About the Event: Online ‘fake news’ and disinformation have been widely (and rightly) attributed to polarisation, uncertainty, and violence – including, in extreme cases, mass atrocity crimes. What has not received much scholarly attention, however, is whether it might be permissible, or even required, to deceive potential perpetrators of atrocities via online disinformation campaigns to prevent genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansings. In other words: Does the responsibility to protect trump our responsibility not to deceive? Or, more concretely: might there be a ‘Responsibility to Deceive’ (R2D) via online disinformation to fulfil the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine? In this presentation, Rhiannon Neilsen will introduce a typology of ‘Atrocity Suppressing Disinformation Campaigns’ (ASDCs). She defines ASDCs as the use of targeted online disinformation and ‘fake news’, based on analyses of individuals’ big data, to deter individuals from committing mass atrocities by rendering them epistemically worse off. In the talk, Neilsen will then consider the ethical arguments for and against the use of ASDCs, concluding that such online campaigns of deception and disinformation are – like armed humanitarian interventions to protect populations – sometimes justified. According to Cian O’Driscoll: although the Ancient Greeks “conced[ed] that deception might be necessary in certain circumstances… such activities should be a last resort.” However, Neilsen submits that spreading disinformation to prevent atrocities is not even a ‘last resort’. The last resort for human protection rightfully remains armed humanitarian interventions – with its bullets, bombs, and bodybags. 

About the Speaker: Dr. Rhiannon Neilsen is currently the Cyber Security Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Her research focuses on new technologies in conflict, cyberspace operations, atrocity prevention, dis/misinformation on social media, and the ethics of algorithms. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National University, a Research Consultant for the Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford, and a Visiting Fellow at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence. Rhiannon has briefed the United Kingdom Foreign Office and the Armenian Foreign Ministry. At CISAC, she is developing her monograph, “On Algorithms and Atrocities”.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.