| Massimo Flore is an independent researcher based in Italy who studied disinformation at the European Commission and served as an electoral expert at the United Nations. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Molly Boigon: What makes people vulnerable to disinformation? Flore: One of my findings is that each single disinformation message is not that important. There’s been testing in several academic institutions — people usually will forget the content of any message that we send to them. What they will remember is the feeling that is attached to that particular message.
Disinformation has evolved and has been embedded into something that I named “hostile narratives,” which are campaigns that are really organized and are aimed at disrupting our democratic institutions. Hostile narratives work by targeting three specific fears. There is the fear of losing health, the fear of losing wealth and the fear of losing identity. These are the most powerful fears because this is what defines who we are, and these are the three aspects we defend with our lives.
We should care more about what is behind hostile narratives than about the single disinformation message. Boigon: Who, according to your research, is trying to do this? Flore: It is not a specific group, is not a specific person, is not a specific foreign country. It’s multiple groups and individuals that maybe are not coordinating with one another, but even if they don’t know it, they have the same goal.
If you just think about it in political-science terms, what we are experiencing now is one of the many regimes that we have had in society, through centuries. This is the democratic regime, and for America, it’s been for two centuries, but for Europe it’s been since after the second World War.
Before, there were many others. There were dictatorships, there were absolute kings, there was the Pope with temporal power. And every time that we have a specific regime in society, all the others want to remove that one and put themselves there. There are people who prefer to have a king instead of a president, or a dictatorship instead of a republic. There are people who prefer to have a religious leader.
These hostile narratives are made to change the perspective of other people to make them think that the current democratic system is not providing them with security and prosperity, and so they need to have a regime change.
There are people who are actively plotting against democracy, neo-Nazi groups for example. But there are also people who are frustrated, who want maybe a change, but they don’t know what that change should look like. They can be hooked into hostile narratives.
There is one British researcher that used the word “unwitting agents” for people who do not know that they are operating on behalf of a hostile narrative. But they are nevertheless. They are being used. Boigon: What do you make of the disinformation around mail-in voting in the United States right now? Flore: I’ve never seen something like this in the way it’s developing in the United States.
Before working for the European Commission, I worked for the United Nations in elections, so I was an electoral expert. I worked in West Africa in some countries that were coming out of a civil war, some countries that entered into a civil war after the elections, some countries where the military was taking power and organizing the elections and some countries where the old dictator was obliged to organize a free and fair election to transfer power.
Disinformation around elections always happens. But it happens always with a specific time frame— it’s basically some days before the election, maximum one week, and then one week after. That disinformation comes from the bottom, from anonymous sources.
This case is specifically scary because it’s coming from the top. It’s the most powerful person in the country who is sharing those false claims.
I’m more scared about the long term effects. Trump can win or lose this election; it doesn’t matter. The impression that the voting system in America is rigged will remain in the minds of people. Maybe next election, not for the president but for a governor, for a congressman, anybody can just get up and say, “This election is rigged.” And people will not just discard these ideas, because they heard them from somebody who is really in a top position. People start having their doubts, because they say, “They are inside the machine, and maybe they know something that we don’t know.” Boigon: How can people successfully engage with others who have been hooked by hostile narratives or targeted by disinformation? Flore: Don’t challenge what they are saying, but just try to let them talk about how they feel. Identify which kind of fear or feeling they are experiencing, and then try to reassure them.
Don’t challenge the idea, don’t make them feel that they are stupid or they are racist, but challenge the fear, because this is the vulnerability that is being targeted. | 