Online Manipulation  

‘Disinformation’ and ‘Misinformation’ are examples of ‘online manipulation’ which encompasses one or more of the following:  

• False or misleading information
• False identities: ‘Inauthenticity’ (bots, cyborgs, sockpuppets)  
• False or deceptive behaviors: ‘coordination’  

Open Platforms  

Open Platforms are social media platforms on which content is visible to general users without further verification and often accessible via search engines. By contrast, content on closed platforms will not be easily accessible via search engines and often requires additional authentication or an invitation. Platforms will often contain open and closed elements; for example, Facebook has public (open) and private (closed) groups.  

Open Source Information  

"Open-source information encompasses publicly available information that any member of the public can observe, purchase or request without requiring special legal status or unauthorized access," according to the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations. Digital open-source information is "publicly available information in digital format, which is generally acquired from the internet," and "comprises both user-generated and machine-generated data, and may include, for example: content posted on social media; documents, images, videos and audio recordings on websites and information-sharing platforms; satellite imagery; and government-published data."  

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)  

In line with national security expert Mark M. Lowenthal, ISD defines OSINT as: “Any and all information that can be derived from overt collection: all types of media, government reports and other documents, scientific research and reports, commercial vendors of information, the Internet and so on. The main qualifiers to open-source information are that it does not require any type of clandestine collection techniques to obtain it and that it must be obtained through means that entirely meet the copyright and commercial requirements of the vendors where applicable”  

Open-Source Investigation  

"Open-source investigation refers to the use of open-source information for information- and evidence-gathering functions," according to the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations. "Digital open-source investigations are investigations based on digital open source information." See definition for open-source information.