26. July 2018

The Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) organised a workshop on Understanding and Countering Disinformation, Online Falsehoods and Fake News from 24-25 July in Singapore. Sanjana Hattotuwa, Special Advisor at the ICT4Peace Foundation, was invited to present and participate in the workshop.

Sanjana’s tweets capturing leitmotifs and other key points from the proceedings of Day 1 of the workshop can be read here, and from Day 2, here.

The workshop brought together a diverse group of participants from South Asia, South East Asia, Australia, Europe and the US. Discussions, conducted under the Chatham House Rule, were anchored to presentations on specific case studies, contexts, countries, attacks on, strategies adopted and initiatives around countering misinformation and disinformation flows. The discussions ranged from the role, reach and relevance of state actors in the generation of misinformation, to how ordinary citizens interact with rumours. The role of social media was debated at length. Representatives from NATO discussed how its mandate and role was changing in light of increasingly sophisticated misinformation campaigns. Fact-checking initiatives from India and Europe, mainstream news media operations in a context of false news, hate speech in Myanmar and various tips, tools and techniques around verification were also flagged. The substantive Q&A sessions held after the plenary presentations allowed participants to go more in-depth into the issues presented by each speaker.

Sanjana’s presentation, anchored to his PhD research, generated social science issues, ethics, governance, (geo) politics, strategic human/technical investments, media literacy, national security, electoral integrity & role of ethno-religious nationalism in the generation of false news.

ICT4Peace has cooperated with RSIS in 2015 for a workshop on International Security and Diplomacy in Cyberspace for ASEAN Countries. Dr. Daniel Stauffacher, the President of the ICT4Peace Foundation, also contributed to an edited volume by RSIS on cybersecurity.