[Air-L] NEW Witness Statement & Open Letter Published

[Dr. Emma Briant]

Dear Colleagues,
I am delighted to share with you today the latest updates in an important
thread of my work investigating and highlighting how secrecy is undermining
our national security, democracy  and ability to defend public debates from
foreign influence operations.

Please take a look at this recent witness statement I provided to the UK
parliament
<https://emma-briant.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7f9f1379bf0f0311ebba75d7&id=05f258e2f4&e=ba76ce6920>
which
has just been published by the UK Public Administration and Constitutional
Affairs Select Committee Inquiry into the Cabinet Office’s implementation
of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. My witness statement, makes clear
how vital defending FOIA is to securing public trust, strong national
security reporting and, perhaps counterintuitively given secrecy is often
advanced on the basis of security arguments, to undermining Russian
influence operations. I include an NEW example of a leak of an SCL Group
document - the defense contractor parent firm of Cambridge Analytica - on
its training for NATO. I gave extensive evidence to the UK Parliament on
this in 2018, highlighting how this fuelled Russian disinformation and
hoping they would do something serious to regulate influence firms like
these. This was part of private testimony and evidence from me and is the
first time I have publicly written about it.

Some of you will be aware that I have frequently highlighted how what we
are seeing today are essentially paranoia operations, more than just
disinformation (deliberate falsehood) they hinge on creating uncertainty
and distrust in our institutions. This form of propaganda, where it is most
effective in undermining democracy, hinges on distorted interpretations of
truth. If you can undermine reality and create distrust, this leaves
fertile ground for bare faced lies.

I point out how the UK Government has been suppressing information more and
more widely due to a concern about 'mosaic intelligence', an elastic
concept that can be used to deny almost anything. Actions by militaries and
governments which seek to suppress and control information about what they
do in the information domain - or who are not up front with citizens about
what they are doing - are routinely exposed of course. The negative impact
of these 'suppressed truths' creates far more distrust than being honest
generates criticism. Furthermore, distrust created is then leveraged to
promote lies as 'suppressed truths'.

This is why today I am a proud signatory of this Open Letter with 110 other
academics, journalists, MP's and civil society organizations - published by
Open Democracy: Editors and MPs urge watchdog to act over escalating
government secrecy
<https://emma-briant.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7f9f1379bf0f0311ebba75d7&id=302ef17581&e=ba76ce6920>.
We
need to build trust in governments, platforms and all institutions that
support a democracy, scrutinizing systems and enforcing transparent ethical
practices. If reporting has already come out in larger media or academic
research, ideological or foreign outlets have less of a 'scoop' on western
propaganda operations. The UK Government instead has been trying to impose
secrecy and control with profoundly damaging effects on rising distrust. I
have done a longer thread of this open letter and my most recent 3
statements to parliament on the issues of online influence operations and
responses to them here
<https://emma-briant.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7f9f1379bf0f0311ebba75d7&id=258220d90b&e=ba76ce6920>if
you would like to share. I have seen numerous examples, where secrecy, poor
understanding of actors behind campaigns, and ill-thought out knee jerk
responses are *worsening the distrust* that fuels the deliberate propaganda
attacks that are enabling war crimes in Ukraine.

Similarly, platforms unwisely often have a greater concern with and focus
on falsehood than trust - worsened by a complete inability to understand
the actors and communities involved in generating propaganda and
misinformation, let alone the wider effects different responses have in the
communities they target. Just consider Scott Ritter's take-down by Twitter
in the last couple of days - Ritter was suspended for making false claims
about the Kremlin's massacre in Bucha. He was suspended then
reinstated enabling
a wide-reaching reinforcing narrative about how he was 'silenced' for
speaking the 'wrong narrative'
<https://emma-briant.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7f9f1379bf0f0311ebba75d7&id=abed8bcd59&e=ba76ce6920>
. Supporters then are able to share screenshots of the banned tweet
<https://emma-briant.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7f9f1379bf0f0311ebba75d7&id=32ed896ac0&e=ba76ce6920>,
which gives further credentials within the receptive community as well as
enabling large numbers of people to read the message Twitter sought to
'suppress'. His return helps reinforce a sense that there must be something
to what he says, he's been allowed back so this underscores the belief it
was arbitrary. Transparency and consistency for platforms, as well as an
understanding of how their actions will play out is of paramount
importance.

Please do share and cite any of the publications linked above. I also
regularly speak on digital disinformation threats and how we can respond to
them better as citizens, as journalists, as organizations, as governments.

Thank you all for supporting me and my work as readers, as colleagues and
as friends.

Best wishes,
Dr. Briant
-- 
Dr Emma L Briant
Website: www.emma-briant.co.uk
Associate at University of Cambridge, Center for Financial Reporting &
Accountability
Author of: *Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global
Change *from
Manchester University Press
Co-Author of: *Bad News for Refugees* with Prof. Greg Philo and Dr. Pauline
Donald from Pluto Press.
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