Data science approaches for measuring the effects of foreign information operations

俄罗斯、中国或伊朗等威权政府在国内外的宣传努力中投入了大量资源。在外部，这些政权运营着广泛的生态系统，由国家控制的媒体机构在全球使用数十种语言，它们的外交官加入了西方社交媒体平台，在那里他们用支持政权的宣传和虚假信息瞄准外国受众。这些通过公开的公共外交来改变公众舆论的公开尝试，以及施加尖锐权力的秘密形式的补充，包括运营与隐藏的国家联系的灰色新闻机构，以及运营协调一致的虚假账户网络，以努力不真实地操纵社交媒体平台。虽然这种公开和秘密的努力已经普遍存在，但学术文献仍然缺乏对针对自由民主国家的外国信息行动的有效性的充分了解。这既包括影响范围的问题，也包括世界各地有多少人受到外国威权宣传的影响的问题，也包括其影响，换句话说，内容是否真的能够通过改变个人的态度和行为来赢得人心。为了缩小这一差距，我的DPhil研究应用了多种数据科学方法，包括因果推理、自然语言处理、网络分析和因子实验，以研究威权信息操作对自由民主国家外国受众的影响。我的研究结果将提供时间表洞察，并帮助政策制定者和国家安全官员在微妙的平衡行动中做出明智的选择，一方面维护构成自由民主基础的言论和表达自由，另一方面保护这些民主国家免受恶意的外国干预。

Authoritarian governments such as Russia, China, or Iran invest significant resources in their propaganda efforts both domestically and abroad. Externally, these regimes operate wide ecosystems of state-controlled media outlets in dozens of languages around the globe, and their diplomats have joined Western social media platform where they target foreign audiences with pro-regime propaganda and disinformation. These overt attempts to shift public opinion through overt public diplomacy are complemented by covert forms of exerting sharp power, including operating grey news outlets with hidden state ties as well as running coordinated networks of fake accounts in an effort to inauthentically manipulate social media platforms. While the presence of such overt and covert efforts has been universally established, the academic literature still lacks a sufficient understanding of the effectiveness of foreign information operations targeting liberal democracies. This includes both the question of reach, thus how many individuals around the world are being exposed to foreign authoritarian propaganda, as well as its impact, in other words whether the content is actually able win hearts and minds by shifting individuals' attitudes and behaviours. To close this gap, my DPhil research applies a mix of data science methodologies, including causal inference, natural language processing, network analysis and factorial experiments, to study the impact of authoritarian information operations on foreign audiences in liberal democracies. The results of my research will provide timeline insights and help policy makers and national security officials make informed choices in the delicate balancing act between upholding the freedoms of speech and expression that form the basis of liberal democracies on the one hand, and protecting these democracies from malign foreign interference on the other.