How to quantify disinformation in the new information ecosystem

Information warfare has shaped our current information ecosystem, with the battle for mindshare attacking human perception. Wherever we look, misinformation and manipulation have impacted every critical issue that affects us today. There are coordinated efforts to shift public perception about controversies, regulations, power struggles, and things that involve large sums of money.

Whether we like it or not, we are being manipulated.

That also means that disinformation is manipulating the insights from social intelligence platforms. And by extension, brands are making compromised responses based on those manipulated insights.

During the SI Tech Demo Day 2021, Wasim Khaled, CEO of Blackbird.AI helped us explore this new information ecosystem and how to quantify disinformation.

How disinformation campaigns impact social intelligence insights

Many of the disinformation threats we get today are invisible. They live “underwater,” utilising techniques like bot networks, hashtag hijacking, and coordinated inauthentic behaviour. Modern disinformation isn’t just about what is true or false; it’s also about narrative manipulation and manufactured narrative conflict.

Wasim explained that the data-driven analytics and systems we have today are extremely vulnerable to manipulation. Sometimes, what’s labeled as “AI” only gives you hard-coded text analytics and volume metrics. So these platforms do not have the capacity to handle the invisible and complex threats we see today.

“To have even a shot at reacting intelligently to day-to-day monitoring or fluid crisis, you have to have a deep understanding of the mechanisms that are at play.”

Quantifying manipulation

Explaining the evolution of noise and disruption in the current information ecosystem, Wasim said, “When AI-drive technologies become fully weaponised, it will render the current information ecosystem unfit for consumption. Current intelligence efforts will be rendered useless and ineffective unless technology keeps pace.”

But all is not lost.

There are ways to quantify disinformation and manipulation so organisations can better understand how to react or if they should even react in the first place.

Technology, such as Blackbird.AI's, conducts methodical quantification of mechanisms to overcome the efforts that are driving narrative manipulation. At its core, the technology utilises a fusion of four signal categories that can bring some order to your information if processed at scale across different platforms.

Those four signals are:

Networks – These are the relations between users and the concepts they share.

Narratives – These are the conversations that are relevant.

Manipulation – These are the factors that drive influence and serve to amplify people’s expressions.

Cohorts – These are the affiliations that reflect affinity.

“Measuring these signals together can provide really unique insight into information sharing mechanisms and drivers, which in turn helps you understand the nature of harmful emerging conversations and their impacts,” Wasim explained.

This helps to quantify disinformation faster and more accurately in near real-time.

This methodical quantification also gives you a clear lens into disinformation and misinformation. You can then get a better idea of how to react or if you should react at all.

Understanding these mechanisms will help organisations to build a “disinformation playbook” that they can use to address these threats head-on.

Moving from information disorder to information integrity

Disinformation and manipulation are existential problems that have a serious impact on brands, governments, and financial markets. Ultimately, these problems also impact our relationships with one another.

Technology needs to catch up if we want to make that crucial progress from information disorder to information integrity.

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