In this session, we will propose effective measures from the nature of disinformation and the psychological aspects of human beings regarding the background of the spread of disinformation on social media. Social media is now a threat to democracy. The reason is that social media has the property of being able to speak directly to people's hearts across national borders. In the 2016 Brexit and US presidential elections, cyber election interference using disinformation became a major issue. In Japan as well, some cases such as disinformation, slander, spoofing posts, protest demonstrations using hashtags, and infodemic hoarding riots have already occurred, and measures should be considered for disinformation, which may become a problem in the future. There is a need. Then, what kind of countermeasures can be implemented for disinformation in Japan? Most of the social media used in Japan are services of foreign-affiliated companies, and there is freedom of expression in terms of law. In this session, we will focus on "people" who use social media as a new approach. "Why do people believe in disinformation on social media and spread it?" Will be explained from the perspective of social psychology.

1. © 2020 LAC Co., Ltd.
Is Dis-information more attractive than True-information?
Reduce the spread of Dis-information in social media
October 29, 2020
LAC CO., LTD.
Senior Researcher Haruka Suzuki

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This session includes
l Disinformation spreads more than True-information
l It's the "people" who are spreading
l Why do people believe and spread disinformation?
l Will be explained from the perspective of social psychology

3. 3 © 2020 LAC Co., Ltd.
Bio
l Studied social psychology at university
l Joined LAC Corporation Ltd. in 2006
l Analyzing of spear phishing email as a hobby
• Technical analysis
• Analysis of political context and intent
• Attackersʼ persuasion and elicitation methodology
• Attitude change in email receiver
l Senior Researcher since 2018
Ÿ Research topic: Security psychology, Social engineering,
Cyber propaganda, Cyber influence operations etc…

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Agenda
1. Relationship between cyberspace & people
2. History of persuasion and similarities
3. Background of disinformation spreads
4. How disinformation spreads?
5. Proposed solutions
6. Summary

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1. Relationship between cyberspace & people
Cyber
space
Physical
space
System
Data
Procedure People
Organization
Things
① Cyber & Physical space via People
＜Techniques＞
・Spear phishing
・BEC
・USB baiting
・Scareware
＜Objective＞
・Steal data
・Steal money
・System crash
② People via Cyberspace
＜Techniques＞
・Cyber propaganda
・Cyber influence
operations(CyIO)
＜Objective＞
・Public opinion manipulation
・Fostering distrust of the
current government
・ Social disorder

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1. Relationship between cyberspace & people
l “Attitude and behavior” in psychology
Ÿ Attitude（Allport, 1935）
A mindset or attitude towards things as a state of readiness for action.
Ÿ Attitude change（Hovland, 1957）
Forming new attitudes under the social influence.
ActionAttitude
Approach to promote attitude change
① Learning (Lott & Lott, 1968) ② Persuasion (Hovland et al., 1953)

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1. Relationship between cyberspace & people
l Social media relays the persuasion
Service infrastructure
• Content creation
• Deep fake, Photo edit
• Targeted advertising
• Click agency
• Posting / Retweet BOT
Use
Post
Request for
publication
Press
Ads
Social
media
Direct persuasion
in cyberspace
• Interest in information
• Trust in sources and
quantities
Troll farm
Cross
Platform
Receiver
Creator

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2. History of persuasion and similarities
l Propaganda
Ÿ 1620 : Religious
Ÿ 1880 : Cultural
Ÿ 1918 : War-time
Ÿ 1920 : Political
l Brainwashing in war-time（Edward, 1956)
Ÿ Create a state of dissatisfaction
Ÿ Abandonment of mind
Ÿ Projecting hatred onto the target

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2. History of persuasion and similarities
l Case：U.S. Presidential Election 2016
Ÿ Allegations of cyber election interference by IRA
Ÿ Posting “disinformation” on multiple social media
Ÿ Promoting division and conflict among U.S. citizens
<Techniques>
① Incite social issues and provoke dissatisfaction with distrust
② Anger erupting from dissatisfaction and promotes shared
③ Anger emotion is contagious in community
④ Conflicts with out-groups
⑤ Protests and Riots
→ Disrupt the society to create a favorable situation

