Description
As the global order shifts in response to democratic decline, great power competition and a fraught geopolitical landscape, hostile states are pushing their advantage through the increasingly emboldened use of covert and overt information influence operations. In an attempt to gain a competitive advantage, these efforts coalesce around the coordinated and deliberate spreading of false information designed to manipulate public opinion, voting intention or decision-making; increase societal distrust and polarisation; and overwhelm the information environment with dominant narratives or confusion-inducing informational chaos.
As part of an ongoing three year ESRC project exploring how foreign-state information influence operations (IIOs) have an impact on public opinion and policy decisions, this paper examines data derived from in-depth interviews with practitioners working in the field of analysing, countering and defending against foreign-state information influence operations. The paper explores the different proactive and reactive protective measures, disruption and defence options available to the defender community across different government, policy, research, industry and civil society environments. The analysis addresses how defenders see the challenges and successes of countering information influence operations in the current operating environment, and the implications this has collectively for current and future security policy and practice in the face of threat from hostile state information influence.
