Aus: The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money.
The Interpreter, Institute of Modern Russia
2014-11-10

Recommendations

• A Transparency International for Disinformation: The creation of an NGO that would create an internationally recognized ratings system for disinformation and provide analytical tools with which to define forms of communication.
• A “Disinformation Charter” for Media and Bloggers: Top-down censorship should be avoided. But rival media, from Al-Jazeera to the BBC, Fox and beyond, need to get together to create a charter of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Vigorous debate and disagreement is of course to be encouraged—but media organizations that practice conscious deception should be excluded from the community. A similar code can be accepted by bloggers and other online influencers.
• Target: Offshore: A network of stringers in off-shore jurisdictions is needed to carry out deep research into the financial holdings of oligarchs and officials.
• Counter-Disinformation Editors: Many newspapers now employ “public editors,” or ombudsmen, who question their outlet’s reporting or op-ed selections and address matters of public controversy that these might entail. “Counter-propaganda editors” would pick apart what might be called all the news unfit to print by traditional journalists. A handful of analysts armed with YouTube, Google Maps, Instagram, or foreign company registration websites can generate headlines.
• Tracking Kremlin Networks: We must ensure that Kremlin-supported spokesmen, officials and intellectuals are held to account. Employees of think tanks, pundits or policy consultants with vested financial interests in the countries they cover need to disclose their affiliations in public statements.
• Public Information Campaigns: Stopping all disinformation at all times is impossible. Public information campaigns are needed to show how disinformation works and shift the public’s behavior towards being more critical of messages that are being “buzzed” at them.
• Targeted Online Work: Audiences exposed to systemic and intensive disinformation campaigns need to be worked with through targeted online campaigns that include the equivalent of person-to-person online social work.