CENS WORKSHOP ON DRUMS: 'SECURITY IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD'

On 2 and 3 November 2022, the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) organised an in-person Distortions, Rumours, Untruths, Misinformation and Smears (DRUMS) workshop titled “Security in a Post Truth World”. As the first in-person CENS workshop on DRUMS since 2019, the 2022 edition reflected the significant changes in this field over the past three years, addressing the challenges posed by a world where disinformation is endemic and exploring new methods to mitigate these challenges. This was the seventh annual DRUMS workshop that CENS has organised since 2017, including the three closed-door webinars conducted online during the time of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

18 speakers from institutions in Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States shared their insights over six panels and one special technical presentation. Speakers (and panels) examined disinformation and misinformation, online harms, hate speech, influence operations, fact-checking and regulation. Workshop participants included members of the Singapore civil service, the private sector, and academia, who participated actively in the syndicate discussions and Q&A sessions with the speakers.

Of particular note was the focus on online harassment in the context of gender and misogyny. The sharp rise of Online Gender-Based Violence (OGBV) during the pandemic prompted discussion with regard to laws and regulation designed to protect OGBV victims. More broadly, the workshop gave participants the opportunity to examine the regulatory approaches toward online platforms in different countries. However, at the same time, speakers were also keen to identify misinformation as a moving target, and emphasise the importance of providing users with the necessary tools to empower their own online decision-making.

The workshop’s “strategic communication” panel saw particularly fruitful discussion, reflected in positive feedback from participants. Examining strategic communication approaches to the problem (including AI, edutainment and social media literacy) will remain important in future workshops, particularly as the information ecosystem continues to evolve. The workshop’s special technical presentation, which demonstrated how algorithms are used to manipulate social media messages and communities, highlighted the saliency of this issue.

Based on the overall positive feedback received from the 2022 edition, the above issues should continue to inform CENS’ DRUMS workshops. Future editions must also consider the ongoing- and in some cases, unprecedented- advances in Internet communications technology and machine learning, in order for CENS to remain at the cutting edge of these issues. Besides some of the issues listed above, also deserving focus at future events are open-source intelligence and social network analysis tools, which can assist our research and aid policymakers in Singapore to better scale their responses to influence operations and information threats across the board- and in turn, successfully mitigate the impact of malicious online activity.

This report summarises key points from the panel speakers’ presentations. Key takeaways made by participants during the syndicate discussions and Q&A sessions are included at the end of each panel section.