COMBATING FOREIGN DISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA SERIES RAPHAEL S. COHEN, NATHAN BEAUCHAMP-MUSTAFAGA, JOE CHERAVITCH, ALYSSA DEMUS, SCOTT W. HAROLD, JEFFREY W. HORNUNG, JENNY JUN, MICHAEL SCHWILLE, ELINA TREYGER, NATHAN VEST COMBATING FOREIGN DISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA STUDY OVERVIEW AND CONCLUSIONS C O R P O R A T I O N For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RR4373z1. About RAND The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. To learn more about RAND, visit www.rand.org. Research Integrity Our mission to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis is enabled through our core values of quality and objectivity and our unwavering commitment to the highest level of integrity and ethical behavior. To help ensure our research and analysis are rigorous, objective, and nonpartisan, we subject our research publications to a robust and exacting quality-assurance process; avoid both the appearance and reality of financial and other conflicts of interest through staff training, project screening, and a policy of mandatory disclosure; and pursue transparency in our research engagements through our commitment to the open publication of our research findings and recommendations, disclosure of the source of funding of published research, and policies to ensure intellectual independence. For more information, visit www.rand.org/about/principles. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © 2021 RAND Corporation is a registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication. ISBN: 978-1-9774-0718-4 Cover: J.M. Eddins Jr./U.S. Air Force; James Thew/Adobe Stock. Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions. Preface How are countries using social media—particularly disinformation campaigns—to influence the competitive space? How have govern- ments, the private sector, and civil society responded to this threat? What more can be done? And what do all these conditions mean for future U.S. Air Force and joint force training and operations?1 This report attempts to answer some of these questions as part of a broader study of disinformation campaigns on social media and the implica- tions of those campaigns in great-power competition and conflict. The other volumes in this series are: • Elina Treyger, Joe Cheravitch, and Raphael S. Cohen, Russian Disinformation Efforts on Social Media, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-4373/2-AF, forthcoming • Scott W. Harold, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, and Jeffrey W. Hornung, Chinese Disinformation Efforts on Social Media, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-4373/3-AF, 2021 • Raphael S. Cohen, Alyssa Demus, Michael Schwille, and Nathan Vest, U.S. Efforts to Combat Foreign Disinformation on Social Media, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2021, Not available to the general public. The research reported here was commissioned by the Air Force Special Operations Command and conducted within the Strategy and Doc- 1 This report was completed before the creation of the U.S. Space Force and therefore uses the name “U.S. Air Force” to refer to both air and space capabilities. iii iv Combating Foreign Disinformation on Social Media: Study Overview trine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE as part of the fiscal year 2019 project “Bringing Psychological Operations and Military Information Support Operations into the Joint Force: Counterinfor- mation Campaigns in the Social Media Age,” which was designed to assist the Air Force in evaluating the threat of foreign influence cam- paigns on social media and assessing possible Air Force, joint force, and U.S. government countermeasures. This report should be of value to the national security commu- nity and interested members of the public, especially those with an interest in how global trends will affect the conduct of warfare. RAND Project AIR FORCE RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF), a division of the RAND Corpo- ration, is the Department of the Air Force’s (DAF’s) federally funded research and development center for studies and analyses, supporting both the United States Air Force and the United States Space Force. PAF provides the DAF with independent analyses of policy alternatives affecting the development, employment, combat readiness, and sup- port of current and future air, space, and cyber forces. Research is con- ducted in four programs: Strategy and Doctrine; Force Modernization and Employment; Manpower, Personnel, and Training; and Resource Management. The research reported here was prepared under contract FA7014-16-D-1000. Additional information about PAF is available on our website: www.rand.org/paf/ This report documents work originally shared with the DAF in September 2019. The draft report, issued on September 20, 2019, was reviewed by formal peer reviewers and DAF subject-matter experts. Contents Preface ............................................................................. iii Boxes and Figures................................................................vii Summary .......................................................................... ix Acknowledgments ..............................................................xiii Abbreviations .....................................................................xv CHAPTER ONE Combating Foreign Influence Efforts on Social Media ................... 1 Definitions and Methodology .................................................... 2 Organization and the Argument ................................................. 7 CHAPTER TWO Understanding the Threat ...................................................... 9 A Tool of the Weak? ............................................................... 9 A New Frontier Still In Its Infancy .............................................15 Intimidate, Discredit, Divide ....................................................21 Not All Social Media Platforms Are Created Equal ......................... 27 Disinformation’s Effectiveness Remains Unknown ...........................31 What’s Next: More of the Same .................................................35 CHAPTER THREE A Divided and Uncertain Response ..........................................39 Categorizing the Responses ..................................................... 40 U.S. Government Efforts Lack Coherence and Coordination .............. 43 Department of Defense Capabilities Still Nascent ............................49 Allies and Partners Have Diverse Contexts, Varied Approaches ............59 v vi Combating Foreign Disinformation on Social Media: Study Overview Industry Limited and Motivated by Bottom Lines ...........................72 Are Nongovernmental Organizations the Linchpin of This Fight? .........78 Conclusion: The Unsolved Challenge ..........................................82 CHAPTER FOUR Conclusions and Recommendations .........................................83 Recommendations for AFSOC ..................................................83 Recommendations for USAF and the Joint Force ............................ 86 Recommendations for the U.S. Government ..................................91 Final Thoughts: No Magic Weapon (as of Now); No Magic Panacea ......95 References ........................................................................ 97 Boxes and Figures Boxes 3.1. Countermeasures to Disinformation ..............................41 3.2. Who in the USG Does What ..................................... 44 3.3. Who in DoD Does What ..........................................51 3.4. Actions Taken by U.S. Allies and Partners .......................61 3.5. What Technology Companies Are Doing .......................75 3.6. What Nongovernmental Organizations Are Doing ............ 80 4.1. Recommendations .................................................. 84 Figures S.1. Defining the Terms and Scoping the Project .....................xii 1.1. Defining the Terms ................................................... 4 2.1, Year-over-Year Growth in Internet and Social Media Users ....16 2.2. Social Media Platform Users over Time ......................... 28 3.1. Social Media Platform Use of VK over Time ....................71 3.2. Twitter Requests for Removal of Content (Top Eight Countries) ...............................................78 vii Summary Issue Ever since Russian interfered in the 2016 American election, the question of how to best combat foreign disinformation attention has attracted significant public scrutiny and policy attention. This report and the others in the series, sponsored by U.S. Air Force Special Opera- tions Command, focuses on two sets of questions. First, how are state adversaries—particularly