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Digital Diplomacy links: The spy who 'liked' me, cyber influencing, ISIS, Indonesia and more

Digital Diplomacy links: The spy who 'liked' me, cyber influencing, ISIS, Indonesia and more
Published 14 Oct 2016   Follow @DaniellesCave

  • A fantastic piece in the Atlantic on how social media is being weaponised around the world with the help of filtered Instragram pics, Twitter bots and hashtags.
  • Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi warns her diplomats they can't hide in the digital era and need to adjust the way they work (including by focusing on better open-source reporting) in order to represent Indonesia abroad. 
  • New research shows there has been a drastic drop in the media and propaganda operations of ISIS. 
  • An updated analysis of the Twitter networks of Ministries of Foreign Affairs finds the UK, Russia and Sweden are the A-Team of twitter diplomacy.
  • No sector is immune to digital disruption and now espionage, the world's second-oldest profession, is having to adjust its tradecraft to both keep up with and leverage technological advancements.
  • Social media, and WhatsApp in particular, is threatening Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. 
  • A big part of Canada's digital diplomacy efforts includes a $9 million investment in the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab to promote Internet freedom by developing technologies that circumvent internet firewalls in countries run by repressive regimes. So it was particularly awkward when last month the same Lab discovered a Canadian company is helping the Bahraini Government censor news and opposition sites.
  • A hilarious and bizarre Twitter battle between Denmark and Sweden over moose and the global sperm market.
  • Canberra-based UK diplomat George Morrison on the value of digital diplomacy.
  • Russia is taking cyber influencing (and twitter diplomacy) to new levels.
  • On that front, former ASIO head David Irvine shares his views on covert cyber influencing (from 12:00):

 


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