Losing The Battle Of Ideas
Officials in the US, UK, and Canadian governments appear to realise that in the information war, they are facing a catastrophic defeat. This morning a press release from Global Affairs Canada lays out the dire situation: Foreign information manipulation is a national security threat that undermines democratic values, human rights, governmental processes and political stability. Given the borderless nature of information manipulation, we call on all like-minded countries committed to the rules-based order to work together to identify and counter this threat . Securing the integrity of the global information ecosystem is central to popular confidence in governance institutions and processes, trust in elected leaders and the preservation of democracy. The present international system, based on international law and respect for territorial boundaries, is competing with an alternate vision defined by autocratic impunity . This alternate vision deploys foreign malign influence aimed a...