博士論文

Global Disinformation Campaigns and Strategic Challenges-Case Study and Consideration of National Strategies as theCountermeasures–

Tomoko NAGASAKO
長迫智子

情報セキュリティ大学院大学
情報セキュリティ研究科
情報セキュリティ専攻
2023 年３月

(blank page)Table of Contents
1. Preamble…5

1-1. Backgrounds…5

1-2. Objectives and Methods…7

2. Overview of Information Warfare…8

2-1. The Definition of Influence Operations…8

2-2. The Definition of Disinformation…13

2-3. The Definition of Cognitive Warfare…15

3. Case Study of Disinformation…20

3-1. World Trends…20

3-2. Cases in Peacetime…23

3-3. Cases in Wartime…30

4. National Strategies of State Actors…32

4-1. Intelligence Capability…32

4-1-1. Russia…32

4-1-2. China…34

4-2. Cognitive Warfare…36

4-2-1. Information Confrontation-Russia…36

4-2-2. “制脑权” -China…40

5. Limitations of International Laws

…44

5-1. Laws in Peacetime…44

5-2. Laws in Wartime…46

5-3. International Cooperation…47

6. Countermeasures against Disinformation…49

6-1. Case Study of Countermeasures…49

6-2. Types of Legal Challenges…64

7. The Evaluation Model for Nations against Disinformation…68

7-1. Evaluation Model…68

7-2. National Security Challenges of Japan…76

8. Conclusion…808-1. Policy Recommendation for Japan…80

8-2. Strategic Goals against Disinformation…82

Acknowledgement…84

(blank page)4

1. Preamble“We live in the age of disinformation.”
This is according to security and intelligence researcher Thomas Rid1.
Since time immemorial, 'information' and 'intelligence', the processed accumulation of suchinformation, have been important decision-making factors for states in peacetime politics and in
warfare. And, of course, for ordinary citizens as well, gathering 'intelligence' has remained importantfor individual decision-making, not only in political events such as the exercise of suffrage, but also
in work and private life.
However, the development of the internet in recent years, and in particular the rise of social
networking services, has changed the nature of information distribution. Information is no longer
disseminated unilaterally by public authorities or the mass media, but can now be easily transmitted
by the general public. This has led to a 'buzz' of 'information', sometimes containing major errors, andthe instantaneous sharing of mixed information. This structure has led to a number of influence
operations at the political level, where false or distorted information is deliberately mass-circulated inorder to influence the politics of hostile countries, and at the civic level, where there is less resistanceto posting false, deceptive or manipulated images to make oneself look good. The world has become
increasingly disinformation-driven.
In these times, the security environment is also changing. This paper considers disinformation-based
influence operations, of which the number of cases has increased in recent years in many countries, asa threat to security, conducts case studies and policy assessments from a security perspective, andmakes policy recommendations based on these case studies and evaluations.

1-1.

BackgroundThe concept of the Internet was born with the standardisation of TCP/IP in 1982, and with theimplementation of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, cyberspace constituted by the Internet hascontinued to expand dramatically. This cyberspace is now closely connected to real space through IoT
devices, and furthermore, the development of social networking services (SNS) and web advertisingon the Internet has connected even the cognitive space, such as the thoughts and feelings of ordinary
citizens. With the expansion of cyberspace, the physical realm of reality, the virtual realm created bycomputers and the internet, and the cognitive realm of humans have come to merge and interact witheach other.
With this growing influence of cyberspace, the threat of cyber-attacks has become humanity's
greatest concern. Initially, cyber-attacks were mainly information-stealing cyber-attacks, in which
criminals used cyber-technology to steal personal information and intellectual property information inorder to make money. However, as malware evolved to facilitate function-destructive cyber-attacks,
attacks on social systems and critical infrastructure began to take place. In addition, as it began to be5

recognised that such attacks were effective as a form of state execution, state actors began to enter thefray as attack actors, not only for criminal groups with financial objectives, but also for information
theft for intelligence purposes and for subversive activities as part of the use of force against othercountries under armed attacks. And because cyberspace was easy to attack, interfere with anddestabilise other states through information warfare, state actors attack actors began to attempt
information-manipulating cyber-attacks. Against this background, influence operations centred on
disinformation dissemination in cyberspace became more active, and cyberspace-based information
warfare was waged in both peacetime and emergency situations. The battlefield now extends fromland, sea, air and space to cyberspace and our own cognitive space, and not only soldiers in the armed
forces but also all citizens are on the battlefield.
This is a major shift from the days when kinetic warfare was the predominant form of warfare, andwe believe that it is an urgent global challenge to analyse the case and take appropriate
countermeasures in the face of this new and growing security threat. Furthermore, information warfare,cognitive warfare and related events are themselves very abstract compared to traditional warfare
events and are relatively new concepts, which means that definitions and terminology have not beenorganised and there is a lack of a shared awareness of the issues concerning the new threats.
Against this background, it was decided to take up cyberspace-based information warfare conductedby state actors, particularly disinformation-based influence operations, as a research topic.
The term Disinformation itself began to be used during the Cold War in the 1950s, mainly in theintelligence community around East and West Germany2. However, the range of influence operations
by intelligence agencies was limited in both wartime and peacetime, and disinformation was a term
used only between intelligence agencies.
However, with the advent of the internet, the situation changed. It became possible to spread
information cheaply and instantly, and with the advent of social networking services, it became aninteractive information network, and influence operations involving the general public on a large scale
began to have an effect. In this context, contingency disinformation attracted attention during the 2014
Crimean conflict, peacetime disinformation attracted attention during the 2016 US presidential
election, and cases of peacetime election interference accumulated thereafter.
In response to the Crimean conflict, the East StratCom Task Force was established in March 2015as part of the EU's Action Plan on Strategic Communication to address disinformation campaigns
waged by Russia, and In each country, countermeasure offices, task forces and other bodies have been
established within government agencies, and legislative measures to combat disinformation have beendeveloped. Against this background, surveys and research on disinformation have been conducted bygovernment agencies in various countries. For this reason, this paper also refers to a number ofgovernment reports from various countries. In the field of research, there are journals centred on
information warfare, such as Journal of Information Warfare 3 , and research on the subject of6

disinformation is also advancing in the fields of security and media studies. In addition, research thatcarries out computational analysis, such as diffusion factor analysis and cluster analysis of
disinformation in SNS, is gaining momentum as a field of research related to disinformation, and inJapan, Professor Fujio Toriumi of the University of Tokyo and Kazutoshi Sasahara of Nagoya
University are pioneering such research.
1-2. Objectives and Methods
The main focus of this paper is a case study of Disinformation and the formulation of a policy
evaluation model based on it.
First, the paper defines the terms influence operations, disinformation and cognitive warfare, whichhave mixed meanings in relation to information warfare, in the context of this study with security as
its scope. Then, using 2016, the year in which influence operations were reportedly carried out against
the US presidential election, as a milestone year, the main cases of disinformation since then will beanalysed, and the measures that countries have taken to counter the effects of disinformation will be
discussed. The study also examined what measures countries have taken and what national strategies
they are following. The measures taken focus in particular on the legal system, describing the limits
of international legal countermeasures and providing an overview of the state of domestic legislationin each country. Based on these findings, an assessment model is developed to identify the national
strategies that should be adopted in order to counter disinformation. Using this model, we will evaluate
the policies of representative Western countries and Japan with regard to disinformation, and identify
issues for Japan. The aim of this study is to make policy recommendations for Japan in accordancewith the issues identified.
This study focuses on disinformation by foreign actors, and does not cover the dissemination offalse information by the own citizens. This is because the regulation and countermeasures against thelatter one are given more considerable weight in conflict with freedom of speech compared to theformer one,4 also considering the idea of self-determination, and this research targets disinformation
as national security threat from the perspective of information warfare and cognitive warfare.

72. Overview of Information Warfare
In the current situation, these terms such as information warfare, influence operations,disinformation and cognitive warfare are used without precise definitions, causing confusion, whichneeds to be sorted out and discussed. There is an earlier argument saying that “lack of consensus whenit comes to defining all the elements that make up the strategic application of power in the information
domain”5, but this discussion will attempt to sort out them.
In addition, as a result of people's mutual exchange of data and information in the cyberspaceextended from the real physical space, particularly through social networking sites, information
warfare and influence operations have been no longer the issue of information realm alone. As people's
cognition is connected to the information network, the human cognitive domain is exposed tocyberattacks. Furthermore, only the question of correctness or incorrectness of information havealready not considered, but also the strategy exploiting narratives to influence the international public
opinion and the political regimes of hostile countries, which is known as the Battle of Narrative or
Weaponized Narrative. Cyberspace is described to be the fifth battleground, but the human cognitive
domain is now regarded as the sixth battleground.
Based on these issues, and after sorting out the current state of information warfare, this chapter
discusses the definition of these factors in the context of national security.
2-1. The Definitions of Influence Operations
In this section, the definitions of NATO, US military and some other terms are referred to in order
to organize the various operations around information warfare. The previous research of NATOdescribes that Influence operations are therefore an umbrella term covering all operations in theinformation domain, including all soft power activities.
It sorts Influence Operations as three sub operations; Inform & Influence Operations (IIOs), Influence
Cyber Operations (ICOs) and Information Operations (IOs). These explains are quoted andcomplemented here.
Influence Operations: The use of non-military (non-kinetic), means to erode theadversary’s willpower, confuse and constrain his decision-making, and undermine his public
support, so that victory can be attained without a shot being fired. They are also thecoordinated, integrated, and synchronized application of national diplomatic, informational,
military, economic, and other capabilities in peacetime, crisis, conflict, and post-conflict tofoster attitudes, behaviours, or decisions by foreign target audiences that further (a nation’s)
interests and objectives’.
Inform & Influence Operations (IIOs): Inform & Influence Operations are efforts to inform,
influence, or persuade selected audiences through actions, utterances, signals, or messages.
8Influence Cyber Operations (ICOs): Operations which affect the logical layer ofcyberspace with the intention of influencing attitudes, behaviours, or decisions of target
audiences.’
Information Operations (IOs): The integrated employment, during military operations, of
information-related capabilities in concert with other lines of operations to influence, disrupt,
corrupt, or usurp the decision making of adversaries and potential adversaries while
protecting its own.
This definition of IO relied on the US Depart of Defense definition6, which defines it as a militarycapability. It involves various operations as following table.
IOs

Description

Psychological

Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign

Operations

audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and(PSYOP)ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, andindividuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce
foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives.

Military

Actions executed to deliberately mislead adversary military decision makers

Deception

as to friendly military capabilities, intentions and operations, thereby causing(MILDEC)

the adversary to take specific actions (or inactions) that will contribute to theaccomplishment of the friendly mission.

Operations

A process of identifying critical information and subsequently analyzing

Security (OPSEC) friendly actions
attendant to military operations and otheractivities to: a. identity those actions that canbe observed by adversary intelligence systems;
b. determine indicators that adversary intelligence systems might obtain that
could beinterpreted or pieced together to derive critical information in time to be
useful to adversaries; and c. select and execute measures that eliminate or
reduce to an acceptable level the vulnerabilities of friendly actions to adversary
exploitation.
Electronic

Military action involving the use of electromagnetic and directed energy to

Warfare (EW)

control the electromagnetic spectrum or to attack the enemy. Electronic
warfare consists of three divisions: electronic attack, electronic protection, andelectronic warfare support.
9Computer

Comprised of computer network attack, computer network defense, andNetwork

related computer network exploitation enabling operations.

