When people hear about disinformation operations, they often think of shadowy computer labs filled with propaganda officers crafting convincing false persona. Those people exist, but the world of influence actors, their goals, their techniques, and their technologies is hugely heterogenous and rapidly changing. This talk presents a framework to think about the goals of these influence actors and how those goals affect the techniques they choose. With reference to several campaigns we've discovered and analyzed at the Hub, I'll talk about how technological change (like AI) has affected these techniques and their effectiveness. Finally, I'll say a bit about our approach to identifying and combating these groups.
About the Speaker:
Patrick Warren is a Professor in the John E Walker Department of Economics and the Co-Director of the
Media Forensics Hub, both at Clemson. He has degrees from the University of South Carolina, in philosophy and math, and from MIT, in Economics. The Media Forensics Hub takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of online deception, in all its forms. He lives in Clemson with his wife Pam, a librarian at the Pendleton public library, and his teenaged children Maggie and Charlie.
