The Wicked Problem of Cross-Border Disinformation

Wherever it is produced, disinformation is a “wicked” problem that has global impacts. In her latest paper, Susan Ariel Aaronson looks at how policy makers can use trade agreements to mitigate the impacts of disinformation crossing their borders while implementing financial and trade sanctions against the actors, entities and countries responsible for its spread.

In many global policy areas, collaboration among international institutions — greater exchange of information, coordination of operations and harmonization of rules — is essential for high-quality governance. Yet their collaboration faces several obstacles, including key countries’ use of some institutions to constrain others, a strategy of “complexity for control.” C. Randall Henning offers proposals and strategies for designing new institutions, and reforming existing ones, to facilitate this collaboration.

The stresses on global democracy over the past 15 years have coincided with the rise of new technologies for information-gathering, communication and surveillance. Autocratic leaders have learned that regime survival can depend on such techniques, as Marie Lamensch describes.

Western nations often paint the Chinese tech sector as a threat to freedom, an attack on surveillance and an extension of the state. Big Tech’s guest in this episode, Hong Shen, argues that this simplistic framing isn’t quite accurate.

Today, data is the essential factor of economic production, supplanting land, mechanized mass production and intellectual property. Given this reality, and as the frictions between the United States and China escalate and spill over from one domain to the next, Dan Ciuriak asks: do we even know what we are fighting over?

As newspaper print advertising revenue has collapsed and digital revenue fails to make up the shortfall, many daily newspapers have either closed or dramatically curtailed their editorial operations. The consequences for democracy, absent the challenge and watchdog functions of professional journalism, are dire. Social media platforms, still effectively a regulatory free-for-all, have become the venues of choice for political discussion. This briefing collects some of the research, opinions, videos and podcasts from CIGI experts examining the many aspects and implications of this shift in the media landscape and its impacts for society.