Operations (CNO)
Table 1. US Military Information Operations Definitions (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2010)

Additionally, other research7 sorts of Influence Operations as 2 types of character which helps tounderstand features and directions of Influence Operations.
It describes that Influence Operations capabilities described above, four main objectives can be
identified, which are: to influence/inform; to deceive; to deny/protect; and to exploit/attack. Following
these lines, Influence Operations can be divided into two broad strands:
1. The first is technical influence operations (TIOs), which target the logical layers of theinformation space and include information delivery systems, data servers and network nodes.
This strand thus includes operations such as EW, OPSEC, or OCO.
2. The second is social influence operations (SIOs) (aka. Information influence activities
or cognitive influence activities), which are focused on the social and psychological aspects
of information operations and aim to affect the will, behavior and morale of adversaries.
This research described that the strand includes elements out of the military playbook such as
PSYOPS and MILDEC but also public affairs and military-civilian relations. SIOs can in turn beconsidered as a subset of influence operations but initially are limited to military operations in timesof armed conflict at least for the US. Influence operations are, however at present, not limited to themilitary context, but form part of a larger effort by nations to exert power over adversaries in multiple
spheres (i.e. military, diplomatic, economic). These efforts can, for example, involve targeted
corruption; funding and setting up Potemkin villages (e.g. political parties, think thanks or academic
institutions); putting in place coercive economic means; or exploiting ethnic, linguistic, regional,
religious, and social tensions in society.
Based on the above discussion, here these terms around information warfare are visualized andapplied to the latest case of Ukraine War in 2022 to assist to understand them, because the discussion
concerning information warfare is more abstractive than that of the classical operational domains.

10Fig. 1 Influence Operations Definitions by NATO applied to the case of Ukraine War (Based on "Influence Cyber
Operations: The use of cyberattacks in support of Influence Operations," 2016, p117.)

In this war, there are three layers of information that Russia is attempting to influence; (i) narratives
justifying Russia's invasion to international public opinion (=IIOs), (ii) disinformation withcyberattacks to confuse Ukrainian citizens and discredit the Ukraine government (=ICOs+IIOs), and(iii) military strategic deception operations (IOs). It is important to note that (ii) and (iii) also may play
the role of narratives, and (i) may function not only to legitimise Russia but also to discredit Western
societies, because they are syncretized with the national strategy in a complex process.
As for (i), these are the typical cases that narratives such as "the Ukrainian government is neo-Nazi
and is committing genocide in pro-Russian areas in the east", "Ukraine and Russia are historically aunity", "NATO is threatening Russian security” have been disseminated since Euromaidan in 2013
and Crimean crisis in 2014, which were the abyss of the current military invasion. According to thewebsite EUvsDisinfo8, produced by the EU's East StratCom Task Force, 263 disinformation cases
involving such narratives have been identified from January 2022, when Russian-Ukrainian tensions
increased, to the end of April after the invasion. Meanwhile, 5,290 disinformation cases involving
Ukraine have been identified since the establishment of the Task Force in 2015, which suggests that
Russia has been conducting such influence operations continuously over a long period of time.
With these narratives as a background, Russian President Putin has claimed that the objective of thecurrent military operation is mainly just to exercise the self-defence of Russia and protect the Donetsk
and Luhansk People's Republics from the Ukrainian threat9.
11

The next typical case of (ii) was the cyber-attack on the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and twonational banks (Oschad and Privat) on 15 February, and the disinformation disseminated in relation tothem. Initially, the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the websites of these two banks
caused the websites to go down. The US and UK authorities have determined that this cyber-attack
was carried out by the Russian GRU10. Around that time, disinformation was sent to Ukrainian citizens
via SMS (short message service), spoofing these banks and claiming that their ATMs had become
inoperable. This disinformation spread confusion among citizens for a time, but the citizens
themselves confirmed that the ATMs were in fact functioning and refuted the malicious attackers onsocial networking sites. The attacks had two objectives, according to US security giant Mandiant11:
the first was driving consumers to the bank websites, contributing to the ongoing DDoS attacks, andthe second, and perhaps more important, was “driving up that fear, driving up the uncertainty around,‘Can the Ukrainian government protect itself?”.
As for (iii), the announcement by the Russian Defence Ministry12, also on 15 February, that Russian
military units had finished their exercises and started withdrawing, is probably the best example. Thiswas deceptive information to blitz the "special military operation” but was refuted by the Western
media through analysis of commercial satellite images, images and videos posted on SNS and so on.
Furthermore, the operation failed, as on 18 February, US President Joe Biden denied thisannouncement in his remarks13, saying that he was convinced, based on US intelligence information,that Russian President Vladimir Putin had decided to invade Ukraine.
In the discussion surrounding such information warfare, it can be said that disinformation andnarratives are tools of Influence Operations and that it is mainly used in peacetime and in the greyzone. This is because, as previous studies14 have shown, disinformation targets the political systemand democratic processes of the opponent, increasing social contradictions and tensions and distorting
the decision-making of the opposing nations.
Additionally, narratives strategically created by the state stimulate and invade the cognitive domainsof memory, experience, values, reasoning and emotions of all those who are exposed to information
regarding the narrative, and they are ultimately completed in the cognitive domain of the individual.
In the above example, with regard to the narrative justifying the Russian invasion, the extent to which
an individual reflexively accepts or rejects it depends on the functioning of his or her cognition, when
exposed to this narrative before confirming it is fact or not. In other words, the field of information
warfare has extended into our cognitive domain, hence the term 'cognitive warfare'. These points are
discussed in more detail in the subsequent sections.

122-2. The Definition of Disinformation
Since Russia's election meddling in the 2016 US presidential election attracted attention, similar
operations by Russia or China are unveiled year by year. As the cases have reported increasingly, theterm of disinformation seems to be heard more often. However, some countries use fake news in acontext similar to disinformation. Though Japan is a representative example of such country, the term
fake news is not reasonable when discussing foreign influence operations from a national security
point of view. The word of fake news describes just false news or false information, and it cannot
figure out the whole image of this threat, because disinformation is a part of the influence operation,
based on the national strategies and the complicated geopolitical purposes.
Here, the definition of disinformation should be reconsidered, because more clarifications
may be required to make the discussion appropriate.
The European Commission's report 15 calls the situation, including not only influence
operations by state actors, but also the dissemination of false information due to negligence, as
information disorders, and shows the following three types of data under such circumstances: mis-,
dis-, and mal-information. Using the scopes of harm and falseness, it describes the differences between
these three types of information (see Fig. 2) as:▪ Mis-information is when false information is shared, but no harm is meant.
▪ Dis-information is when false information is knowingly shared to cause harm.
▪ Mal-information is when genuine information is shared to cause harm, often by moving information
designed to stay private into the public sphere.

The report by the high-level expert group on fake news and online disinformation of European
Commission16 also defined disinformation as all forms of false, inaccurate, or misleading information
designed, presented and promoted to intentionally cause public harm or for profit.

Fig. 2 Definition of Disinformation by EU

13

However, the definitions are inadequate and seem misleading because they show thatdisinformation consists of false information only. But disinformation also contains correct
information.
For example, in the US presidential election of 2016, the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence’s report 17 alleges that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence
Directorate or GRU) used the hacker group, Guccifer 2.0 persona and the whistleblowing website,
DCLeaks.com to release the e-mail data they stole from the Democratic National Committee. This
disclosure may have been in a false context, but the data are not wrong.
Also, a specific type of hate speech like in the French presidential election of 2017 contains
the possibility of truth. In this election period, hate speeches that clamed Macron was gay. Thisharassment was spread widely on some media and SNS18. Indeed, in this case, these were fake news
because Macron denied being gay19 but, if these are true, are these hate speeches not as effective as
disinformation? It is not problem whether it is true or false when an operation uses sensitive
information such as religion or sexual orientation. Such a sensitive topic is hard to be fact-checked bya third party, and it is a success for a disinformation operation that causes anxiety, confusion, or discordin the society to make a social divide wider and damage democracy. The state actors distort andmanipulate the contents of hate speech. So, disinformation that is operated in the frame of the national
strategy should be distinguished from ordinary hate speech, and even if it's correct, harmful
information should be guarded against.
Fig. 3 shows a modified definition of disinformation. Disinformation contains also true
information such as manipulated contents to give a wrong impression or inconvenient truths to harm
someone deliberately. If the multiple perspectives of disinformation are not completely understood, itwould be difficult to find appropriate measures for this sophisticated information warfare.

Fig. 3 Modified Definition of Disinformation by the author

14

Furthermore, as the issue of disinformation clashing with freedom of expression is mainly aninternal affair of a country 20 , the security study regarding disinformation from the perspective of
national security and strategy should focus on the operation conducted by foreign actors. Thisapproach is followed in this study, and the case of Japan is discussed in the chapter 7-2.
2-3. The Definition of Cognitive WarfareThis section starts with another challenging term “narrative” in the context of national security,
which is mentioned in the above section initially.
Narrative is, according to the definition by Marc Laity who was a chief of strategic
communications at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), NATO’s military
headquarters in charge of alliance military operations when he wrote the paper21, “more than just astory. Rather, a narrative contains many stories, and—more importantly—it is an explanation of eventsin line with an ideology, theory, or belief, and one that points the way to future actions. Narratives
make sense of the world, put things in their place according to our experience, and then tell us what todo. A strategic narrative aligns the strategy and the narrative, so they become mutually supportive andintegrated.”
So as to understand the mode in which strategies are transformed and exercised in narratives, thefollowing specific comparisons by Laity22 will help to understand this.
In Ukraine the Kremlin’s strategy could be described thus:
In order to put pressure on, and regain influence over, the Kiev government and prevent its westward
orientation, we will use covert action and, if necessary, further military means to increase and exploit
pro-Russian sympathies, regain Crimea, and support a pro-Russian enclave in Ukraine.
However, expressed in Russian media narratives, this can sound like:
The fascist junta in Kiev illegally toppled the elected government and is viciously oppressing our
Russian compatriots in Ukraine, who desperately needed and called for our help to protect their culture
and rights.
Essentially these two statements are saying the same thing, even if the first couches it in operationalstyle language and the second in emotional terms. In effect, this is a strategy expressed in narrativeform.
This strategic exercise of narratives by the state is the battle of narratives. Narratives are mainly
constructed from disinformation. They may contain facts, but as identified in the previous section,
they are distorted in context or conceal inconvenient truths which are strategically and maliciously
manipulated. This is similar to the flow of a great river. The river of narratives is strategically15contaminated by the mixture of pollutants called disinformation, but it is very difficult tocompartmentalise and eliminate them in the stream of information.
As discussed above, under the battle of narrative, the influence operations exploiting narratives target
the line with an ideology, theory, or belief, and one that points the way to future actions. This line is
generated from the human cognitive information processing23. (See Fig. ★) As such, the battlefield
is now perceived as extending into our cognitive domain. This is known as cognitive warfare.

