Golf Stream Team Summaries

Hofstra University - Hofstra University

Aligning with NATO’s mission to promote democratic values and enable members to corporate on defense and security-related issues, our proposal is to further enhance member security through creating an additional page to the NATO website which will act as a hub for useful, verifiable information. With the goal to provide a neutral unbiased transparency to counter misinformation and propaganda, this information would be a source for members to attain fact checks and background information on political speeches and articles. The end goal for this NATO page addition is to host a National Media Literacy Week and Events, provide a concise list of state sponsored media sources to better apprise the people, and to provide coverage of elections and summits. This end goal allows for future advancement through partnering with social platforms to further cyber awareness.  While countering disinformation is a national responsibility, Article 5 makes it NATO’s responsibility to help create cyber awareness to insure security across members.

St Andrews IR Tutorial Group 26 - University of St Andrews

Our fact checking social media interface utilizes pre-existing NATO structures and protocols and combines them with a new innovative method of analysis and implementation. The interface would include a search tab where users are encouraged to check suspicious or polarizing information and would provide them with accurate unbiased information in response. The proposed interface would be suggested in a NATO act which would recommend that individual states legislate domestic social media platforms to include an integrated fact checking interface. The interface would involve an information exchange and library which would monitor and analyze disinformation trends. Once disinformation is recorded and analyzed, rapid response forces would be deployed to counteract any specific threats identified. Initially, the interface and analyzation of disinformation will focus on individual national elections allowing for a scalability aspect. The interface is a comprehensive method of targeting and analyzing disinformation whose target is to monitor trends not individuals.

HoosierHacker? - Indiana University

We propose the formation of a Cooperative Information Security Center of Excellence (CISCOE), based upon NATO ACT’s COE framework, whose primary objective is to identify and canonize best practices for the combating of disinformation modeling the Tallinn Manual, foster interoperability among NATO member states and cooperation with academia and private sector stakeholders, as well as the development of expertise and capabilities to be drawn upon by these stakeholders. We intend for the subject matter and regional expertise of CISCOE to become a valuable resource for relevant media platforms whose security operations can be strained by the wide variety of disinformation contingencies and operational environments. The CISCOE will also train a cadre of incident responders to be drawn upon by member states as a rapid reaction force.

Soul Celestia - University of Calgary

The Soul Celestia group came up with the idea of creating a council, "International Strategic Council of Media and Disinformation" made up of NATO members from each country's government, social media representatives and third party researchers to provide global cooperation and engagement in disinformation issues. The council will be in charge of making sure any form of social media will prevent the  spread false information The council will start engaging with small social media companies by providing incentives like honour and publicity. Additionally, they  will engage with blog social media companies to debunk incorrect information, control the amount of information that a user is exposed in a set time and the "prebunking" strategy. The team also proposes the creation of  "NATO Star": a set of digital “influencers” that not only will appeal to the  younger generation through the  online “influencer” appeal, but will also raise the ‘cyber’ capital of the organization.

Team JHU Cyber Attack Predictive Index - Johns Hopkins University

Continually and rapidly evolving disinformation campaigns threaten NATO members and require allies to acquire nimble situational awareness (SA). We thus first recommend the creation of a NATO committee and task force that improve SA by bringing together member countries, civil society groups and organizations, and social media companies. NATO will designate countries waging disinformation warfare against NATO allies as “Disinformation Threat Actors” (DTA). Situational awareness informs our two-part readiness and resiliency-building measures (RBM): active countering and institutional countering. Active countering combats ongoing disinformation campaigns and information pollution from DTA through a competing information campaign that targets NATO citizens. Institutional countering will mitigate DTA threats through the enhancement of media literacy programs. We recommend the creation of nation-specific media literacy controls to establish an international standard of literacy. The results of the RBMs then would lead to changed disinformation campaigns and new inputs that would then inform new SA.

Otterbots - Stanford University; University of Edinburgh; William and Mary

We propose NATO take both defensive and proactive approaches to limit rising international security threats.

Defensively, establishing an annual conference exclusively on disinformation will allow member countries to: review ever-evolving cybersecurity threats, propose policies, and present reports on how they have combated threats. This will encourage members to prioritize pressing cybersecurity issues and keep research and solutions coordinated and up-to-date.

We also propose a cybersecurity task force that will expand and guide the existing NATO Counter-Hybrid support teams to work with member states on developing digital literacy programs, reviewing and documenting content online, and ensuring fair elections.

Actively, we propose that social media companies introduce more accessible verification processes, beginning with media outlets and companies, but with an option for all individuals to also pursue official verification in the future.

These policy proposals foster active awareness around cyber threats and scale to create a more sustainable and trustworthy cyber landscape.  

International Strategic Capacity Council - University of Calgary

To combat the destruction of disinformation, we propose the implementation of a specialized NATO Strategic Cyber Security Council alongside legislation in a 12-month probationary period. The council will be in constant operation and will deal specifically with reports from the member states regarding threats of disinformation during times of vulnerability and polarization in member states. This 5–9-member council will decide on an action plan on a case-by-case basis. The legislation is an extension of ‘NATO’s Smart Defense Clause’. Member states will be required to create systems that fact check, formulates bot control, and participate in the pursuit of collective cyber defense. After the probationary period, we plan to introduce a transparency and digital literacy initiative that emphasizes the importance and protection of citizens. As social platforms are being used as a weapon, our campaign acts to utilize it as a tool to promote cyber security through education and transparency.​

Lords & Ladies - Kenyon College