Hvordan gjør vi samfunnet mer robust mot påvirkningsoperasjoner?

The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive overview of how social media is usedby states to try to influence other countries’ population and to examine how such operationshave been handled. This is in response to the increasing use of social media to interfere in, forinstance, elections, international relations or crisis situations such as the covid-19 pandemic.The focus is on the practical aspects of such influence operations – what actors and elementsare involved and how do they work? This report is aimed at those who may need to handle orrelate to such influence operations as part of their everyday work. The report does not assumean expert knowledge in areas such as media, strategic communication or informationtechnology – the report provides thorough explanations and backgrounds for technologies used,actors involved and the roles and interactions between actors and technologies in influenceoperations.The key issue examined is how the global, high-tech, private infrastructure of social mediacompanies provide direct, non-editorial access to users around the world, and how thisinfrastructure is abused for the purpose of covertly influencing people. Relevant issues arehighlighted through a study of the Russian influence attempts in the US presidential election in2016, with references to the current covid-19 pandemic where relevant. Through a thoroughliterature review, with additional information from participation in NATO groups and conferences,three areas are examined and explained:1. The anatomy of an influence operation: What type of content is created and how is itspread? How is an operation supported, knowingly or unintentionally, by an ecosystemof actors that emerge around issues that an influence operation seeks to exploit?2. How did social media platforms and authorities try to handle such meddling?3. What is the current status as to the possibilities for influence operations through socialmedia? What are the attitudes and actions of social media platforms, nationalauthorities and social media users to try to handle such threats?The examination of these three areas leads to a summary of the challenges this pose for ademocratic country. The report suggests that it is unrealistic for a democracy to stop suchinfluence attempts directly. Instead one must be able to handle them through increasedknowledge of how an influence operation works and what issues and target groups it might tryto affect. Such knowledge could then be applied to develop educational programmes to fosterresilience in relevant organisations and the country at large.

Discussions about recent state-run influence operations in social media often focus only on quantitative elements—the number of people interacting with fake news or how many tweets were sent by bots. This article suggests that understanding how influence operations in social media may affect individuals and groups requires a socio-technical approach to examine what is unique about the social media information environment and people’s interactions in and through these media. A socio-technical understanding emerges through the development of a model based on the Cyber Kill Chain that conceptualises the influence operation process as interlinked stages seeking alternate actions from a target audience.

In order to improve our understanding of factors relevant to communication and influence in a defense context, this report delves into the field of psychology. Understanding the psychological processes at the basis of human communication and influence may help the Norwegian government and Armed Forces in their effort, both to protect the nation and its inhabitants against potential enemy activity with the goal of gaining influence, and to communicate with the population in manners that increase the probability of the message being understood by its recipients in line with what was intended. The research presented also seeks to increase the understanding of psychological factors that may influence Norway’s international relations, both at military and at political levels. Being able to understand what influences Norway and the Norwegian Armed Forces may be facing, and being able to both prepare and respond to these in an adequate manner, are deemed important aspects of the country’s ability to defend itself. The report focuses on both the communicator and the audience/recipients, on the message, and on the medium in which it is communicated, as well as on the group, organizational, and cultural contexts. The themes presented include attitudes, persuasion, cognitive models, technology-mediated influence, priming and framing, the base-rate fallacy, attribution, group effects, social identity theory, organizational effects, job involvement, erroneous decision making, and cross-cultural issues. This report also examines how issues at the individual, group, organizational, and cultural levels are interrelated. For instance, it is described how cultural differences may modify the effect of the persuasion principles. It is furthermore pointed to how attributional errors are found at both individual and group levels, but may differ across cultures. Finally, it is elaborated upon how the organizational context may interact with the individual level aspects in creating more or less robustness towards hostile attempts at influence. Implications of the research findings for the Norwegian government and defense organization in both national and international contexts are discussed. For instance, it is discussed how understanding the principles of persuasion, the impact of different group belonging, the consequences of different forms of organizing, and the effect of technologically mediated communication may aid the population, government, and armed forces to protect themselves against hostile influence attempts as well as successfully communicate with the population in peace, crisis, and conflict. The psychological research and implications presented in this report may be used both to guide the nation’s current and future efforts to prepare for and counter influence operations aimed at harming our society, and to give the Norwegian government and Armed Forces a baseline study from which evaluation tools and further research may be defined and launched. This report may be seen as a starting point from which to understand our vulnerabilities and our possibilities in regard to the psychological sides of securing the Norwegian population - including also increasingly more technologically mediated communication.