Fig. 4 The processing of the attacks to human cognition.
(Translated from SPF, 2022, “Prepare for Foreign Disinformation! -Threat of Information Manipulation in C
yberspace-” https://www.spf.org/security/publications/20220207_cyber.html)

In 2017, US Defense Intelligence Agency 24 or Air Force 25 started to mention the concept“cognitive warfare”. Additionally, NATO Innovation Hub launched Cognitive Warfare Project in202026. As a result of these developments, a number of countries have started to work on cognitive
warfare, but in practice, no established definition of cognitive warfare has yet been formulated.
However, these definitions have the similar core idea of weaponizing the cognition of everyone anddestabilizing the order and the establishment.
NATO’s research27 describes “cognitive warfare pursues the objective of undermining trust (publictrust in electoral processes, trust in institutions, allies, politicians…)., therefore the individual becomes
the weapon, while the goal is not to attack what individuals think but rather the way they think. It has
the potential to unravel the entire social contract that underpins societies”. Other definitions are ““an16

amplified version of psychological warfare with the goals of dividing an enemy nation’s people andleadership along social, economic, and political lines, destroying them from the inside without firinga shot” by Alderman 28 , “manipulation of the public discourse by external elements seeking toundermine social unity or damage public trust in the political system” by Rosner and Siman-Tov29,
and “it is a disinformation process to psychologically wear down the receivers of the information” by
Mackiewicz30.
On the other hand, Captain Paul Ottewell31, who is a Royal Navy warfare officer, criticises thesedefinitions as having a somewhat negative bias and offers the following more neutral definition;
cognitive warfare is manoeuvres in the cognitive domain to establish a predetermined perception
among a target audience in order to gain advantage over another party, after he defined cognitive
domain as “a domain consisting of perception and reasoning in which manoeuvre is achieved by
exploiting the information environment to influence interconnected beliefs, values, and culture ofindividuals, groups, and/or populations”.
Ultimately, cognitive warfare focuses on gaining an advantage over the opposing state and remaking
it into a social and political system favourable to one's own country. Additionally, it should be awareof the threat that the cognitive domain is being weaponised in war, thereby putting all citizens, not justsoldiers, on the battlefield of cognitive warfare.
However, the question arises whether cognitive warfare, a completely non-kinetic approach, can beconsidered warfare in the first place. In this point, the discussion by Bjørgul 32 is instructive. To
approach this question, the discussion starts with the U.N. Charter, which defines the limits of warfare.
Article 2(4) prohibits the “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or politicalindependence of any state.” The main exception from the prohibition of use of force is expressed in
Article 51, which allows for “self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United
Nations.” In this approach, it refers to the argument of whether a cyberattack constitutes the use offorce, and from the idea that whether significant physical effects occur affects the threshold for the useof force, operations in the cognitive domain are concluded not to be applied to this framework.
At the same time, this argument also returns to the most classical definition of war by Clausewitz;“war is an act of violence in order to force our will upon the enemy33," because Ottewell’s definition
conforms to it. Here, this argument can be extended also to the aim of war. Clausewitz classified theobjectives of war into two broad categories, war to achieve limited aims and war to "disarm" theenemy: to render him politically helpless or militarily impotent. The description on the latter is quoted
below.
“If our opponent is to be made to comply with our will, we must place him in a situation which ismore oppressive to him than the sacrifice which we demand; but the disadvantages of this position
must naturally not be of a transitory nature, at least in appearance, otherwise the enemy, instead of17

yielding, will hold out, in the prospect of a change for the better. Every change in this position which
is produced by a continuation of the war, should therefore be a change for the worse, at least, in idea.
The worst position in which a belligerent can be placed is that of being completely disarmed. If,
therefore, the enemy is to be reduced to submission by an act of war, he must either be positively
disarmed or placed in such a position that he is threatened with it according to probability. From this
it follows that the disarming or overthrow of the enemy, whichever we call it, must always be the aimof warfare.”This aim, especially in this part “at least, in idea”, is very applicable to the operations in cognitive
domain. Distorting an opponent's political system to one's own advantage through influence operations
such as election interference from peacetime, is precisely this war of disarming. From these arguments,
operations by state actors in the cognitive domain can be conceptually described as cognitive warfare.
On the other hand, although not on the threshold of use of force, the UN Charter was formulated at atime when kinetic means were predominant, and the definition of war may need to be revised. Under
the new trend of democratic institutions and values being articulated as concrete property in the formof infrastructure, such as the designation of elections as critical infrastructure in the US, the debate oninternational law may also need to take a novel turn.
Finally, it is also important to point out that cognitive warfare is spreading due to its association withconspiracy theories, because physical destruction is occurring in the real world as a result of this nexus.
Recent report 34 suggests that several countries, including Russia and China, have 'weaponised'
QAnon conspiracy theories to cause social discord and endanger legitimate political processes. It has
also been named by the ODNI35 and 36FBI as a terrorist threat group since 2019. As for typical casesof conspiracy incident might lead the physical attacks, in January 2021, a QAnon gang attacked the
US Capitol, and in 2022 a group of Reichsbürger members influenced ideologically by QAnon werearrested in Germany for attempting a coup d'état. In this incident in Germany, authorities havesuggested also Russian involvement37.
One of research38 points out that the diffusion mechanism of conspiracy theories exploits existing
oppositional structures, which is similar to the diffusion structure of disinformation noted in theprevious section. Those who are deeply committed to one of the two camps of argument tend to jump
on an opinion if it is favourable to them, regardless of whether it is true or not.
In more detail, another analysis39 shows that cognitive traits such as conjunction fallacy, need forcognitive closure, cheater detectors, intentionally bias, crippled epistemologies and motivatedreasoning influence the structure of conspiracy beliefs. Moreover, these characteristics indicate thatclusters of conspiracy theorists can easily expand, and it is noted that the cluster that spread proRussian posts in Japanese on the invasion of Ukraine in Twitter had already disseminated content
18

sympathetic to QAnon and conspiracy theory regarding the vaccine for Covid 1940.
In other words, cognitive traits of conspiracy theorists make it easy to control and weaponise them,and cognitive warfare targeting human cognition is very compatible with conspiracy theories. It will
be necessary to take multifaceted measures to address this new development in cognitive warfare as asecurity threat.

19

3. Case Study of Disinformation
3-1. World Trends
This section shows the trends of disinformation in this world.
As a part of disinformation, the first focus is on election meddling. According to the report41 of The
Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), the proportion of national elections in 2018 targeted byforeign cyber threat activity has more than doubled since 2015. As for the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development countries, the proportion of elections targeted by cyber threat activity
is more than 3/4 from 2015 (15.4%) to 2018 (50.0%)42. The vast majority (88%) of cyber threat
activities affecting democratic processes around the world since 2010 have been strategic (i.e., threat
actors specifically targeted a democratic political process to affect the outcome)43. Then, the major
remainder of the cyber threat activities was cybercrime, which is stealing voter data to sell personal
information or use it for criminal purposes. Furthermore, CCCS shows that voters now represent thesingle largest target of cyber threat activity against democratic processes, accounting for more thanhalf of global activity in 201844. They explains that this shift seems to have started in 2016, which islikely due to the perceived success among cyber threat actors. Therefore, most foreign adversaries
consider the costs and benefits of possible cyber threat activities before undertaking them. They likely
recognize targeting voters to be a more effective way to interfere with democratic processes thantargeting elections through political parties, candidates, and their staff. The reason is that web media
and SNS have made it easier and cheaper to influence the cognitive domain of vast numbers of people.
Figure 3 and Table 2 present the original data of concrete cases of disinformation from 2016. The
2016 example seems to be a turning point because the term of disinformation got more recognizedwidely after the US presidential election. This data includes not only votes but also some democratic
events such as referendums or demonstrations, and it consists of cases I investigated from open sources
like government reports and news articles. Though, the CCCS do not make their data available due tosecurity reasons. So, this report is not consistent with the data of CCCS’s report.

20

Fig. 5 Disinformation Cases (since 2016)

2016
date

Area

1 2016/1/16

Taiwan2 2016/4/6

The Netherlands

Case

Actor

Presidential election and Legislative election

China

Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement
Russiareferendum
United3 2016/6/23

Kingdom

European

Union

United Kingdom

membership
Russiareferendum
4 2016/11/8

United States

Presidential election

Russia

2017
date

Area

Case

Actor

1 2017/3/15

The Netherlands General election (House of Representatives)

Russia2 2017/5/7

FrancePresidential election

Russia3 2017/9/24

GermanFederal election

Russia4 2017/9/25

Iraq

Kurdistan Region independence referendum

Russia5 2017/10/1

Spain

Catalan independence referendum

Russia

2018
date

Area

Case

Actor

1

2018/3/4

ItaliaGeneral election

Russia2

2018/7/1

MexicoGeneral election

Russia3

2018/7/29

Cambodia

General election (House of Representatives)

China

4

2018/9/9

SwedenGeneral election (House of Representatives)

Russia5

2018/9/30

Macedonian referendum

RussiaMacedonia,
Greek
6

2018/9/30

Japan

Okinawa gubernatorial election

Unknown

7

2018/10/7

BrazilGeneral election

Russia8

2018/11/6

United States

Midterm election

Russia9

2018/11/17 France

Yellow vests movement

Russia21

10 2018/11/24 Taiwan

Local elections, Kaohsiung mayoral election

China

11 2018/12/19 Madagascar

Presidential election

Russia

2019
date
1

～2019/3/4

Area

Case

Estonia,

Actor

Latvia,Estonian parliamentary election

RussiaLithuania
2

2019/3/31

UkrainePresidential election

Russia3

2019/3/31～

Hong Kong

Hong Kong protests

China

4

2019/4/17

Indonesia

Presidential election

China, Russia

5

2019/5/8

South Africa

General election (House of Representatives)

Russia6

2019/5/18

Australia

General election

China

7

2019/5/23-26

EU

Elections to the European Parliament

Russia8

2019/10/18～

Chile

Chilean protests

Russia9

2019/10/21

CanadaFederal election

Russia8 African countries

Elections or Political movements

Russia10 2019/10/30 *

2020
date
1

2020/1/11

Area
TaiwanCase
Presidential election and Legislative election

Actor
China

Table 2 Disinformation cases (since 2016-2020)

The data shows that the area where Russia and China would like to have a strong influence is Europa
and Pacific Rim community, respectively. Also, it is manifest that Russia meddles in Africa. These
results correspond with their national strategy to expand digital authoritarianism.
Although few cases were investigated, the trends shows that disinformation cases are increasing
yearly, which suggests immediate countermeasures against disinformation.
And then, since 2020, the trend has changed by Covid-19 and Ukraine War. Around covid19, China
and Russia actively exploited disinformation that would improve their own reputations and conspiracy
theories related to the origins of the virus and vaccination. Similarly, from late 2021 onwards, whentensions between Russia and Ukraine increased, narratives were actively disseminated which, as
discussed in chapter 2 and below, portrayed Ukraine as a Nazi and NATO as a threat to Russian security.
In parallel, influence operations aimed at election meddling continued, but the year 2020 is considered22a break for the case study analysis, as it is difficult to relate to and assess this trend change at thepresent. Future work is needed on the changing trend and continued case analysis.
3-2. Cases in Peacetime
In this section, details of major cases of influence operation exploiting disinformation are describedto assist to understand the actual phenomenon of such operations.
3-2-1. US
In May 2016, the US Democratic National Committee was cyber-attacked and more than 19,000
emails of committee officials were stolen by hackers. These emails were published on whistleblowing
websites WikiLeaks and DC Leaks.com, exposing that Democratic National Committee officials haddeliberately worked to unseat Senator Bernie Sanders, who was competing with former Secretary ofState Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination. The leak was made public by the National
Committee of the Democratic Party (NCP). The leaks led to the resignation of the Democratic National
Committee chairman the day before the national convention, discrediting the Democratic executive.
The quantitative impact of this attack on the outcome of the presidential vote has not yet been revealed,
but the result was that the primaries were overturned and President Donald Trump was elected. A
report45 by the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Centre (NCCIC) under the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published in December 2016, shortly after the election,
identified two different types of cyber-attacks: 'Fancy Bear' (also known as 'APT28') involving theGeneral Directorate of Intelligence of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation(GRU) and 'Cozy Bear' (also known as 'Office Monkeys', 'Cozy Car', 'Cozy Duke' and 'APT29')
involved in the attacks.
At the same time, there have also been reports of cyber-attacks involving Russia in the form of thedissemination of fake news and disinformation in favour of Trump and against Clinton's reputation onsocial networking sites, including Twitter and Facebook, during this election. An investigation46 by
the US House and Senate Intelligence Committees found that 2,752 Twitter and 470 Facebook
accounts, approximately 120 Facebook pages and more than 80,000 associated page content were usedby the Russian Government to conduct operations. The company also admitted to spending theequivalent of USD 100,000 to purchase 3,393 Facebook advertising spaces for Russian government
agencies.
The Internet Research Agency (IRA), which was located in St Petersburg, organised the writing ofsuch false or pro-Trump biased information using a 'troll unit' to manipulate online public opinion.
Although superficially disguised as a private company funded by a nascent conglomerate, theconglomerate has close ties to the GRU and to President Vladimir Putin, as noted in a report47 by the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) of the United States. It also assessed that these23

