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Thread: @henryfarrell and I have a new piece in @IntOrgJournal on global politics of information. Key takeaway: disinformation is a feature not a bug of the liberal information order. Points to the importance of self-undermining feedback processes. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/janus-face-of-the-liberal-international-information-order-when-global-institutions-are-selfundermining/D26879F5748D8F912FF739D3A9C1CBD7
2/The standard story about open information flows is that they support democratic reform. See the twitter revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution
3/The US government even got in on the game, using information flows as a tactic to spread democracy. https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/01/135519.htm
4/But illiberal states did not take this new information fire hose laying down. They developed new strategies to defend themselves (bots, trolls, flooding). https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/06/Comprop-Russia.pdf
5/These started with domestic experiments that were then turned global. Global information flows were turned back on liberal states. See the Mueller Report. https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/503055-report-finds-russian-disinformation-group-tied-to-2016-elections-still
6/Now these tactics are undermining the liberal information order's key principles -- openness and private actor governance in core western states. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/18/biden-section-230/
7/Also in Europe. https://www.businessinsider.com/report-eu-lawmakers-draw-up-a-big-tech-hit-list-2020-10
8/More generally, this is a case of a more general type of politics, self undermining feedbacks, in which policies create their own undoing. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gove.12101
9/Equally important, it points to an urgent need for more academic attention to the issue of global information politics as issues like internet governance, disinformation, and domestic information needs all interact and are entangled.
