Canada-China Relations committee  That's what the neuroscience says on how the human brain works. We are attracted to the emotional and instinctive things, and it is much harder to go about the rational decision-making. The algorithms of those social media companies are actually using that element for gaining o

Canada-China Relations committee  I would say first, yes, we're undergoing profound change in the information environment, the very core of what creates and makes the democratic process run, the bloodstream of a democracy. It's changing in a way that is not helpful for society coming together. To a large extent

Canada-China Relations committee  First, public awareness campaigns are important, because if we don't do them, then we are even more vulnerable. But on the particular issue, obviously part of the defence is within the social media companies. In our assessment, they are not doing [Technical difficulty—Editor] p

Canada-China Relations committee  Actually, it is very simple. You can create algorithms that see these things for what they are. For instance, if we buy this robotic accounts effect, you can see that account. We report that account to Facebook or Twitter. Most of the time, their algorithm doesn't detect it. It

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes, if there were a better business case for them, I believe they could.

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes. Two years ago, we tried an experiment trying the hypothesis that open-source data can be used to influence human behaviour. We did an experiment together with the Latvian armed forces, during a military exercise, where we scraped the open-source data for the soldiers. Based

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes, it is of course still going on, but as we see, from a Russian perspective they have moved their eyes more towards other, bigger players. They're spending most of the resources there. Of course, the Baltics are still a target, but not the main target.

Canada-China Relations committee  I think the U.S. just did it in 2020 by discouraging Russia, as we've seen from open-source reports, so it is possible to do if you have leverage, resources and the political will.

Canada-China Relations committee  Both. There are private actors that do it for sale. There are what we believe to be—by continuously following these networks—state actors. In some cases, there are hybrid networks where most of the time they would do business-related things for gaming marketing or influencer post

Canada-China Relations committee  That is one of the ways. Of course, you can use these automated robotic networks, which seem like humans, to create reactions en masse in the online media, gaming the algorithm—for instance, making some posts much more visible than others, making specific comments at the politica

Canada-China Relations committee  Thank you for the question. We've been looking.... Most of these social media companies that we use for everyday life have become the agora for democratic process. Most of the elections actually play out in these platforms. We've detected that most—basically all—of those platfor

Canada-China Relations committee  Well, the alliance is the collective nations. As you know, for nations to agree, it takes time, and also to develop the capabilities, it takes time. I think in the last decade, basically, the alliance has zoomed much more on the cyber-defence. Instead of just being a national bu

Canada-China Relations committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the invitation. I'll probably first describe the institution I represent, which is the NATO centre of excellence for strategic communication. It is a NATO-affiliated organization that researches and looks into the issues of influ