IRA activities were not voluntary patriotic activities by a private company, but state-sponsoredoperations, stating.
“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the
USpresidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess
Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We
have high confidence in these judgments48."
During the 2018 midterm elections, it was also revealed that cyber-attacks were carried out against
the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), with emails of the committee's leadership
being stolen for several months49. However, unlike the 2016 attack on the US Democratic National
Committee, it has not been confirmed that the emails were misused. In addition to this, cyber-attacks
and influence operations have been reported by US intelligence agencies from Russia, China and Iran50.
To counter these foreign powers, the US has adopted a Defence Forward (DF) strategy to countercyber-attacks. The US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) blocked internet access by the Russian
IRA for several days from 6 November 2018, the day of the midterm elections. It also identified
Russian agents engaged in such election interference and displayed on-screen warning messages suchas 'We are monitoring your operations' and 'You are subject to prosecution and sanctions’51. This was
the first instance of the US military taking defensive action against election interference by a foreign
actor.
During the US presidential election in November 2020, US intelligence agencies also assessed that
Russia and Iran conducted cyber-attacks and disinformation activities with the aim of influencing theelection52. As for China, the assessment is that it considered influence operations but did not actually
carry them out, but cyber-attacks by China on election officials were confirmed before the election,and there is a minority opinion within the intelligence community that there were intentions andvarious activities to try to influence the election. The election was also characterised by the use of Q
Anon, a movement in the US that espouses conspiracy theories. The fact that Q Anon and members of
the Trump-supporting far-right movement went so far as to storm the US Capitol after the election isa clear example of how effective Russian disinformation can be in exploiting social contradictions anddivisions.
3-2-2. UK
The referendum on 23 June 2016 in the UK to leave the EU has been implicated by Russia. The resultof the vote was 16,141,241 votes in favour of remaining in the EU (approximately 48%) and
17,410,742 votes in favour of leaving the EU (approximately 52%), with the pro-leave side winning24

by a narrow margin.
However, as in the US presidential election, an interim report by the UK House of Commons'Culture53, Media and Sport Committee revealed that the Russian IRA was involved in shaping public
opinion in favour of Leave. An investigation of some 2,700 Twitter accounts and 4,000 Facebook
accounts implicated by the IRA in the US presidential election confirmed that these accounts
repeatedly posted in support of and inducements to leave the EU in the UK referendum as well. There
are also suspicions that accounts that did not interfere in the US presidential election also interfered in
the UK referendum with the involvement of the IRA, leading the Commission's chair Damian Collins
to request that the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook provide a list of accounts with links to Russia54.
At this stage, investigations have not identified any direct cyber-attacks on the referendum, and it
is believed that the interference was mainly through the disinformation disseminated by social
networking sites.
3-2-3. Germany
In the German Bundestag elections (general election) held on 24 September 2017, out of a total of709 seats, Merkel's ruling party, the German Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union
Unity Party (CDU/CSU), won 246 seats (311 seats previously) to become the leading party and Merkel
will continue in office for a fourth term Merkel will continue for a fourth term. The centre-left Social
Democrats (SPD) followed with 153 seats (previously 192) to become the second largest party.
However, the CDU/CSU's share of the vote was the lowest since 1949 and the SPD's share of the votethe lowest since 1933, and both parties accordingly saw their seats reduced significantly from theprevious round. On the other hand, the emerging right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD),
which advocates leaving the EU and opposes refugees, made a significant leap forward, winning 94
seats, securing a seat in the Bundestag for the first time and positioning itself as the third party.
In Germany, as in the UK, there were no direct cyber-attacks in this election, as in the 2016 US
presidential election, but mainly interference by Russian-related media and disinformation spread by
the IRA on social networking sites. Characteristic in Germany was the use of bot accounts and thedissemination of fake news by Russian-affiliated media. These developments were seen even before
the elections, a typical example being the 'Lisa case' reported in January 201655. The incident, in which
a 13-year-old Russian-German girl was raped by a group of refugee Arab men, was repeatedly andpersistently reported through Russian government-owned media channels 1, RT and Sputnik, andspread through relevant social networking accounts. In fact, although the incident was untrue, theRussian-affiliated media and personal accounts that fuelled it actually led to a number ofdemonstrations and rallies across the country criticising the incident and advocating anti-refugee
policies.
Also in March 2016, a photo purported to be a selfie with Chancellor Merkel by the perpetrators of25

a series of bombings in Belgium was spread, along with the perpetrators' mug shots. In reality, theformer was a photograph taken by Chancellor Merkel with a young Syrian refugee during a visit to a
refugee centre in Berlin. When the youth uploaded the photo to his Facebook page, which was doctoredwith the wrong caption and uploaded to the Anonymous-affiliated page 'Anonymous Collective' on
the Russian-affiliated social media site Hukontakte, it was spread on social networks starting with thearticle and became the article became fodder for criticism of Merkel's immigration policy and the
spread of pro-AfD discourse56.
It has been confirmed that during the election period, there were approximately 350,000 posts insupport of the AfD on Facebook and more than 2.5 times the amount on Twitter compared to otherparties57. The considerable volume compared to the vote share suggests that a significant number ofbot accounts associated with Russia were in operation58. A trend of support for AfD policies was thus
deliberately created.
Prior to the Bundestag elections held on 26 September 2021, there were hacking attacks against the
CDU and Parliament earlier that year. In addition, at the end of August, the website of the Federal
Decretariat, the organisation responsible for publishing the official results of the upcoming
parliamentary elections, was temporarily unavailable due to DDoS attacks that sent large amounts ofdata59. In addition, by September, phishing attacks had been confirmed, in which information wasstolen by directing users to disinformation websites for parliamentarians, political party officials andothers60. On 6 September, just before the elections, the German Government condemned cyber-attacks
of data theft that could be preparations for information warfare in connection with the Bundestag
elections. The German Government stated that it had "reliable information" that allowed it todetermine that these activities were "by Russian state actors, in particular by the Russian military
intelligence agency GRU" and called on Russia to cease these cyber-attacks61. The Bundestag Election
Commission also publishes62 the main disinformation disseminated during the election period, alongwith corrected information, which also confirms that some of the discourses, including those on postal
vote rigging, were spread by the AfD63.
3-2-4. France
There was also electoral interference in the French presidential election in May 2017, and themethods used were of the same type as in the 2016 US election.
First, it was reported that cyber-attacks were carried out on the Electoral Commission and theSecretariat of the Republican Forward Party led by Macron about six months before the election, andthat some data was actually stolen through phishing emails and other means.
This was carried out by the same group that hacked the Democratic National Committee in the US,
APT2864. However, unlike in the US, no clear information on the scandal was available, and theRussians also created and disseminated fake news. In programmes and articles by Russian26

government-affiliated media outlet RT and Sputnik's French bureau, opinions such as "a pawn of the
US industrial finance industry", "gay" and "defender of Islam" were repeatedly transmitted inreference to Macron, which were then spread on social networking sites. At the same time, opinions
in support of the National Front, which foments the crisis caused by Muslim immigration and opposes
it, were also massively disseminated via bot accounts65.
As a result, Emmanuel Macron (Republic Forward) won 66% of the vote in the French presidential
election run-off on 7 May (24% in the first round of voting), ahead of Marine Le Pen (National Front.
He defeated Marine Le Pen (National Front) with 33% of the vote [21% in the first round of voting])
to become President.
However, the election results of the first round of voting, held on 23 April before the run-off, were
unparalleled. This was because for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, neither the rightwing Republican Party nor the left-wing Socialist Party was able to field a candidate in the run-off
vote. It was also the first time in history that the National Front kept its candidate until the deciding
vote. Because of its anti-EU and anti-immigration platform, the National Front is close politically to
Russia and indeed receives financial support from the Russian government. Russian election
interference in France involved attacking Macron and supporting Le Pen and other right-wingcandidates.
3-2-5. EU
With regard to the 2019 European Parliament elections, the Commission's report66 assesses that it
has "identified ongoing disinformation activities by Russia aimed at reducing voter turnout andchanging voting behaviour" affecting voters in the European Parliament elections. The Commission's
investigation found that around 1,000 cases of disinformation on websites aimed at spreading
extremist views and polarising public opinion on issues of immigration and religion were identified,doubling compared to the same period the previous year. The methods used included the use of social
networking accounts and the creation of fake news websites to disseminate disinformation. The
European Commission has criticised these developments as activities that undermine EU values andhas called on platform operators of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to further
strengthen their measures.
3-2-6. Taiwan
In Taiwan, there have been indications of manipulative attacks on public opinion from China in thepresidential and local elections.
In the 16 January 2016 presidential election, President Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP, who has distanced
herself from China, won 56% of the vote (31% for KMT President Chu Li-lun and 13% for pro-PMT
President Song Chu-yuen), and there appeared to be no Chinese influence. However, prior to the27election, 'spear-phishing' attacks were carried out against Taiwanese government officials and Taiwan
independence campaigners, sending disinformation to specific organisations and individuals throughdisinformation emails, and it has been pointed out that the hacker group APT12, which is analysed ashaving strong links to the Chinese People's Liberation Army, was involved in these attacks67. No
disinformation dissemination or any kind of manipulation of public opinion using leaked informationfrom these attacks was observed. There were also 50,000 acts of 'trolling' in the Facebook comments
section of elected President Tsai in the immediate aftermath of this election68.
In the 2018 local elections, the DPP suffered a heavy defeat and "recently, there has been a flow of
untrue and false information from China, all of which are pressure measures intended to intervene in
Taiwan's democratic elections. These situations have been witnessed by all circles together and are
already universally recognised facts by the international community", commented a DPP
spokesperson69, but the specifics of the attacks were not made clear. The DPP's interpretation70 of the
DPP candidate's defeat in the Kaohsiung mayoral election is that Chinese patriotic netizens pulled
Taiwanese public opinion with their numbers, as the video posted on the video-sharing website You
Tube by his opponent, KMT's Han Guo-yu, received over a million "high ratings". It appears thatdisinformation techniques of mass dissemination of positive opinions of specific candidates, rather
than explicit attacks, were used.
In the 11 January 2020 presidential election, incumbent President Tsai of the ruling Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) won a landslide victory with approximately 8.2 million votes (57% of thevote). Her opponent, Han, the candidate of the largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), whoargued that stronger relations with China would bring economic benefits to Taiwan, received
approximately 5.5 million votes (39% of the vote). During this election period, President Tsai
expressed her alarm at the election intervention, saying that "China has fully 'infiltrated' [Taiwanesesociety]", while Han, the opposition candidate, criticised President Tsai for using the election to stir
up anti-Chinese sentiment, and the two candidates disagreed on China's intervention71.
Post-election analyses by Taiwanese authorities and US think tanks suggest that there was also
Chinese intervention in the same election72. According to an analysis by the US think tank Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has encouraged
Taiwanese nationals and their families residing in mainland China to return home and vote for proChina candidates, infiltrated the Taiwanese press, and conducted pro-China reporting and selfcensorship in order to increase support for pro-China candidates and manipulate public opinion. CSIS
assesses that as a result, support for the Chinese government's preferred candidate has increased73. In
addition, according to reports in Taiwan, the Taiwanese Government is investigating more than 30
cases of alleged CCP funding of the election campaigns of candidates running against the DPP.
The CCP is alleged to have (i) provided funds to Taiwanese media organisations and pollingcompanies to produce and publish fake survey results that favour pro-China candidates, (ii) organised
28

