Over the past decade, foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) operations have grown in complexity and scope.
The speed, availability, and cohesion of tools and tactics employed by foreign malign actors have increased in recent years as the result of increasing global interconnectivity via social media and the internet at large, as well as technological advancements - such as rapid improvements in generative AI - that increasingly enable faster, better, and cheaper FIMI operations and tactics including deep fakes, and manipulated content including text, images, audio, and video.
Additionally, these campaigns increasingly seek to destabilize the very foundations of target countries - undermining democratic principles through the targeting of elections, eroding public trust in institutions and local media, and exploiting social divisions to distract and subvert the target's efforts toward progress.
Although attribution is not always straightforward on social media, it often becomes obvious through narrative analysis and social network analysis that foreign actors and the ecosystems they cultivate online covertly try to influence international public opinion on a wide range of topics and issues by amplifying polarization and eroding democratic discourse.
The speaker will walk the audience through some case studies that highlight recurring patterns and how there is often a link between different tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) - such as usage of proxies, usage of sock puppet accounts, and increasing usage of generative AI to support their activities.
Franky Saegerman has worked for NATO over 30 years in different capacities/functions most recently as IEA analyst, Head of Digital Insights and Head of Social Media.
