Policy, Publications and Research

We create a range of publications, from policy consultation through bespoke research. We write evidence, publish in research journals, and create definitive books on topics from foreign interference in elections to the use of behavioural economics in game and platform design.

  

 

  

REVERSE ENGINEERING RUSSIAN INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY TACTICS THROUGH NETWORK ANALYSIS

Charles Kriel and Alexa Pavliuc

In mid-October of 2018, Twitter released a dataset containing both the contents and information for accounts on their platform related to the Internet Research Agency. These accounts were used to influence the 2016 US Presidential election, as well as elections and referenda in several other countries, including the UK and Venezuela. This article documents a data analysis of these tweets, and through data visualisation demonstrates a rigorous methodology of practice at work in Russia’s online interference in foreign democracies, particularly through St. Petersburg’s Internet Research Agency (IRA). This research will also show that many previous visualisations of this data have failed to factor for time, and therefore overemphasise certain trends. Finally, we question whether Twitter released the entire Internet Research Agency dataset, as claimed.

House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Final Report Eighth Report of Session 2017–19

This is the Final Report in an inquiry on disinformation that has spanned over 18 months, covering individuals’ rights over their privacy, how their political choices might be affected and influenced by online information, and interference in political elections both in this country and across the world—carried out by malign forces intent on causing disruption and confusion.

 

Data Rights and Population Control: Human, Consumer or Comrade?

A Review Essay by Charles Kriel – NATO StratCom Centre of Excellence

On a rainy London Friday this year, the 23rd of March, seventeen UK officials entered a New Oxford Street building. Across the backs of many were FBI- style jackets emblazoned with a logo reading ‘ico.’—the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. The woman who led them carried a sheet of paper, presumably the warrant ICO Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham had sought days before, allowing her to enter the offices of the campaign firm Cambridge Analytica….

 

Dictionary of Free-to-Play Game Design

Charles Kriel – Trade Industry Game Association

Thank you to Charles for allowing us to share this comprehensive guide to the language of Free-to-Play with 12 Stories Tall’s fellow TIGA members. As the network for game developers and digital publishers in the UK, facilitating the sharing of expertise and experience is once of the core purposes for which TIGA exists.

In our fast-moving industry, especially regarding relatively new game design and business models like Free-to-Play, developing a shared and mutually understood language is essential if we are to define and follow best practice.

I hope this resource proves as useful to you all as I expect it to be.

Dr Richard Wilson, CEO, TIGA

 

  

UK House of Commons DCMS Select Committee on Fake News

Evidence submitted by Dr Charles Kriel on behalf of Corsham Institute

“Fake news is now one of the most powerful forces countering democracy. It undermines the public’s faith in democratic institutions operating in the context of the civil society, and inspires radicalisation and extremism within communities.

 

Fake News, Fake Wars, Fake Worlds

A Review Essay by Charles Kriel – NATO StratCom Centre of Excellence

Do influence campaigns based on data-driven psychological profiling work? Both Cambridge Analytica and a significant part of the campaign apparatus for the UK to leave the EU appeared to think so.

That is, until they didn’t.