the "Five-Headed Party", which receives rewards for posting comments, to attack anti-China
candidates on Facebook and other social networking sites and make them post pro-China comments,
among other activities. The "Five-Headed Party" is said to be engaged in such activities. In fact, thenumber of attacks by the "Five-Headed Party" on Taiwanese websites per day has reached at least
2,500.
3-2-7. Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, the Chinese government is conducting a manipulative public opinion attack on the
democratic process of demonstrations rather than specific elections: in March 2019, the Fugitive
Offenders Ordinance amendment triggered democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, aiming for thecomplete withdrawal of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance amendment and the realisation of universal
suffrage. In response, the Chinese Government is alleged to have attempted to manipulate public
opinion by using state media articles and distributed advertisements on Twitter and Facebook to create
the impression that these demonstrations were unjustified and instigated by terrorists influenced bywestern countries and extremists74.
In connection with this information operation, 963 accounts were identified on Twitter and over
200,000 spam networks were suspended; on Facebook, five accounts, seven pages followed by over
15,000 accounts and three followed by around 2,200 accounts groups were suspended. In bothannouncements, it was assessed, based on evidence, that these were activities supported by the Chinese
Government and were deliberate attempts to cause political discord in Hong Kong75.
3-2-8. Japan
In Japan, unlike in other countries, no clear cases of foreign disinformation have been identified. The
reasons for this are the peculiarities of the Japanese language space and the existence of Japan's own
SNS platforms. However, there have been scattered cases of security concerns.
On 3 October 2019, the Ryukyu Shimpo reported on its front page that the US was planning todeploy a new medium-range ballistic missile in Okinawa and had already informed the Russian side76.
This report was information provided to the Ryukyu Shimpo by a Russian government official. On 18
October, during Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki's visit to the US, he confirmed the report with
Pentagon officials, who denied that there was any such deployment plan. With regard to the reports, it
has been suggested that they were deliberately circulated by the Russian Government, which isconcerned about the destruction of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF).
Another case in point is the 2018 Okinawa gubernatorial election. Although not explicitly
identified as disinformation from a foreign power, the type of disinformation and the security
significance of the point of origin should be kept under close watch and consideration.
During the 2018 Okinawa gubernatorial election, websites called 'Okinawa Prefectural Governor
29Election 2018' and 'OkinawaBaseIssues.com' were created, and the 'fake news' posted by thesewebsites that undermined then candidate Tamaki, an opponent of the US military base construction,and the late former governor Onaga Takeshi, also an opponent, was spread through social networking
services. The Ryukyu Shimpo and Okinawa Times conducted fact-checks on the content of themessages and confirmed that they were 'fake news'77. However, the source of the information wasinvestigated by the Ryukyu Shimpo, but was never clarified78.
It is said that the fake news disseminated was likely to have originated from opposition forces inJapan, as it was false information about Tamaki's campaign and showed an anti-Tamaki stance.
However, disinformation can also be made with the aim of undermining the credibility and legitimacyof elections in a democracy by planting doubt in the results or giving the impression that the results
are not legitimate. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the possibility that this case is not simply partof an unsuccessful election campaign, but also an attack by forces aiming to damage democracy.
From this perspective, the possibility of interference by foreign powers cannot be completely ruled
out, such as China79 , which is reportedly trying to shape public opinion in Okinawa through theundecided theory of belonging to the Ryukyu Islands, and Russia80, which has stated that the US
military bases in Okinawa are an obstacle to Japan-Russia relations and has been trying to get closer
to Okinawa in recent years81.
3-3. Case in Wartime
This section reviews disinformation cases in Ukraine war involving the cases before the war
happened.
In January 2022, the US State Department published examples of Russian disinformation and factcheck results in the Russia-Ukraine crisis82. In this fact sheet, following disinformation discourses
were objected.
・Ukraine and Ukrainian government officials are the aggressor in the Russia-Ukraine relationship.
・The West is pushing Ukraine toward a conflict.
・Russia’s deployment of combat forces is a mere repositioning of troops on its own territory.
・The United States has planned chemical weapons attacks in the Donbas.
・Russia is defending ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
・NATO has plotted against Russia since the end of the Cold War, encircled Russia with forces, broken
supposed promises not to enlarge, and threatened Russia’s security with the prospect of Ukrainian
membership in the Alliance .
・The West shuns diplomacy and goes straight to measures like sanctions.

30

In addition, cases of disinformation captured by NATO are also examined83. Since the beginning of
the year, when the Ukrainian crisis escalated, there were 225 Ukraine-related disinformation cases
identified by the NATO/Hybrid Threat Centre in the period 1/1/2022 - 15/4/2022. Broadly, theseinclude: 'Ukraine is a neo-Nazi power'; 'Ukrainian forces are massacring pro-Russian groups in eastern
Ukraine'; 'Ukrainian forces are using chemical and biological weapons in violation of internationallaw'; and 'Russia's original origin is in Kiev'.
These can be seen as justifications for Russia's invasion, discrediting Ukraine, dividing Ukraine andthe West, and appealing to the unity of Russia and Ukraine. Here, disinformation and narratives are
intricately intertwined.
On the one hand, when fake news was released from Russia that President Zelensky, who is also
conducting information warfare as a counter to Ukraine, had fled Kiev, President Zelensky stayed in
Kiev and actively sent out videos on social networks to fight against the war. Ukrainian citizens also
cooperated, uploading videos on social networking sites showing attacks on the city and testimonies
of captured Russian soldiers who were brought in under the guise of exercises, to appeal tointernational public opinion. It is not simply that Ukraine is countering with correct information, but
the Ukrainian side is also utilising fakes. By reporting that captured Ukrainian border guards werecrushed, and by misinforming the public that there was an increase in radiation levels during the attackon the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it can be said that Russia is the bad guy and Ukraine is the poor
victim.
In addition, on 15 February 2022, just before the military invasion, the media simultaneously reported
that Russian troops had begun withdrawing, and President Putin indicated that he would continue
consultations with the West84. However, the US side disclosed a certain degree of intelligence anddenied the move in a speech by US President Biden on 18 February85. President Biden said that "Russia
has increased its forces along the border by about 7,000", "I am convinced that at this point he[President Putin] has made the decision [to invade Ukraine]" and "I have reason to believe that Russianforces have plans, intentions, to attack Ukraine next week, that is, within a few days. The targets will
include the Ukrainian capital of Kiev", he stated. This is not disinformation, but rather an Information
Operation with a primary focus on military influence.

31

4. National Strategies of State Actors
This chapter reviews what regimes and strategies Russia and China employ to wage information
warfare.
4-1. Intelligence Capability
4-1-1. Russia
The main government agencies involved in cybersecurity in Russia are shown in the figure below,
but the division of roles among the relevant agencies for ensuring cybersecurity is not clear and there
is currently no single coordinating agency to facilitate inter-ministerial cooperation and other activities.
Therefore, there are often jurisdictional disputes over cyber-related matters, such as the competinghacking activities of different Russian government agencies during the 2016 US presidential election.

Fig.6 Russian Cyber Organogram (GOV. UK, “Cyber operations and the Russian intelligence services,” 5 Ap
ril 2022, (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/russias-fsb-malign-cyber-activity-factsheet/russias-fsb-malig
n-activity-factsheet))Among these, Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye
Upravleniye: GRU), the Federal Security Service (Federal'naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy
Federatsii: FSB) and Service of the External Reconnaissance of Russian Federation (Sluzhba vneshney
razvedki Rossiyskoy Federatsii: SVR) are the three major Russian intelligence agencies, but thissection discusses the FSB and GRU, which were particularly involved in the interference in the 2016
US presidential election.

The FSB is a federal executive agency under the direct control of the32

President. The former Soviet KGB (State Security Committee) became the Russian KGB and FSK(Federal Counterintelligence Service), which were reorganised and integrated into the current FSB in
April 1995. The FSB's main responsibility and role is Russian state security. Its individual jurisdiction,
as stipulated by the underlying Federal Law No. 40, includes counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism,
crime fighting, information security safeguards, protection and defence of the borders of the RussianFederation, protection of the competent sea areas, territorial waters and continental shelf, exclusive
economic research centres and natural resources, etc. In addition, the Centre for Electronic
Surveillance of Communications (TSRRSS - Centre for Electronic Surveillance of Communications,also known as the 16th Directorate General/71330th Military Unit) has been established within the
FSB and is responsible for interception, decryption and information processing of electronic
communications. The centre is believed to play a central role in controlling Russian hackers. The
hacker group retained by the FSB is APT29 (also known as Office Monkeys, Cozy Car, Cozy Bearand Cozy Duke), whose involvement has been pointed out in election intervention cases in various
countries, as described in the previous chapters.
GRU is an internal intelligence agency of the Ministry of Defence, established in the former Soviet
Union, and is the military's highest intelligence organisation, primarily responsible for the collectionof military intelligence. Although organisationally it is only a branch of the General Staff within the
Ministry of Defence, as in Western countries, it carries out a wide range of activities such as HUMINT,SIGINT and IMINT using 130 reconnaissance satellites, in addition to intelligence gathering throughthe General Staff chain, and has a special task force of 20,000 to 30,000 personnel, the Spetznaz( Spetznaz), a special task force of 20,000 to 30,000 personnel, and is also responsible for its operations,making it an intelligence organisation as powerful as the former Soviet Union's KGB (now the SVR,etc.). The hacker group under the GRU is APT28 (also known as Fancy Bear), which, like APT29, hasbeen pointed out for its involvement in the US presidential election.
4-1-2. China
The main government agencies involved in cybersecurity in China are shown in the figure below.