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2. History of persuasion and similarities
l Expand into cyber space
Cyber propaganda Influence operations
Objective
Persuasion efforts to instill ideology
→ Demanding trust
Create an environment of smooth
achievement of the real goal
→ Demanding disorder
Tools Press / Social media ads Social media post & ads
Source Disclose Vague
Accuracy Exaggerated true / Disinformation Disinformation
Contents Impression manipulation Amplifies dissatisfaction & anger
Receiver Passive Proactive

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3. Background of disinformation spreads
l What is disinformation？
Disinformation: the deliberate creation and sharing of false and/or manipulated
information that is intended to deceive and mislead audiences, either for the
purposes of causing harm, or for political, personal or financial gain.
Misinformation: the inadvertent sharing of false information.
(DCMS, 2018)
Information disorder (Council of Europe, 2017)
Mis-information : when false information is
shared, but no harm is meant.
Dis-information : when false information is
knowingly shared to cause harm.
Mal-information : when genuine
information is shared to cause harm

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3. Background of disinformation spreads
l Case：Cambridge Analytica in Brexit 2016
Ÿ Use personality data collected by social media
Ÿ Predicting an individual's ethnicity and political
Ÿ It was used for micro targeted advertising
Ÿ CEO “We had identified voters who could be persuaded to vote”
Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
High Low High Low High Low High Low High Low
Openness
High … … … … … … … …
Low … … … … … … … …
< Use the "Big Five" for personality assessment apps>

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3. Background of disinformation spreads
l Case：Tweet spoofing Japan's Minister of Defense
（Taiwan FactCheck Center, 2020）
Spoofing disinformation
March 13, 2020
• Japanese defense minister's tweets flaming in Taiwan
• "Half a million masks from Taiwan have arrived"
• There were not enough masks in Taiwan
• Criticism of tweet image had spread
→ @handle and post time were tampered.

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4. How disinformation spreads?
l 3 Factors
Factor #1: Service infrastructure
Ÿ Advertising support services are abused
Ÿ Spread by bots
“Bots accelerated the spread of both true and false news.”（Vosoughi et al., 2018）
Factor #2: Social media motivations
Ÿ Generate revenue from ads placements
Ÿ Connect users to as many people as possible
Ÿ Increase active users and posts
“As exposure to other people's emotions decreases, users post less.”（Kramer, 2014）

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4. How disinformation spreads?
Factor #3：Human
disinformation follow
retweet
share conflict
echo
chamber
Emotional contagion→think back
→Regulation needs→Social sharing Out-group
homogeneity bias
In-group bias and
False consensus effect
Phase1.
Disclosure
Phase2.
Sharing
Phase3.
Collectivization
Phase4.
Promoting conflict

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4. How disinformation spreads?
l Phase 1. Disclosure
Ÿ No difference in trust between media & individuals（Hameleers et al., 2020）
Ÿ Information that is consistent with beliefs as true（Lewardwsky, 2012）
Ÿ Information shared by friends is ʻsafe content'（Redmiles, 2018）
Ÿ False news spreads more than true news（Vosoughi et al., 2018)
Ÿ Anger is more likely to appear in fake news（Guo et al., 2019）
The reliability of source is irrelevant.
Disinformation triggers feelings of anger.

