News Roundup from the Cyber Policy Center | February 2022

Shelby Grossman and Renée DiResta of the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), along with other co-authors, published Full-Spectrum Pro-Kremlin Online Propaganda About Ukraine, a look at their monitoring of narratives related to the situation in Ukraine. 



Marietje Schaake spoke with the New York Times for Ukraine War Tests the Power of Tech Giants. Schaake's weekly Tech Policy Watch focused on information and news that shed light on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with a focus on the cyber dimensions, disinformation and hacker initiatives that are unfolding. 



Andrew Grotto, former head of digital safety for the National Security Council and current Director of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance (GTG) spoke with The Economist for Ukraine Braces for Cyber Invasion. 



Jim Dempsey of GTG authored Cybersecurity Tools Lie Unused in Federal Agencies’ Toolboxes for Lawfare, arguing for a reconsideration of the still-deferential posture of U.S. cybersecurity policy toward much of the private sector, especially in light of possible Russian use of cyber weapons against U.S. domestic critical infrastructure in connection with the Ukraine crisis.

The Freeman Spogli Institute continues to compile analysis and commentary by Stanford scholars on the Ukraine-Russia crisis.

The Freeman Spogli Institute continues to compile analysis and commentary by Stanford scholars on the Ukraine-Russia crisis.

Samantha Bradshaw of the Program on Democracy and the Internet (PDI) and Miles McCain of SIO authored Lost In Translation: Language Gaps in Social Media Labels for Lawfare on how information labels that don't automatically translate can negatively impact non-English, minority or marginalized groups of users. 

SIO hosted a seminar with authors from the Journal of Online Trust and Safety's second issue, which included a new piece by Riana Pfefferkorn, Content-Oblivious Trust and Safety Techniques: Results from a Survey of Online Service Providers.

The Virality Project released their final report, Memes, Magnets and Microchips: Narrative Dynamics Around Covid-19 Vaccines, with unique insights from real-time monitoring of anti-vaccine narratives across social media platforms shortly after COVID-19 vaccines became available. 

SIO published the Final Projects from the Stanford Internet Observatory's Online Open Source Investigation Course with projects that investigated inauthentic behavior on TikTok, misinformation on Stanford's campus, Telegram activity in Belarus, health insurance scams that run advertisements on Google, and QAnon content on Tumblr.

Ronald Robertson of SIO co-authored Googling for Abortion: Search Engine Mediation of Abortion Accessibility in the United States for the Journal of Quantitative Description.

Nate Persily of the Program on Democracy and the Internet (PDI), was a guest on Slate's podcast, Political Gabfest, to talk about President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

For Verfassungsblog, Daphne Keller of the Program on Platform Regulation (PPR) authored, The DSA’s Industrial Model for Content Moderation.

Charles Mok of the Global Digital Policy Incubator GDPi authored China and Russia Want to Rule the Global Internet for The Diplomat, arguing their model of surveillance and censorship threatens a free, open, and secure future internet. Mok also co-authored How Cambodia’s Internet Gateway Will Harm the Internet for Internet Society and spoke with Al Jazeera for As ‘Great Firewall’ Looms, Fears for Hong Kong’s Free Internet.

For the Georgetown Law Technology Review, SIO's Dan Bateyko authored Censorship-Circumvention Tools and Pluggable Transports, a technology explainer looking at pluggable transports, an obfuscation tool that disguises a user’s network traffic to avoid certain traffic analysis and detection methods.

Samantha Bradshaw, Renée DiResta, and Carly Miller, formerly of SIO, authored Playing Both Sides: Russian State-Backed Media Coverage of the Black Lives Matter Movement.

The Content Policy & Society Lab (CPSL), part of PDI, led by Julie Owono, published 2022 doit être l’année de l’ouverture des algorithmes (2022 Should Be the Year of Opening Algorithms) for Le Monde, with a look at how the Digital Services Act offers an opportunity to request access to data owned by big platforms for researchers.

The Stanford Internet Observatory will host a symposium, Cryptocurrency and Societal Harm, at Stanford University on Friday, May 13, 2022. They invite academic researchers and practitioners to apply to attend and/or present. Relevant topics for the symposium include cryptocurrency-related crime, tracing illegally-obtained cryptocurrency, ransomware attacks, mixing services and privacy coins, and national and international regulations for cryptocurrency businesses. Apply by March 28, 2022.

The Cyber Policy Center together with the Hewlett Foundation, continues its Winter Seminar Series with the final two sessions happening on March 8th and March 15th. Sessions are open to the public.