Dr William Dance

@williamdance.bsky.social

370 Followers 126 Following

Expert in disinformation, social media, and online safety | Senior BBC Policy Advisor @ DCMS | Previously: Senior Researcher at Lancaster University | Also run @fakebelieveblog.bsky.social. Contact: w.dance@fakebelieve.blog

A tweet from the British Transport Police that reads: Today we’re announcing new measures which will see the mandatory removal of outdoor footwear on the railway. The groundbreaking step is being introduced following a surge in reports to our text 61016 service of people putting their feet on seats.
A screenshot of a tweet with 4.4 million views showing an AI generated image of a person dressed as Pikachu wielding a Turkish flag during protests.
FIGHTING THE FAKES STRATEGIES Made by William Dance THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK Before diving into something that seems true, stop and think If something makes you feel happy, shocked, scared, excited, or even angry, it might be trying to do that on purpose. A simple test is: could you prove this is real to someone else? CHECK THE SOURCE Have you heard of this account before? Is it from a website you recognise? Is it a clear photo, or a blurry, grainy meme? If you can't easily find out who made it, it might be because theyre trying to hide it. Always check who is saying what. FIND A FACT CHECK Not sure about something? There's people to help you with that! Fact checkers are people who write about popular posts and stories and investigate whether theyre true. A popular one is called Snopes. FALLEN FOR A FAKE? All of us have fallen for something fake before, it happens to everyone. If this happens to you it's okay to admit you've got something wrong. It means that now you're well prepared for when other people see it too. www.fakebelieve.blog/resources
HOSTILE-STATE INFORMATION OPERATIONS Created by William Dance (@williampdance) WHAT IS AN HSIO? A hostile-state information operation (or 'HSIO') is the employment of information-related capabilities to influence and disrupt adversaries. DIFFERENT NAMES HSIOs have many other names. These include terms such as information warfare and influence operations (IW/IO), influence cyber operations (ICOs), information activities, foreign information operations (FIOs), information warfare, and others. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? HSIOs are characterised by being executed at the state level or at the instruction of the state, and can target groups inside or outside the country they originate from. They are the adversarial deployment of information to harm others. CASE STUDY: RUSSIA The Internet Research Agency (IRA) is a private company in St Petersburg, Russia. The IRA fulfils government contracts and is the online propaganda arm of the Kremlin. Workers are paid to fulfil quotas of social media posts, pretending to be politically-engaged residents of the target country. QUANTITY OVER QUALITY HSIOs are not always well-refined operations and can be experimental. For example, 'zone flooding is a discursive practice where adversaries overload online information spaces to make it more difficult to access legitimate information and make decisions. For more resources, visit www.fakebelieve.blog/resources and follow @FakeBelieveBlog.