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l Phase 2. Sharing
Ÿ Joy and anger are both highly contagious
Ÿ Anger spreads easily along weaker ties than joy（Fan et al., 2018）
Ÿ Negative emotion promotes social sharing（Endo & Fuji, 2015）
4. How disinformation spreads?
joy anger
Anger is easily shared and spreads widely.
1
7 3
5
8 2
6 4
5
6
3
1 2
8
7
4

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4. How disinformation spreads?
l Phase 3. Collectivization
Ÿ We select information that adhere to beliefs: Confirmation bias
Ÿ Easy to group with people who share the same beliefs (Vicario, 2016)
Ÿ Emotions are contagious within group (Rimé, 2009）
Ÿ Group make individual feelings stronger（Goldenberg et al., 2019）
Ÿ Emotions diffuse and lead to action（Goldenberg et al., 2019）
Echo chamber effect amplifies anger in group.
Emotional amplification can lead to collective action.

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4. How disinformation spreads?
l Phase 4. Promoting conflict
Ÿ Assume that own beliefs are majority: False consensus effect
Ÿ In-group is better than out-groups: In-group bias（Desteno et al., 2004）
Ÿ Believe that in-group are diverse, while out-groups are simple:
Out-group homogeneity effect（Quattrone & Jones, 1980）
Become convinced that anger is the social majority and normal.
Attribute the cause to the out-groups.
in-group out-groupconflict

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5. Proposed solutions
l Examples of overseas initiatives
Ÿ Establishment of the task force
Ÿ Enactment of laws
Ÿ Increased transparency of sources and media outlets
Ÿ Enhanced fact checking
Ÿ Improve information literacy
Ÿ Identify and suspend accounts
Ÿ Request for cooperation to platformer
Ÿ Obligation to disclose information to foreign media (FARA）
Ÿ Sanctions against election interference（Economic statecraft）

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5. Proposed solutions
l Target example in Japan
Ÿ Intervention in the referendum
Ÿ Spread of disinformation intended to disrupt economic
Ÿ The incitement of emotions aimed at fissures with our allies
Ÿ Manipulation of impressions to diminish Japan's presence
l Issues in countermeasures
Ÿ Freedom of expression
Ÿ Major social media platformers are foreign companies
Ÿ Development of laws
Ÿ Policy and cooperation framework of response to disinformation

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5. Proposed solutions
l Measures for Japan
disinformation follow
retweet
share
conflict
Anti-disinformation
・ Detection of disinformation
・ Early warning or correction
Restraint of sharing
・ Improving information literacy
・ Research and use of “Nudge”
Mitigating group conflict
・Understand intergroup relations
・Re-categorization of the group

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5. Proposed solutions
l Measures for Japan
Anti-disinformation
（１） Detection of disinformation
• Build a fact-check system with Japanese high-context cultures
• Focus on negative emotional words and critical phrases
（２） Early warning or correction
• Advance warning increases vigilance（Fukada et al., 2010 : Lewardwsky, 2012）
• Simultaneous dissemination from trusted institutions and
multiple media outlets
• The correction does not reuse the content of the disinformation

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5. Proposed solutions
l Measures for Japan
Restraint of sharing
（１） Improving information literacy
• Sharing is not conducive to emotional recovery（Endo & Fuji, 2015）
• Know that your anger reaches outside of your followers
• Respond to the strong emotions of others with weak emotions
（Goldenberg et al., 2019）
（２） Research and use of “Nudge”
• Consider a system for giving people motivation to check the
authenticity of information

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5. Proposed solutions
l Measures for Japan
Mitigating group conflict
（１） Understand intergroup relations
• Prejudice is due to a lack of knowledge of the other
• Knowing that your friends on friendly terms with the out-group
makes a good impression: Extended contact hypothesis
（２） Re-categorization of the group
• Re-categorizing them in the higher categories to create a
cooperative relationship: Common in-group identity model

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6. Summary
l Is this cyber security?
Ÿ The realm of cyber security is expanding
→ Security is no longer limited to information systems
Ÿ Social media crosses borders and speaks directly to human mind
→ Social media may lead to internal destruction from a remote
Ÿ Social media is easily used as an outlet for frustration
→ But that does not lead to emotional recovery
The human mind is spreading DISINFORMATION...
Encourage the use of cyberspace as a place to share joy!

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Thank you. Any Questions ?
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