Siden tidlig på 2010-tallet har det vært en jevn økning i staters eller organisasjoners bruk avsosiale medier for å forsøke å manipulere meninger og handlinger blant mennesker som erutenfor deres juridiske kontroll. Eksempler på dette som har blitt rapportert i mediene er denrussiske hybridkrigen i Ukraina og utenlandsk innblanding i det amerikanske presidentvalget i2016. For Norge og andre Nato-land representerer denne utviklingen en problematisk ny trendsom krever andre verktøy og ferdigheter enn det som tradisjonelt har blitt brukt i forbindelsemed påvirkningsoperasjoner.Selv om det etter hvert er mye dokumentasjon på disse og andre påvirkningsoperasjoner isosiale medier er det gjort lite for å utforske hvordan slike kampanjer kan ha en effekt.Formålet med denne rapporten er å støtte Forsvaret og Forsvarsdepartementet i å utvikle enbedre forståelse av problemstillinger rundt påvirkningsoperasjoner i sosiale medier. Dette gjøresved å gå utover en ren oppsummering av de påvirkningsaktivitetene som har funnet sted isosiale medier. I stedet bruker rapporten en sosio-teknisk tilnærming for å undersøke ulikeaspekter av sosiale medier-basert påvirkningsoperasjoner. Disse aspektene diskuteres så isammenheng med mer generelle studier av sosial atferd på nett og sosiologi og IKT-relatertforskning. For dette formålet bruker rapporten sekundærdata fra flere tilfeller av sosiale mediermanipulering,både statlige og mindre, mer organiske angrep.Fra denne basen utvikler rapporten en konseptuell modell som gjør oss i stand til å forståhvordan en påvirkningsoperasjon bruker sosiale mediers iboende egenskaper for å oppnå sinemål. Kort oppsummert blir en planlagt påvirkningsoperasjon utført av aktive operatører ogbenytter egenskaper ved sosiale medier som legger til rette for visse aktiviteter. Disseegenskapene forsterker og øker rekkevidden til påvirkningsoperasjoner, slik at innholdet spresvidt og legges til i det kontinuerlig aggregerte og akkumulerte innholdet som lagres. Den enormesamlingen av nettinnhold blir kalt online informasjonssedimenter. Denne metaforen blir brukt forå understreke den langsiktige og kumulative tilnærmingen, hvor informasjonen aldri forsvinner,men er mer eller mindre synlig avhengig av hva brukeren er interessert i og søker etter. Nyttinnhold påvirkes av online informasjonssedimenter fordi eksisterende innlegg danner materialetsom påvirker tolkningen og forståelsen av ny informasjon. Alternativt kan nye innlegg påvirkeeksisterende innhold ved å tilby nye måter å tolke gamle innlegg på. I begge tilfeller konkurrererinformasjonen fra påvirkningsoperasjoner om oppmerksomheten i et forsøk på å inngå i, ogmanipulere, meningsdannende prosesser hos individer og grupper. Formålet vil være å fåbrukerne til å gjøre noe som er gunstig for aktøren bak påvirkningsoperasjonen.Basert på disse nye innsiktene kan relevante myndigheter begynne å utvikle nye tilnærmingerog prosedyrer for å oppdage, vurdere og muligens motvirke slike operasjoner.

Hybrid warfare is the term now used to describe the combination of regular and irregular meanswithin the framework of the same armed conflict, which – given the presence of some kind ofirregular means or tactics in all conflicts – makes all wars hybrid by definition. This report thereforenarrows the meaning of the term down to those conflicts or stages in conflicts where irregularmeans dominate over conventional. Since the end of the Cold War, Norwegian defenceplanning has been based on a scenario featuring a limited but high intensity, conventional militaryattack from another state. Unconventional or irregular operations have been consideredonly as a supporting activity in the context of such an attack. Guerrilla style operations, bombings,assassinations, sabotage and the like have dominated first of all asymmetric wars andcounter-insurgencies fought mainly in the rural parts of poor countries outside Europe.This report studies the possibility of hybrid warfare as a prelude to, or as an integrated part of, afuture inter-state and low-intensity conflict in Europe. The reason for this is the increasing frequencyof both kinetic and non-kinetic irregular means in armed conflicts everywhere, relative toconventional military force. This, in its turn, can be traced back to a number of political, social,economic and technological trends. It must therefore be assumed that such means will be animportant part of any future conflict between Norway and a foreign power. Particularly the developmentof information and communication technology over the past 20 years has createdentirely new domains and opportunities for non-kinetic hybrid warfare. Global news coverageand dissemination, the possibility of instant group coordination through social media, the transferof power to non-state actors, the proliferation of sensitive military technology, the adaption ofcommercial technology to military purposes – it all contributes to the opportunity of states toconduct war by proxy or non-attributable warfare as a low-risk, low-cost alternative to high-endwar. Particular importance must be attached to influence operations and the battle of the narrative– the struggle to shape not only the perception of what is actually happening, but also toclaim political legitimacy and the moral high ground in such conflicts.The report deals with the political and other preconditions for waging as well as resisting a hybridcampaign, how these preconditions are likely to develop in the future and how they empowerauthoritarian regimes and liberal democracies differently. To further illustrate how a foreignpower could apply this kind of warfare in a conflict specifically targeting Norway, three scenarioshave been developed, demonstrating various means and levels of ambition with regardto what the power in question might try to achieve. However, these scenarios have been classifiedas RESTRICTED and consequently are not included in the report. Still, the report may beread as a generic description of the likely character, role and importance of the irregular elementof a future European conflict, be it in a low-intensity war or as the pre-cursor to a major conventionalcampaign.