Great Power Competition with a Focus on Influence Operations Against the United Kingdom

For years, state-sponsored actors exploited media platforms and technology to engage in influence operations that undermine the stability of the United States and its partners. The global rise of social media and other internet forums increased the scope and impact of these adversarial actions.  

On behalf of the United States Department of State, Global Engagement Center, this Capstone project researched Russian disinformation against the United Kingdom. In the course of a semester, students interviewed over 70 individuals from the UK government, the US government, civil society, universities, technology companies, multilateral institutions, and think tanks to produce eight distinct policy memoranda. Each memo focuses on a unique Russian disinformation-related challenge, outlined below. Ultimately, each student provided a set of actionable policy recommendations for a variety of stakeholders to increase UK societal resilience.  

• The use of short format videos to counter Russian disinformation on the UK’s cost-of-living crisis 

• A framework for collaborating with UK micro-influencers to create digital media literacy campaigns 

• Recommendations for implementing media literacy and disinformation awareness campaigns in UK refugee communities  

• How to safeguard infant formula supply chains from disinformation fueled panic buying  

• How to prevent unreliable UK tabloid articles from being mislabeled as credible by NewsGuard and online search engines 

• Recommendations for protecting UK financial and technological sectors from disinformation fueled bank runs 

• A framework for developing community-based AI Hackathons in the UK 

• A foresight tool for leveraging lessons learned from counter violent extremism community engagement approaches in future counter disinformation campaigns