33

Fig.7

Selected Key Institutions in China’s cybersecurity ecosystem (U.S.-China Economic and Security Review

Commission, “2022 Report to Congress Executive Summary and Recommendations,” November 2022.
(https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-11/2022_Executive_Summary.pdf))

China has the President of the State as the head of the state system, but the system related to cyberspace
under him can be broadly divided into two systems.
One is the Communist Party Central Cyber Security and Informatisation Guiding Group,
Cyberspace Administration, State Internet Information Office, Ministry of State Security, Ministry of
Public Security and Ministry of National Defence under the jurisdiction of the State Council. The otheris the United General Staff and the People's Liberation Army under the jurisdiction of the Central
Military Commission of the Communist Party of China.
As for the Central Cyber Security & Informatisation Guidance Group of the Communist Party, theCyberspace Management Bureau and the State Internet Information Office, they are responsible for
ensuring the security of China's cyberspace, improving information technology, training cyberpersonnel, drafting cyber-related policies and regulations, monitoring illegal activities, handlingcyberspace-related enquiries, supporting local networks, and related industry management andinternational exchange, and is mainly responsible for domestic cyber security.
The Department of Public Security is positioned as China's domestic judicial police and is in chargeof public security. It is responsible for crime prevention and crime investigation, traffic management,
fire fighting, hazardous materials management, household registration management, immigration andforeigner management, and its main work in cyberspace is crime investigation there.
The Department of Defence, as the name suggests, is in charge of national defence, but does not34

have command and control over the People's Liberation Army under the Central Military Commission,
so its main role is as a military administration organ responsible for organising the army, procuring
equipment, formulating training, researching and developing equipment and weapons, and liaisingwith foreign military counterparts. With regard to cyber, the People's Liberation Army's involvement
is limited to cyber-related procurement and training formulation.
The Ministry of State Security is China's non-military intelligence agency. Its main tasks include
cryptographic communications and management, collection of international strategic information,collection of political, economic, scientific and technological information of various countries,
intelligence analysis and reporting, guidance of the work of competent ministries and agencies, andcollection, tracking, reconnaissance and arrest of counter-espionage information. The Ministry of State
Security is noted to have a hacker group APT10 (also known as 'menuPass'), which collects politicaleconomic, scientific and technical information from various countries. 86 In addition to technicalintelligence gathering, another group that is presumed to be targeted by the Ministry of State Security
is what is informally referred to as the "Five Poisons". This refers to the following actors whose
ideological, religious or cultural differences are labelled as poisons because they pose a direct danger
to the structure of the CCP or are opposed to the government's “One China principle”87.
･Members of the Uyghur Muslim community･Falun Gong supporters･Supporters of Taiwan independence･Tibetans･Activists in favour of Chinese democracy
Malware named 'Reaver' is often used in activities targeting them, and it has been confirmed to havebeen used in attacks during the 2016 Taiwan presidential election.88。
Among the departments related to cyber-attacks in the People's Liberation Army, the TechnicalReconnaissance Bureau is the SIGINT collection and analysis organisation, with dozens of groundbased systems with long-range collection capabilities. The bureau is said to employ 130,000 linguists,
technicians and researchers, although exact figures are unknown.
Then there are land and water signal units directly under the General Staff's Third Department, twobureaus in charge of the US and Canada and based in Shanghai (Unit 61398), four bureaus in chargeof Japan and South Korea and based in Qingdao (Unit 61419), five bureaus in charge of Russia andbased in Beijing (Unit 61565), six bureaus in charge of Taiwan and South Asia and based in Wuhan( Unit 61726) to the Shanghai-based Station 12 (Unit 61486), which intercepts communications
information from space satellites and is known as the Specialised Cyber Warfare Unit. According to
the report of Mandiant,89 Unit 61398 has been linked to APT1, which conducted cyber-attacks against35

the US. APT40 (also known as TEMP.Periscope), which conducted cyber-attacks and election
intervention in the Cambodian general election, is also noted to be under the People's Liberation Army,although it has not been attributed to any specific unit.90。
4-2. The Strategy of Cognitive Warfare
As reported in Chapter 2, current information warfare has moved from cyber warfare to cognitive
warfare and has taken on a complex aspect. However, the method of targeting people's perceptions
itself is not new. Since ancient times, propaganda and other publicity operations have been used in
warfare, but the emergence of social media such as SNS has made it easier and cheaper, and these
operations have become more frequent. In the face of these trends, Russia and China have evolved
their traditional strategies using new technologies and have incorporated the concept of cognitive
warfare once again into their military strategies for the new era. This section provides an overview ofthese two countries' strategies centred on information warfare and cognitive warfare.
4-2-1. Information Confrontation-Russia
This section examines Russia's strategy in waging information warfare against the West,
including Ukraine.
Russia's commitment to hybrid warfare became apparent to the Western world after the so-called
Gerasimov Doctrine in 2013. This builds on Gerasimov's presentation on hybrid warfare at the
Academy of Military Sciences in February 2013, in which his main themes were summarised in thepaper "The value of science is in foresight (Russian: Ценнность науки в предвидении) 91 ". The
doctrine prioritises psychological and human-centred aspects over traditional military concerns suchas supplies, logistics and military strength. And it sets the ratio of military to non-military action at
1:4, emphasising a phased approach through non-military means such as information warfare andpsychological warfare. (See Fig.8) According to one report92, "the Russian view of modern warfare isbased on the idea that the main battlespace is the mind and, as a result, new-generation wars are to be
dominated by information and psychological warfare, ... morally and psychologically depressing theenemy’s armed forces personnel and civil population. The main objective is to reduce the necessity
for deploying hard military power to the minimum necessary."36

Fig.8 Graphic from Gerasimov article in Voyenno-Promyshlennyy Kurier (V. Gerasimov (R. Coalson, trans.), 2016,
The Value of Science is in Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying out
Combat Operations, the Military Review. p4.))

Russia’s important conceptualization of ‘information confrontation’ and the role of cyberspacewithin it is outlined in strategic policy documents, such as National Security Strategy (2015), Foreign
Policy Concept (2016), Information Security Doctrine (2016), Military doctrine (2014), Conceptual
Views on the Activity of the Armed Forces in the Information Space (2016), as well as works andpublications by Russian military thinkers.
The analysis of NATO 93 , from the Russian perspective, cyber warfare or the Russian equivalent‘information technological warfare,’ is only a part of the overarching concept of “information
confrontation” (informatsionnoe protivoborstvo). The Russian Ministry of Defence describes the37

information confrontation as the clash of national interests and ideas, where superiority is sought bytargeting the adversary’s information infrastructure while protecting its own objects from similar
influence. The translation of the term informatsionnoe protivoborstvo into English has proven difficult,and has often incorrectly been translated as ‘information warfare’ (‘informacionnaja vojna’), despite
the fact that protivoborstvo refers to ‘counter struggle’, ‘countermeasure’ or ‘counteraction’ rather than
‘warfare’. This paper uses the term ‘information confrontation’ due to its established status indiscussions regarding hostile Russian informational activities. The confrontation includes a significant
psychological remit, whereby an actor attempts to affect informational resources (documents in
information systems) as well as the minds of the adversary’s military personnel and population at large.
Ultimately, cyber operations (or information technical means) are one of many methods used to gain
superiority in the information confrontation. Russia, and particularly Russian President Putin’s regime,
sees the information confrontation as a constant geopolitical zero-sum competition between great
powers, political and economic systems, and civilizations.
Publicly available Russian doctrines and policy documents do not explicitly reference cyber
operations. Furthermore, Russian documents do not use the term ‘cybersecurity’, but refer insteadto‘information security.’ This term differs from the Western notion of ‘Information security’ in that it
encompasses not only the protection of critical digital networks, but society’s cognitive integrity as
well.
When discussing the operational environment, Russia uses the term ‘information space’(informatsionnoe prostranstvo), or ‘information sphere’ (informatsionnaya sfera), which again is morecomprehensive than the Western concept of ‘cyberspace’ or‘cyber domain.’ The 2016 Russian
Doctrine of Information Security defines the information sphere as:“a combination of information, informatization objects, information systems and websites within theinformation and telecommunications network of the Internet […], communications networks,
information technologies, entities involved in generating and processing information, developing andusing the above technologies, and ensuring information security, as well as a set of mechanisms
regulating social relations in the sphere”.
The information space refers to activities to form, transform, and store information, as well as‘influencing individual and public consciousness, information infrastructure and information itself.
Similarly, the Russian concept of ‘information weapons’ (practically absent in Western parlance)
includes more than just digital measures. Although the Russian Armed Forces vaguely defines themas “information technologies, means and methods used for the purposes of waging information war,”in practice the concept covers a wide array of activities (often with an emphasis on affecting thehuman mind); this includes the spreading of disinformation, electronic warfare, the degradation ofnavigation support, psychological pressure, and the destruction of adversary computer capabilities.
Contrary to the Western view of interstate conflict that is based on the international legal order38

outlined in international treaty and customary law (specifically the UN Charter and the Geneva
Conventions) that makes a clear distinction between war and peace, Russia’s ‘information
confrontation’ is constant and ongoing. This view is exploited by Russia to undertake activities
beneath the threshold of armed conflict, allowing it to remain unpredictable and pursue strategic
objectives short of causing kinetic conflict. A key goal of Western democracies is to maintain a free,stable and open Internet, where fundamental rights and freedoms are ensured. In this regard,‘information security’ is perceived as the protection of data and systems, but not imposing control
over the attitudes and beliefs that the users of those systems are expressing. At the same time, theprinciples of openness and freedom of speech upheld in Western democracies might be exploited byinformation and cyberattacks. Russia seeks to exploit this openness to gain ‘information superiority,’
notwithstanding whether it is in a conventional conflict with its opponents or not.
Information warfare by Russia, is a battle to try to control the information psychological sphere of
the opposing social system in order to secure this strategic advantage (information psychological
warfare), and disinformation is used as a means to achieve this. There are two types of information
psychological warfare: conventional warfare, which is conducted as 'maskirovka' (deception
operations) to distort or conceal perceptions of specific targets, and strategic information warfare,which attempts to secure strategic superiority for the country using disinformation and other means.
Russian information warfare is characterised by (1) identifying contradictions within the opponent(country or society), (2) amplifying those contradictions using fake news and other means, and (3)driving the opposing society to self-destruction through widening fissures. Russia sees themultipolarisation of the international community as an opportunity to expand its geopolitical room formanoeuvre and seeks to achieve strategic balance by weakening the West through information warfare.
It seeks to magnify instabilities within the US alliance network, including the US-Japan alliance (suchas the imbalances observed within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation [NATO]), and the inherent
contradictions in the democratic system, to create an opening to be exploited.
For Russia, the information space spans cognitive, cyber and physical space. Social media is an
excellent vehicle for information warfare for Russia, as it spans all three spaces.
Another unique concept of Russian information warfare is “Reflexive Control,” based on
maskirovka, which is a Russian concept predating the Soviet Union, with the first official Maskirovka
school being established in 190494. Maskirovka is a concept encompassing multiple elements, such as
camouflage, concealment, deception, misinformation, imitation, secrecy, security, feints, and diversion.
The noun Maskirovka used to be translated as ‘to mask’. First of all, this does not cover the concept
at all, and furthermore it is actually impossible to translate a noun as a verb. From the original conceptof Maskirovka, Reflexive Control developed to convey to an opponent specifically prepared
information to incline him/her to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiatorof the action, according to one research95. That is, reflexive control is a sustained campaign that feeds39

an opponent select information so that the opponent makes the decisions that one wants him/her to.
Methods of reflexive control include spreading false information, leaking partial information atopportune moments, and projecting a different posture of oneself than what may actually be the case.
The goal of reflexive control is to ‘control’ the ‘reflex’ of the opponent by creating a certain model ofbehavior in the system it seeks to control. It works on the opponent's 'consciousness' (long-term
memory and operating memory), controls the reflex cycle consisting of 'stimulus-response' in thehuman cognitive domain, enters the decision-making cycle, makes the opponent perceive as if he isacting of his own free will, and guides the opponent's decision-making and reaction generation to his
own advantage. This leads to decision-making and reaction generation in favour of the other party.
As shown in Fig.4 in the chapter 2, the flow of cognitive information processing in humans is not
only based on sensory input, but also on the collision of information from the memory system drawn
from past memories and images, which generates reactions and causes actual behaviour.
The attack on an individual's cognitive domain by disinformation does not only input false
information to direct sensory inputs such as sight and hearing, but also acts on working memory(working memory) based on past memories through narratives (stories), and through cognitive filters
to select and discard information. It influences the interpretation of reality (internal representation)
produced within the individual's cognitive domain. As a result, they attempt to influence theindividual's emotions and behaviour and elicit the given objective of the attack, which is the outcome.
Such attacks on the cognitive domain have been generated from the unique Russian concept of
information, as discussed above.
In the current war in Ukraine, above discussed military operational information operations (IOs) havebeen the mainstay of the war against Ukraine, while such cognitive warfare is mainly directed against
its own country and the international community.
4-2-2. “制脑权” –China
China's strategy on hybrid warfare starts with the concept of Unrestricted Warfare (超限战/超限戰). This is warfare beyond all boundaries and limits, a concept first published in 1999 in a co-authoredstrategic study by Colonel 喬良 and 王湘穂 of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Undrr theunrestricted warfare, the distinction between battlefield and non-battlefield does not exist. Natural
spaces such as land, sea, air and space are also battlefields, as are social spaces such as military,political, economic, cultural and psychological. The space of technology, which connects these two
major spaces, is even more so defined as a battlefield that is violently contested by the two opposing
sides. And it is on the basis of this concept that the following modes of operation have been formulated.
(See Table 3)40

