Can we trust what we see online? asks Chris P, Head of Intelligence at the platform Blackdot Solutions.
Fake news is one of the defining public debates of our time. In an age where algorithms are tailored to favour harmful, fantastical and divisive content, topics such as media literacy, platform regulation and political polarisation occupy a constant presence in the news cycle. The vast reach, immediacy and shareability of content in the online space means false narratives can spread rapidly and widely before corrections are made. It’s a vicious cycle that’s beginning to erode the public’s trust in information – meaning that even genuine, verified information is increasingly dismissed as ‘fabricated’ by some. As you might imagine, for the intelligence profession, finding ways to manage the fake news threat has become one of its most pressing tasks.
A pivotal tool for tackling fake news is open source intelligence (OSINT). This is a process where investigators collect disparate public data, often from online spaces, and transform it into actionable intelligence. In practice, OSINT is used by teams like BBC Verify to investigate the legitimacy of online information and counteract fake news. But the discipline also plays a critical role for a whole variety of companies and law enforcement agencies in fighting crime by helping to unmask the real-world identities and networks behind it.
However, even for OSINT investigators, fake news presents an operational and immediate challenge. Despite having more data at our fingertips than ever before, gaining credible information and establishing what is real is becoming more and more difficult: AI-generated content, deepfakes and unverified reporting are now circulating at speed, making it harder to find facts from which we can draw intelligence. Data verification is essential, but it’s only half of the challenge. To really tackle the fake news threat, we need to stop the spread at the source – which means mapping the networks and perpetrators behind false information.
Misinformation and disinformation: why it’s important to know the difference
Before diving into the obstacles facing intelligence, it can be helpful to outline the differences between misinformation and disinformation, two key forms of fake news.
Misinformation refers to the creation and spread of fake news by someone who is unaware that the information is false – usually, it spreads organically without them holding an ulterior motive. For example, it’s not uncommon to see videos from years earlier being used to depict current events, with people not realising that is the case.
Disinformation, on the other hand, is when fake news is purposely created and spread for specific motives, whether that’s influencing public opinion or tarnishing the reputation of an individual or entity. In this case, the original creator is well aware that the information is false or misleading. Of course, the current information landscape means disinformation is often amplified by ordinary people who don’t know that it’s false. And, aside from creating false news, disinformation perpetrators purposely latch onto misinformation for their own intentions, too.
Both contribute to the cycle that floods online spaces with fake news. This misleading information can even end up in reputable media outlets, as a lot of the public don’t take the time to fact check content – especially if it’s been given authority by public figures who have likewise failed to verify a piece of information.
The great information challenge
The obvious challenge with misinformation and disinformation is that it makes it harder to gather authentic information from which to draw real intelligence. To compound matters, AI is becoming more and more capable of producing fake content that looks convincingly real.
There have been many recent examples of AI-generated content turning satellite images into war misinformation. And fake news is not just being produced by individuals or small groups – there are now overseas ‘content farms’ actively creating deepfakes for political purposes. As such, intelligence departments are battling entire sophisticated operations churning out streams of misinformation across the internet.
Evidently, as false information is disseminated widely, investigators will have to question the reliability of data from open sources and verify its authenticity. These are critical OSINT skills that investigators have been practicing for years. But the scale of this problem is unprecedented, meaning that data verification is taking up more and more valuable investigative time. On top of this, identifying AI-generated content accurately is easier said than done.
Technology is an essential asset for OSINT investigators in the face of these challenges. Tools like reverse image search and AI detectors, for example, can help to spot fake content. But, working in isolation, they’re not enough. There is a real need for OSINT platforms that help investigators to claim back time by increasing efficiency. For example, there are platforms that automatically collect data from across multiple sources – social media, news outlets, forums, databases – and unify it in a single interface for analysis. Investigators can then verify this information and act on it more efficiently.
Mapping disinformation networks
Disinformation is organised and adversarial: from the content farms to the coordinated networks and state-level actors. This presents a danger beyond the pollution of the information ecosystem: it’s not just that bad or incorrect information spreads, it’s that sophisticated actors are deliberately producing and weaponising it.
While efforts to manage misinformation focus on education (or ‘pre-bunking’) and debunking, disinformation requires a different approach. It’s an approach that investigators are well-suited to provide: understanding the infrastructure and networks behind the spread of disinformation. In particular, OSINT will be crucial here. It’s long been used to map networks and trace the source and spread of pervasive narratives.
Armed with broad, high-quality data, investigators can decipher the veracity of information and spot patterns. The platforms I mentioned earlier will help here too: disinformation arises and spreads rapidly, so enabling more efficient investigations helps to ensure a timely response. Plus, combining higher-quality commercially-available sources (official corporate records, broadsheet media etc.) with information from other sources (forums, social media etc.) will be essential for gaining a full picture of disinformation networks. Having access to all of these sources in a single interface makes the investigative process much easier.
For example, the platform might show that an email address connected to a fake social media account is also attributed to an individual involved with an offshore entity. All of a sudden, a much broader operation behind disinformation emerges. But without the right technology, accruing this data and making connections is incredibly difficult and time-consuming, even with a large team and resources.
That’s not to say that technology or OSINT alone provide the solution to disrupting disinformation. Instead, they’re both useful and perhaps crucial tools to be used in mapping and dismantling these operations.
Disinformation practices will continue to evolve, but it’s clear that fake news presents a major challenge for the information landscape. OSINT might not be able to solve the issue for society at large, but it does present crucial techniques for both verifying information and disrupting the spread of targeted campaigns.
At an individual level, OSINT enables effective content verification. Within investigations, this is invaluable for identifying reliable information to draw insights from – and sharing the results of these skills can be valuable too. Debunking claims publicly not only keeps ordinary people informed, but it creates a wider base of verified information that the intelligence community can leverage. The spread of fake news is complex and the information ecosystem is becoming increasingly polluted. Simply put, there is no easy fix.
However, OSINT and technology platforms will both play important roles in counteracting misinformation and disinformation alike. By equipping ourselves with the tools and techniques to verify content at speed, debunk claims and target the networks behind disinformation, we stand a better chance in the fight to protect the information ecosystem.
