Plato Data Intelligence.
Vertical Search & Ai.

Episode 86: Ben Dubow on Detecting and Countering Malign Influence Operations

Date:

Jan 7, 2022

Ben Dubow is CTO and founder of
Omelas, a firm that provides data and analysis on how nations
manipulate the web to achieve their geopolitical goals. He has a
background in research on Russian and Chinese online information
operations and is a recognized expert, having appeared on
international media including Reuters, Bloomberg and Roll Call. Ben
began his career tracking jihadi, white supremacist, and Iranian
activity online before joining Google where he played a lead role
in removing ISIS content from YouTube and establishing the Redirect
Method to counter violent extremism. Before Omelas, Ben was
Secretary of Code To Inspire, a nonprofit that teaches Afghan women
to code. Ben speaks Arabic, French, Farsi, and basic
Russian.

In this OODAcast we discuss
Ben’s continuous drive to work in meaningful ways by contributing
technical and cultural expertise to emerging challenges. Other
topics include:

  • The foundational story of Omelas and the needs
    for technology to help spot malicious influence operations via
    tracking open source information.  
  • How to focus on missions by understanding what
    decision-makers need
  • How authoritarian states manipulate open source
    data
  • Why propaganda is effective and how the right
    information can help counter it
  • How technology can improve scale of
    analysis
  • The Omelas Wolf Totem dashboard and what it
    presents
  • The metrics that can be applied to malign
    influence operations
  • How to reduce the risk of our own analysts
    being biased in research

Additional Links:

Omelas

https://www.benjamindubow.com/

Book recommendations:

The Constitution of Knowledge:
A Defense of Truth

The Invention of Russia: The
Rise of Putin and the Age of Fake News

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