Table 3 Forms of Unrestricted Warfare (S. Schaerer, “Chinese Espionage Against The United States,” Survi
ving Chinese Communist Detention. (https://www.chinesecommunistdetention.com/post/chinese-espionage-in-theunited-states-military-economic-government))

This concept of Unrestricted warfare is based on the three warfare concepts of legal warfare, public
opinion warfare and psychological warfare. This is based on Sun Tzu's Art of War, 「是故百戦百勝、非善之善者也。不戦而屈人之兵、善之善者也」(Winning a hundred battles is not the best of thegood. (To defeat a man's army without a battle is to be the best of the good). The three concepts of
warfare are: warfare, the theory of the world, and psychological warfare. This strategy was proposedin 2003 in the Political Work Regulations of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, a set of laws andregulations of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
Legal warfare aims to ensure the legality of the use of force and operational action by one's own
forces, expose the illegality of the enemy and prevent interference by third countries, thereby placing
one's own forces in a position of initiative and the enemy in a position of passivity. It is used as an
adjunct to military operations. Public opinion warfare refers to the cultivation of domestic and foreign
opinion with the aim of inspiring the fighting spirit of one's own forces and discouraging the enemy's
willingness to fight. It involves the comprehensive use of media and information resources such as
newspapers, books, radio, television, the internet and e-mail. Common tactics include 'focused strikes'(to influence the decisions of the enemy leadership and others) and 'information management' (todisseminate favourable information while restricting unfavourable information). Psychological
warfare aims to break the enemy's will to resist. Based on strategic intent and operational mission, it
41

is an operational action to influence the psychology and behaviour of an objective target through theuse of specific information and media in order to realise the objectives of a political or military struggle.
Regular methods of psychological warfare include offensive psychological warfare for foreign anddefensive psychological warfare for domestic purposes.
Originally, physical warfare was the predominant strategy when kinetic use of force was the norm,
but the transition from this to psychological warfare was only observed in 200796.
In the book 『从物理战到心理战』 by Professor Zeng Huaxi, Dean of the College of Humanities
and Social Sciences at the National Defence University of Science and Technology, and Lecturer Shi
Haiming of the Research Centre for Social Development of Science and Technology at the same
university, the problems of physical warfare were pointed out and the shift to psychological warfare
was advocated. The problems with physical warfare were that the targets of operations werechangeable, strategic space was restricted and the cost of warfare was rising rapidly (the cost oferadication per enemy soldier during the Gulf War was $6 million). After the Gulf War, the weight ofpsychological warfare became heavier to overcome these factors, partly because the political andpsychological goals of international public opinion became clearer with the development of mass
media.
Furthermore, in 2014, in the book 『制脑权：全球媒体时代的战争法则与国家安全战略』 byProfessor Zeng Huaxuan, Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National
Defence University of Science and Technology, and Shi Haiming, Lecturer at the Centre for Researchon Social Development of the National Defence University, the book "mental/ cognitive dominance(or brain control)" (制脑权). Humanity's warfare has moved from mechanised warfare into the age of
informatisation, and in informatisation warfare, one must necessarily seize the initiative in warfare
and the right to speak (話語権) to lead warfare. And in the information war, there are three operational
spaces: natural space (land, sea, sky and sky (space)), technological space (internet space) andcognitive space (composed of human spirit and psychology). The highest state of information warfare
is to deprive the opponent of "mental/cognitive dominance (or brain control)" (制脑权), which is thepower of the brain formed in the cognitive space, and not to actually engage human soldiers in battle.
"Mental/cognitive dominance" (mental/cognitive dominance). "The state of mental/cognitive
dominance (or brain control) (制脑权) is the state of being able to secure superiority over the enemy's
forces in the cognitive space and carry out various operations without significant interference from theenemy. This refers to the power to achieve control of consciousness through the use of emotions andemotional incitement.
Such operations in the cognitive space overcame the problems of physical warfare mentioned earlier.
The first is borderlessness: in cognitive space, the boundaries between states and between states andindividuals are blurred. There are two types of information - physical and mental - and the latter is aweapon in the cognitive space. Ideological and spiritual information can be disseminated through42language, culture and media to all the battlegrounds of cognitive space. The second is controllability,
which means that information in the cognitive space of the state is manipulable. In the cognitive space,through media propaganda, certain information can be disseminated to create an image and narrativein favour of the state. Third is endurance, which means that offensive and defensive operations in the
cognitive space have strategic endurance. A nation's manpower and material resources are finite andit is impossible to continue physical warfare forever, but cultural and academic exchange, public
relations and media propaganda can be sustained over long periods of time.
The four methods of seizing "mental/cognitive dominance (or brain control)" (制脑权) include
manipulating cognition, distorting historical memory, altering modes of thought, and attacking
symbols. These are common to the structure of cognitive warfare in chapter 2 and Russian methods inthe previous section.
The above description shows that both Russia and China have a concept of warfare that ranges fromcyberspace to the cognitive domain as a national defence strategy. In order to formulate an appropriate
defence strategy, these national strategies need to be fully analysed.

43

5. Limitations of International Laws
As observed earlier, disinformation is a global problem. Since disinformation is a conflict between
nations, it may be necessary to consider the unlawfulness of disinformation in the context ofinternational law, and international law should regulate disinformation.
On that note, Tallinn Manual 2.097, which was facilitated and led by the NATO Cooperative Cyber
Defence Centre of Excellence, and which summarizes the concept of international law applied to cyber
operations is seen. This book does not create new international laws or regulations related tocyberspace and cyber operations. Still, on the assumption that customary international law applicableto cyber operations exists, it confirms and describes 154 rules and its’ contents of international law.
Here, it is good to consider the unlawfulness of election meddling to be the main operation ofdisinformation under the related rule of this book.
This chapter examines the issues of international law on Disinformation, both in peacetime andwartime.
5-1. Peacetime
・Rule 4. – Violation of sovereignty
A state must not conduct cyber operations that violate the sovereignty of another state.98
Based on this rule, cyberattacks and cyber espionage conducted by a state organ in the territory of
another country are considered a violation of sovereignty. With regard to remote cyber operations,cyberattacks that cause physical damage or loss of functionality in cyberinfrastructure, and cyber
operations that interfere with data and services that are necessary to exercise inherently government
functions is considered to be a violation of sovereignty, such as changing or deleting data such that itinterferes with the delivery of social service, the conduct of elections, the collection of taxes, theeffective conduct of diplomacy, and the performance of key national defense activities.
In terms of election interference, it becomes a violation of sovereignty only when there is a level ofinterference, such as manipulating election voting data through cyberattacks or interfering with theoperation of polling stations. So, Information stolen by hacking from election-related organizations
and the influence operations using media and SNS will not be considered violation of sovereignty.
・Rule 32. –Peacetime cyber espionage
Although peacetime cyber espionage by states does not per se violate international law, the method bywhich it is carried out might do so.99
This rule is a matter of whether operations such as election meddling constitute unlawful cyberespionage. The operations of disinformation, including election meddling, are so highly compatible
44

with the intelligence agency that at first glance, i.e., the operation itself appears to be included in the
cyber espionage. The international hacking groups such as APT28, APT29, and APT40, which arealleged to be involved in election meddling so far, have been pointed out from the attribution resultsthat they have the back of the Russian and Chinese intelligence community such as GRU, FSB, andChinese People's Liberation Army, respectively100101102. However, when preventing cyberattacks andcyber espionage, it is necessary to clarify the attribution of the actor conducting the operation, andsuch activities are similar to normal intelligence activities. Therefore, on the defense side, theintelligence agencies are also involved.
This rule states that the term ‘cyber espionage’ refers to any act undertaken secretly or under false
pretenses that uses cyber capabilities to or attempt to, surveil, monitor, capture, exfiltrate, or gather
electronically transmitted or stored communications, data, or other information. So, in this context,
the rule does not seem to include the covert action to influence or work on another country such as
election meddling.
Besides, it should be cautioned that cyber espionage may be conducted in a manner that violatesinternational law due to the fact that certain methods employed to conduct cyber espionage areunlawful. If cyber operations that are undertaken for espionage purposes violate the international
human right to privacy, the cyber-espionage operation is unlawful. So, the operation of election
meddling is unlawful, if the operation is conducted with, not only an influence operation on SNS but
also the cyberattack to steal and leak the e-mails of candidates or election offices, such as in the US
and France presidential elections.
・Rule 66. –Intervention by states
A state may not intervene, including by cyber means, in the internal or external affairs of anotherstate.103
This manual explains that this rule prohibits coercive intervention, including cyber means, by one
state into the internal or external affairs of another. It is based on the international law principle ofsovereignty, precisely that aspect of the principle that provides for the sovereign equality of states. In
this rule, intervention is clearly distinguished from interference with no coerciveness. For the purposeof this rule, interference refers to acts by states that intrude into affairs reserved to the sovereign
prerogative of another country, but lack the requisite coerciveness to rise to the level of intervention.
The term of intervention, the subject of this rule, is limited to acts of interference with a sovereign
prerogative of another state that have coercive effect. The key is that the coercive act must have thepotential for compelling the target state to engage in an action that it would otherwise not take.
So, here, I consider the case of election meddling. Even if disinformation operations are conductedin the media or SNS, as long as various voting possibilities remain, it can be said that it is not unlawful45

election intervention, but only election interference. It can be recognized as an unlawful election
intervention only when a candidate is killed, or the election opportunity itself is lost due to thedestruction of the election infrastructure by the attack of another country.
5-2. Wartime
Rule 4 – Violation of sovereignty
A State must not conduct cyber operations that violate the sovereignty of another State
Rule 19: Circumstances precluding wrongfulness of cyber operations
The wrongfulness of an act involving cyber operations is precluded as following, consensus, self
defence, countermeasure, emergency evacuation, force majeure, and distress.
Rule 20: Countermeasures
A State injured by an internationally wrongful act may resort to proportionate countermeasures,
including cyber countermeasures, against the responsible State.
Rule 23: Proportionality of countermeasures
Countermeasures must be proportionate to the corresponding damage.
Rule 80: Applicability of the law of armed conflict
Cyber operations executed in the context of an armed conflict are subject to the law of armed
conflict.
Rule92: Definition of cyber attack
A cyber attack is a cyber operation, whether offensive or defensive, that is reasonably expected tocause injury or death to persons or damage or destruction to objects.
Rule108: Belligerent reprisals
Belligerent reprisals by way of cyber operations against:(a)prisoners of war;(b) interned civilians, civilians in occupied territory or otherwise in the hands of an adverse party to
the conflict, and their property;(c)those hors de combat; and(d) medical personnel, facilities, vehicles, and equipment
are prohibited.

