This new investigation from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) delves into the inner workings of a pro-ISIS account network on Facebook, providing a case study of the resilient network dynamics, technological loopholes, and cross-platform activity that allowed a web of accounts to survive and flourish for over three months on a platform which purports to be a hostile environment for terrorist actors.
Following the murder of George Floyd and the protests it has catalysed across the globe, ISD examined Facebook’s ad library for signs of policy violations, in particular content that “exploits crises or controversial political or social issues for commercial purposes”
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.
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.
This report presents the findings of an extensive investigation into a network of domains connected to NaturalNews, a US-based commercial enterprise and website promoting conspiracy theories and disinformation. This investigation shines a light on the endurance of coordinated disinformation networks on and off social media platforms, as well as the challenges for and remaining limitations of technological companies’ responses to such threats.
ISD researchers have assessed the scale of Canadian right-wing extremist activity across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, 4chan, Gab, Fascist Forge and Iron March. Over the next year we will analyse extremism on these platforms in more detail, and incorporate additional digital forums into our study. This represents one of the most comprehensive efforts to date to assess the scale of right-wing extremist activity online in Canada.
These platforms have been forced to mobilise at speed, trialling policies and enforcement approaches that can meet such a challenge. The briefing summarises the approaches taken by respective teams at Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Google and YouTube, including specific services and policies introduced in recent months and, where possible, the accompanying rationale from companies themselves.
Multiple states across the US are launching or scaling up mass contact tracing campaigns as part of their preparations to reopen society. On 1 May, the H.R.6666 – COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, And Contacting Everyone (TRACE) bill was introduced to Congress by Representative Bobby Rush.
A letter from our CEO on what we are doing as an organisation, and as individuals, to support the Black Lives Matter movement.
