An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Global Disinformation 

When: Friday, November 1st 2024, 10:00am to 1:00pm

Where: BUS-3100, CU Denver Business School

Session Chair: Dr. Farnoush Banaei-Kashani

Workshop Description

Ever since Russian agents meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, scholars have struggled to make sense of online disinformation campaigns. How do they work? Are they effective? How do you counter intentionally malicious social media, what META is now calling “coordinated inauthentic behavior”? And in what ways does the evolution of AI complicate these questions? Mimicking the Russians’ interference in the U.S. election, the Communist Party of China has launched even more expansive campaigns to destabilize democracies in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, India, Canada, and more. In short, democracies around the globe are under attack from state-sanctioned troll farms, bot factories, and the producers of what scholars are calling a new age of “post-truth” communication, with fears that AI will only make the situation worse. This interdisciplinary workshop features thought leaders in computer science, international relations, and communication, who will discuss their team projects addressing disinformation campaigns targeting the United States, India, and Taiwan.  

In part one of the workshop, our invited experts will make 5-7-minute-long presentations framing their research methods, questions, and preliminary findings as they relate to AI and Global Disinformation. In part two of the workshop, we will watch a few illustrative videos to provide a mediated context; these will be followed by a collective discussion. In the last part of the workshop, participants will engage in collective image analysis, rhetorical analysis, data-mapping, and testing of interdisciplinary techniques and AI powered tools for potentially flagging disinformation.  

This is the second public workshop held by this group, so today’s efforts constitute one part of a long-term group project for which we continue to invite additional participants and perspectives.  

MODERATOR: Stephen J. Hartnett, CU Denver Department of Communication 

PRESENTERS:    

• Farnoush Banaei-Kashani, CU Denver Department of Computer Science (in person), “Misinformation Detection: The Machine Learning Approach.” 

• Matthew Michaelis, PhD Candidate in the CU Denver Department of Computer Science (in person), “Noise Complaint: Finding Meaning in Noisy and Manipulated Social Media Datasets through Simulation.” 

• Wei-Ping Li, the Taiwan FactCheck Center (online from Washington DC): “Disinformation Detector: Sites, Timing, and Narratives of Disinformation.” 

• Bill Huang, Director of the Denver Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office (TECO; in person), “In Defense of Truth: How Taiwan Fights Information Warfare.” 

• Soumia Bardhan, CU Denver Department of Communication and Interim Director of the CU Denver Program in International Studies (in-person), “AI, Misinformation, and Contested Democracy in India.” 

Workshop Participant Biographies 

Farnoush Banaei-Kashani is an Associate Professor in the CU Denver Department of Computer Science and Engineering, where he is the Director of the Big Data Laboratory. He is an expert in AI and Data Science, with applications in various domains, including social media analysis. 

Soumia Bardhan is an Associate Professor of Communication and Interim Director of the International Studies Program at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research focuses on how non-state actors in authoritarian contexts use digital fora to participate in the global discursive arena. 

Stephen J. Hartnett is a Professor of Communication in the CU Denver Department of Communication, where he is the Director of the CU College-in-Prison Program. His most recent book is A World of Turmoil: The United States, China, and Taiwan in the Long Cold War. 

Bill Huang is the Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Denver. The office is Taiwan’s equivalent of a consulate general for the Great Plains and Mountain West, serving Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota. 

Wei-Ping Li is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland and a research fellow at the Taiwan FactCheck Center. She is currently conducting research on how disinformation narratives transcend languages and racial groups.

Matthew Michaelis is a PhD Candidate in the CU Denver Department of Computer Science and Engineering, focusing on emergent cybersecurity and national security threats related to disinformation warfare, social media over-reliance, and generative AI. 

Workshop Schedule 

• Session 1, 10:00—10:50: Introductory mini-presentations by the invited experts, wherein they discuss their methods, research questions, and preliminary findings regarding disinformation assaults in the United States, Taiwan, and India. 

• Session 2, 11:00—11:50: Disinformation show-n-tell, wherein we will watch some videos and consider some representative social media artifacts before analyzing the evidence. Our goal here is to begin charting best-practices for flagging disinformation. 

• Session 3, Noon-1:00pm: Here we will plan next steps in our group project, discussing how to merge qualitative and quantitative methods for tackling traditional disinformation and AI-generated content in the contexts of the U.S., Taiwan, India, and beyond.