[Air-L] Greenwald, Musk & Russia in the 'Censorship' debate

[Dr. Emma Briant]

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am writing to share my latest article published by Brookings TechTank,
which is on the Kremlin's ongoing war in Ukraine. My article, "How Russia
benefits from ill-informed social media policies"
<https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2022/04/28/how-russia-benefits-from-ill-informed-social-media-policies/>
responds
to Glenn Greenwald's recent claims that Russian perspectives are 'censored'
in a social media information war that operates only in one direction. The
arguments of Kremlin defenders like Greenwald not only distort what is
really going on with the platforms, but seek to misleadingly portray an
imperialist aggressor with zero tolerance of dissent as a suppressed voice.
Please read and share, I critique the social media companies policies
which, contrary to Greenwald's claims are actually inadvertently advancing
the Kremlin's framing. The issue is especially important as new Twitter
owner Elon Musk argues Russian propaganda should be protected 'free speech'
- we will see policies change on the platform and it raises questions of
just what might be allowed? Falsehoods about war crimes?
Trust is declining because of ill-informed responses and a failure of most
research and policy to centralize the actors involved in influence
operations, research on this is an area in which I specialize.
Rising public distrust is unfortunately not helped by the launch today of
US Department of Homeland Security's latest effort - a 'Disinformation
Governance Board' which prompted an array of paranoid push-back and sent
'Ministry of Truth' trending on Twitter. Whether or not the paranoia is
justified, the US has hinged its efforts to respond to 'falsehood' on the
weak conceptual framework of 'MDM' <https://www.cisa.gov/mdm>. This risks
conflating misinformation with intentional influence operations in ways
that are unhelpful for restoring trust and may raise genuine speech
concerns. It also fails to understand and miscommunicates the problem of
deliberate influence operations. I would argue the many missteps we are
seeing are actually advantaging the Kremlin and result from failing to form
nuanced responses based on an understanding of differences between
different actors.
I also want to let you know about an upcoming event a moderated
conversation with me on 'Disinformation for Profit: the dark business
behind disinformation
<https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/insight/events/cfra-webinar-disinformation-for-profit/>.'
It is part of the Cambridge Disinformation Summit, hosted by the Centre for
Financial Reporting & Accountability at University of Cambridge, of which I
am an Associate. I also am delighted to share some news, as I join as a
Fellow
<https://cmds.ceu.edu/article/2022-04-27/emma-l-briant-joins-cmds-fellow> at
the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University.
I hope you will continue to check out Afternoon Tea and Truth Biscuits
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXqESkk8Ex6vjSIRkfJBNNA/featured> - this
week we had a special  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8wFdD8RMIQ>on the
use of geolocation and satellite imagery to prove war crimes and debunk
propaganda in Ukraine.

Thank you all for your interest in my work.

Best wishes,
Emma

-- 
Dr Emma L Briant
Owner: Maven of Persuasion LLC
Fellow at Central European University's Center for Media, Data and Society
Associate at University of Cambridge, Center for Financial Reporting &
Accountability
Website: www.emma-briant.co.uk
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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