WORK WITH US
Countering Disinformation Covertly
KCS Group Europe
The Requirement
With the advent of the ‘free’ Internet, information has never been so easy to find, yet so likely to be untrue. At the corporate level, false information can be fed to readers through a wide variety of Internet sites in service of political crackdowns, corporate espionage, or societal disruption. Such misleading ‘news’ or fabrications, masquerading as fact, can have serious impact on future business decisions or political directions. There is thus a need to have in place a dedicated plan for identifying and countering disinformation, be this on a singular scale against one individual/company or across an entire jurisdiction, sector, or topic.
The Strategy
KCS Group Europe has significant and long-standing expertise in identifying, countering, and taking down disinformation in cyberspace. Our teams are able to work 24/7 to identify and remove misleading information across a wide range of topics – elections, terrorism, Covid-19, socio-political tensions, attacks on minorities or women, and so on. KCS Group acts as an ‘online moderator’ working to ensure that information is factual, accurate and from reputable sources, proactively seeking to have sites that do not meet these criteria shut down swiftly and promoting those of genuine transparency by pushing a factual narrative based on extensive research and tactical techniques to ‘level the playing field’.
Key to this is the ability to constantly monitor the major platforms, a deep understanding of the information environment, and the capability to react quickly to changes and breaking developments (crucially, in the appropriate regional language). This provides a regular and uninterrupted flow of communication as to the ‘real picture’ of information on the ground and a key role in disseminating truthful statements to counter the prevailing narrative of falsehoods.
This can be a ‘one-time’ project focused purely on stamping out a particular disinformation narrative, or one focused on building trust and promoting engagement across a wider time spectrum. In either case, the methodologies of working alongside public institutions, using multiple technical capabilities and adopting a proactive approach, are the same.
The Benefit
The ability to detect, investigate and respond to false information via counter-campaigns, content removal and new platform creation is vital to restore the pre-eminence of transparency, as opposed to harmful misinformation.
