example is the use of text similarity analysis, a natural language processing technique that allows the GEC to identify patterns and themes in disinformation narratives, gauge their reach, and understand how they spread. This tool enables the GEC to move beyond simply identifying specific narratives and analyze broader themes, linguistic nuances, and network formation, ultimately improving their ability to anticipate and disrupt disinformation campaigns. As technology evolves, so do the tactics of disinformation actors. The GEC has observed how foreign actors attempt to covertly distribute state-sponsored media content through local media outlets, often making subtle textual changes to evade detection. Advanced tools, like the text similarity analysis, play a crucial role in identifying these increasingly sophisticated tactics.
Assessing the impact of counter-disinformation efforts remains a complex challenge. The GEC, recognizing this difficulty, employs a combination of methods to gauge their effectiveness. This includes assessing observable signs and inferring impact based on subsequent events. The GEC cites its collaboration with the UK and Canada to expose disinformation networks targeting Moldova’s elections as a case in point. While a direct causal link between the GEC’s actions and the outcome of the election is difficult to establish, the subsequent victory of President Sandu, against whom the disinformation campaign was directed, suggests a potential positive impact. Goux emphasizes that these assessments often involve looking for indicators that their efforts have contributed to positive outcomes, acknowledging that measuring what doesn’t happen – the successful prevention of a negative event – is inherently challenging.
Collaboration and capacity building are central to the GEC’s approach. Recognizing the uneven technological landscape, the GEC prioritizes working with international partners, sharing expertise and resources. This involves building a common operational framework for understanding the information environment, developing shared technical systems and platforms, and promoting data exchange. Goux highlights the GEC’s leadership in developing standardized approaches and assisting partners with varying levels of technological capacity. This collaborative approach facilitates joint action against disinformation threats and ensures a more coordinated and effective response. The GEC also interacts with private sector partners to share information on observed tactics and techniques, albeit without any directive or prescriptive exchange, acknowledging a whole-of-society approach is necessary to combat disinformation.
Looking ahead, the GEC intends to further invest in technical expertise, especially in areas like AI. Goux emphasizes the importance of developing in-house capacity to leverage advanced technologies for identifying, labeling, and authenticating online content. This capability is deemed crucial for combatting increasingly sophisticated disinformation campaigns and understanding the evolving role of AI in the information environment. The GEC’s future hinges on congressional reauthorization of its funding. Goux stresses the vital national security role played by the GEC in exposing and disrupting foreign disinformation networks, highlighting the importance of a collaborative approach involving government, private sector, civil society, and international partners. The GEC’s ability to continue this critical work depends on the recognition of its value and continued investment in its capabilities.