POLICY
Strengthening Digital Integrity: How Japan can Tackle Disinformation
September 26, 2024
Debates about foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) in the West accelerated following the Russian annexation of Crimea in late 2014 and Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential Election. Many new counter-FIMI initiatives were launched in a short space of time: the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (2014), East Stratcom Task Force within the European External Action Service (EEAS) (2015), US Global Engagement Center within the State Department (2016), NATO-EU European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (2017), as well as the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation and Action Plan Against Disinformation (2018). Dozens of projects, policies, research initiatives, and collaborative platforms quickly followed.
Countries such as Japan have a tremendous amount to offer the wider international community in this field, since every actor is adapting their countermeasures to slightly different circumstances. Many of Japan’s experiences and solutions will be relevant to others. Therefore, I don’t have any specific advice for Japanese policymakers about how to continue strengthening responses. It has become clear to me, after almost a decade of working in this area to support capability development in many countries and multilateral organizations, that no two cases are identical. There is no single way to tackle disinformation and related problems that will work everywhere. It is important, therefore, to acknowledge differences, to think regionally (not just nationally) and to approach the questions instead from the perspective of pragmatic solutions.
I would like to share some of the lessons that I have learned from working predominantly with Western actors in this field. Some may be more relevant than others to the Japanese context.
• Build communities of trust. The most important outcome of the many initiatives and centres of excellence (COEs) is the important platforms for collaboration and dialogue and the communities they host. Individual countries cannot be secure if their region is unstable. While sharing lessons learned and data is important, other issues such as having a familiar point of contact, being honest about the strengths and weaknesses of close allies, and learning from best practices, are often among the most valuable outcomes. The ADMM Cybersecurity and Information Centre of Excellence (ACICE) launched in 2023 in Singapore is a good example of a counterpart to European COEs for the ASEAN region. Participation (both to share and learn) from interested stakeholders in the wider Asian-Pacific region is essential to enhancing the value of COEs such as ACICE.
• Lean into your marginal advantages. Not everybody can do everything equally well. One thing that has become very clear over recent years is that different countries, and different organisations, have unique advantages that allow them to excel in certain areas. For example, Lithuania is known for its situational awareness and agile decision-making cycle. The UK is strong on disruptive countermeasures. The US has been very effective at attribution. The EEAS is making huge strides in adapting cybersecurity principles to improve data handling. The lesson here is that it is important to identify marginal advantages based on national or organizational competences and to invest in those. When switching perspectives to the regional level, it becomes easier to share best practice and establish collaborations based on relative capabilities, eventually leading to influential coalitions of likeminded actors.
• Share frameworks, processes, and standards. For many governments, openly published frameworks such as the UK’s GCS RESIST Counter-Disinformation Toolkit have been excellent tools for opening a dialogue with actors who want to build a counter-disinformation capability. Even if not everybody elects to use the same methods, sharing frameworks helps to inspire adaptations better suited to unique contexts. Learning from how others adapt the tools can lead to iterative innovation that benefits the whole community.
• Invest in training and joint exercises. Continuous training, both giving and receiving, is a great way to raise the bar on capabilities. This should be complemented with joint exercises, which provide a valuable setting to break down siloes, or at least raise awareness of different roles, responsibilities, and capabilities between different actors. This solidifies the opportunities for “Whole Of” approaches.
• Think in terms of “Whole Ofs”. No single actor can solve the question of information integrity alone. While whole-of-government and whole-of-society are important buzzwords, it is essential to create platforms for government, military, civil society, and the private sector to contribute to the development of solutions. Many Western countries have by now established large networks of stakeholders contributing to the national effort in different ways. The European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) is for example coordinated between the EU and civil society actors across 28 countries to pool factchecking and media literacy competences. Japan has lessons for others here, for example in public-private collaboration for protection of critical communications infrastructure.
I would like to share some of the lessons that I have learned from working predominantly with Western actors in this field. Some may be more relevant than others to the Japanese context.
• Build communities of trust. The most important outcome of the many initiatives and centres of excellence (COEs) is the important platforms for collaboration and dialogue and the communities they host. Individual countries cannot be secure if their region is unstable. While sharing lessons learned and data is important, other issues such as having a familiar point of contact, being honest about the strengths and weaknesses of close allies, and learning from best practices, are often among the most valuable outcomes. The ADMM Cybersecurity and Information Centre of Excellence (ACICE) launched in 2023 in Singapore is a good example of a counterpart to European COEs for the ASEAN region. Participation (both to share and learn) from interested stakeholders in the wider Asian-Pacific region is essential to enhancing the value of COEs such as ACICE.
• Lean into your marginal advantages. Not everybody can do everything equally well. One thing that has become very clear over recent years is that different countries, and different organisations, have unique advantages that allow them to excel in certain areas. For example, Lithuania is known for its situational awareness and agile decision-making cycle. The UK is strong on disruptive countermeasures. The US has been very effective at attribution. The EEAS is making huge strides in adapting cybersecurity principles to improve data handling. The lesson here is that it is important to identify marginal advantages based on national or organizational competences and to invest in those. When switching perspectives to the regional level, it becomes easier to share best practice and establish collaborations based on relative capabilities, eventually leading to influential coalitions of likeminded actors.
• Share frameworks, processes, and standards. For many governments, openly published frameworks such as the UK’s GCS RESIST Counter-Disinformation Toolkit have been excellent tools for opening a dialogue with actors who want to build a counter-disinformation capability. Even if not everybody elects to use the same methods, sharing frameworks helps to inspire adaptations better suited to unique contexts. Learning from how others adapt the tools can lead to iterative innovation that benefits the whole community.
• Invest in training and joint exercises. Continuous training, both giving and receiving, is a great way to raise the bar on capabilities. This should be complemented with joint exercises, which provide a valuable setting to break down siloes, or at least raise awareness of different roles, responsibilities, and capabilities between different actors. This solidifies the opportunities for “Whole Of” approaches.
• Think in terms of “Whole Ofs”. No single actor can solve the question of information integrity alone. While whole-of-government and whole-of-society are important buzzwords, it is essential to create platforms for government, military, civil society, and the private sector to contribute to the development of solutions. Many Western countries have by now established large networks of stakeholders contributing to the national effort in different ways. The European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) is for example coordinated between the EU and civil society actors across 28 countries to pool factchecking and media literacy competences. Japan has lessons for others here, for example in public-private collaboration for protection of critical communications infrastructure.