46

Firstly, cyber-attacks are defined by Rule 92 as attacks that cause injury or death to persons, damage
to property or destruction, so that non-violent actions such as psychological cyber behaviour and cyberespionage do not have the character of an attack. Hence, Influence Operations are currently at the levelof intensity of cyber-action. And from the Circumstances precluding wrongfulness of cyber operations
as defined in Rule 19, it is understood that there is no problem in conducting counter information
warfare for self-defence or countermeasures. In such a case, Rule 23 requires a balancing act whereby
the same type of countermeasures can be used against violations of international law obligations. Thus,on the issue of information warfare, there is generally no illegality under international law. However,from the point of view of Rule 108, which prohibits Belligerent reprisals against prisoners of war, it
can be said that acts such as Ukraine's exposure of Russian prisoners of war on social networking sites
would be illegal.
However, a normative interpretation can be derived from the commentary that operations that harmthe decision-making of the partner state are prohibited, as Rule 4 prohibits the violation of sovereignty
through cyber operations. Currently, it is only an interpretative norm, but it is possible that it will bearticulated as a separate rule in the Tallinn Manual 3.0 or later, which is currently under consideration,
as a way of dealing with information warfare in the future. It could also be seen as a basis for countries
to take strong action against countries conducting such malicious operations, not only through namecalling and criticism, but also through cyber counter-attacks.
Furthermore, in chapter 2, the examples of influence operations that actually resulted in physicalsabotage, such as QAnon's attack on the Houses of Parliament, are mentioned, and if such operation
combined with the use of force in the grey zone or in a contingency, a doctrine of accumulation of
events would be applied to the the whole and could be subject to the exercise of the right of selfdefence. For example, when the People's Liberation Army disguised as Chinese fishermen attemptedto land on the Senkaku Islands, while at the same time satellite jamming and cyber-attacks were being
carried out on Japanese communications systems, disinformation about the US military and SelfDefence Forces was disseminated in Okinawa, and mass demonstrations were agitated to disrupt thefunctioning of various bases. This is one of example of possible cases.
At present, international legal restrictions are loose, and domestic legal measures against influence
operations are also needed. However, it should be noted that there are some arguments104 that, in orderto guarantee the credibility of a liberal democratic state, measures against influence operations should
be limited to active cyber defence, platform regulation, fact checking, etc., and that the use of
disinformation as a counter should not be resorted to.
5-3. International Cooperation
As mentioned above, it seems that there is a limit to identify the wrongfulness of disinformation
under current international laws. So, it will be a challenge of future international initiatives to consider
47

what kind of regulation should be taken under international laws from now on, and what type oflegislation is useful in the national law of each country.
The G7 “Declaration on Responsible States Behavior in Cyberspace” (i.e., the “Lucca
Declaration” 105 ) in 2017 expresses their opinion that “We note that, in the interest of conflict
prevention and peaceful settlement of disputes, international law also provides a framework for States’
responses to wrongful acts that do not amount to an armed attack - these may include malicious cyber
activities. Among other lawful responses, a State that is the victim of an internationally wrongful act
may, in certain circumstances, resort to proportionate countermeasures, including measures conducted
via ICTs, against the State responsible for the wrongful act in order to cause the responsible State tocomply with its international obligations”. It is crucial that they explicitly point out that international
wrongful acts include malicious cyber activities. This expression can be recognized as an advanced
endeavor to deal with malicious cyber operations that are beyond the scope of existing customaryinternational laws in the framework of new international norms. Such a new movement will havepossibilities to create a new framework of international regulations to deterrent disinformation.
A similar international cooperation initiative 'The 'Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace'
was announced by French president Macron at the IGF in 2019. This Paris Call refers to solving
problems, such as to prevent malign interference by foreign actors aimed at undermining electoral
processes through malicious cyber activities, and to promote the widespread acceptance andimplementation of international norms of responsible behavior as well as confidence-building
measures in cyberspace, and this More than 50 countries and 250 organizations have signed the Paris
Call.
However, given the adoption of Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime, concerning
the criminalization of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems in
2003, which remains ineffective, any initiatives lack the power to deter their operations without the
involvement of Russia and China. The same lack of participation by China and Russia also exists in
the G7 and Paris Call, and it is crucial for the formation of new international norms to deter
disinformation how these digital authoritarian states are involved.

48

6. Countermeasures against Disinformation
6-1. Case study of countermeasures106
In this section, the details of countermeasures against influence operation exploiting disinformation
are reviewed.
6-1-1. US(1-1) Agencies and systems to detect and monitor disinformation
In May 2018, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established the Countering Foreign
Influence Task Force (CFITF) was established. Subsequently, in November 2018, following thebipartisan Congressional passage of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
Establishment Act, the NPPD was transformed into CISA and the CFITF became part of CISA. the
CFITF is responsible for the management of the National Security and Infrastructure Security
Agency's (NSPA) cybersecurity and infrastructure security operations, including the countering ofMis-, Dis- and Mal- information), and was given the specific mandate to promote the understandingof the US public regarding the risks and effects of MDM.
In 2021, the CFITF was reorganised into CISA's MDM Team, whose current role includes collecting
information on MDM, analysing it and publishing fact-check results. the MDM team is responsible
for building national resilience against malicious MDM activity through interagency and private sector
It works closely with partners, social media companies, academia and international partners, and isalso responsible for coordinating.
(1-2) Investigating and punishing election interference
In September 2018, President Trump signed Executive Order 13848, which imposes sanctions againstinterference by foreign governments and others in US elections (at the federal level). Within 45 daysof the election results, the Director of National Intelligence will investigate whether there wasinterference in the election in question, and within 45 days thereafter, the Attorney General and theSecretary of Homeland Security will decide whether to impose sanctions. Sanctioned persons will
have their assets in the US frozen and will be prohibited from doing business with US persons.
In the 2018 midterm elections, the investigations did not confirm any vote interference or tally
tampering, and as indicated in the previous chapter, the decision was that although influence operations
by Russia, China and Iran were confirmed, their impact on the election results was not assessed. On
the other hand, the study assessed Russian and Iranian influence operations in the 2020 presidential
elections. As for China, the report states that it did not carry out such operations in view of US-China
relations, although a minority opinion notes that there were some sabotage attempts. However, it wasassessed that there was no evidence of any specific influence of foreign governments on the voting
process or the outcome of the US presidential election itself in any of the operations carried out by49

any of the countries.
At the state legislative level in the US states, in September 2019, Texas passed a law making it amisdemeanour to produce and share political deepfakes (elaborate AI-based fake videos) distorting
facts about political opponents one month before an election. In October of the same year, California
also passed legislation making it illegal to create or distribute falsified videos, audio or photographsof election candidates. Deepfakes influencing elections are also beginning to be recognised as
punishable offences.
(2) The designation of election as critical infrastructure
On 6 January 2017, DHS designated elections as one of the 'critical infrastructures' (Critical
Infrastructure) under The Patriot Act of 2001, which was passed in response to the 2001 terrorist
attacks. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defines critical infrastructure as 'assets, systems
and networks whose incapacitation or destruction is believed to undermine the security, economy, or
national health or safety of the United States' and has designated 16 areas for focused protection. Thereis an agency responsible for each area, such as the transport system, the defence industrial base andfinancial services, while election infrastructure is the responsibility of DHS and is designated as asubsector in the 'Government Facility' area (Election Infrastructure Subsector). This allows DHS toprovide support to election authorities when requested, to liaise with other intelligence agencies suchas the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and to share information on cyber threats,vulnerabilities and incidents (incidents that could lead to accidents) through the establishment ofElection ISACs. The establishment of the Election ISAC has also led to the sharing of information on
cyber threats, vulnerabilities and incidents.
(3) Active cyber defence
In the days following 6 November 2018, when the US midterm elections took place,
USCYBERCOM blocked internet access by the Russian IRA. As previously mentioned in the previous
chapter, the IRA is a company that is alleged to have interfered in the 2016 US presidential election
and other elections through disinformation activities and has been linked to the Russian Government.
In addition, USCYBERCOM did not merely block access, but also carried out operations such as
sending warning messages to the other party regarding the cyber-attack.
In March 2021, USCYBERCOM commander Paul Nakasone told a Senate Armed Services
Committee hearing that the company had conducted more than two dozen operations to pre-empt
interference or obstruction by foreign powers in the 2020 US presidential election107. The actual natureof the operations has not been disclosed, but it was clearly stated that the operations targeted hostileforces in Russia, Iran and China, and as with the 2018 midterm elections, it is believed that theoperations were hackers' attributions for foreign powers' interference behaviour, tactical understanding50

and countermeasures against their opponents.
(4) Platform regulation.
In October 2017, the Honest Ads Act, an online advertising regulation bill, was introduced by threebipartisan members of Congress. The bill requires platform operators with more than 50 million
monthly visitors to record and disclose details such as content, subject matter, number of views,
advertising fees and advertisers of political advertisements paid for at least $500 per year, as well as
preventing the purchase of foreign political advertising for the purpose of influencing US voters
Requires measures to be taken to prevent the purchase of political ads from foreign countries for the
purpose of influencing US voters; Facebook announced its support for the Act in April 2018 and it
was introduced in the US Senate Congress in 2019, but the bill failed to pass.
On 31 October 2017, the US Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
held a hearing on the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, inviting
the General Counsel of Facebook, Twitter and Google to testify and answer questions. Also on 5
September 2018, the US Senate Intelligence Committee invited the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and
Google to testify before the US Senate Intelligence Committee on the recent foreign (mainly Russian)influence on social networking and the transparency and responsibility of their services. Thus, in theUS, each platformer has been called to congressional hearings and required to be accountable.
In addition, as of January 2022, there are various developments surrounding amendments to Section
230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA, hereafter referred to as the Communications
Decency Act). Section 230 provides that platform companies are immune from liability for the content
they transmit on online platforms. In June 2019, an amendment to the article was proposed by a
Republican senator . The amendment requires platform operators above a certain size to obtaincertification from the Federal Trade Commission that they have not coordinated user-submitted
information in a politically biased manner as a requirement for receiving immunity for user-submitted
information and its editing or deletion. This was criticised at the time by user and industry groups on
the grounds that leaving the determination of political bias to government agencies could curtail
freedom of expression.
In May 2020, President Trump issued Executive Order 13925, which changed the interpretation andenforcement of the article, naming Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and clarifying thescope of platformers' responsibilities and imposing them on par with traditional editors and publishers
It called for the same. This led to a move to amend the Article, and in October 2020, Republicans and
Democrats agreed to reconsider the Article, and hearings were held by the Senate Committee on
Commerce, Science and Transportation and the Judiciary Committee, which held hearings for theCEOs of Twitter, Google and Facebook respectively. At these hearings, the companies agreed to be
more transparent about their surveillance; in 2021, a change of government resulted in the Joe Biden
51

administration, but President Biden has stated that the Article should be repealed immediately, and it
is likely that the amendment will continue to move forward.
(5-1) Media literacy education
In April 2017, Washington State passed a law promoting media literacy education and safe internet
use. Under the Act, media literacy education in school education is being investigated and reviewed.
Similar legislation has been passed in California, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Mexico, andbills have been introduced and are being discussed in 19 other states. The background to these is thatMedia Literacy Now, a private organisation that promotes media literacy education, is encouraging
the enactment of similar legislation by preparing and publishing model bills.
(5-2) Fact-checking Organisation
According to the database of fact-checking websites created and published by the Duke Reporters'
Lab at Duke University in the United States, there are a number of fact-checking organisations in the
United States that meet certain standards108. The government itself has also developed its own factchecking system.
The government itself also has a fact-checking function, and CISA's MDM team, mentioned above,
has established a website called 'Rumor Control109' to disseminate fact-checking information.
6-1-2. UK(1-1) Institutions and systems to detect and monitor disinformation
In January 2018, the UK Government announced the establishment of a task force in the Cabinet
Office, the National Security Communications Unit, to combat disinformation activities by foreign
powers. The task force will be responsible for monitoring, analysing and evaluating the activities offoreign powers in cyberspace, as well as coordinating with other ministries and internationalorganisations. A Rapid Response Unit (RRU) has also been set up in conjunction with the taskforce tospecifically monitor social networking services, with a team of data scientists and media experts
monitoring social networking services 24 hours a day. The RRU detects, analyses and assesses
disinformation and misinformation circulating on social networking sites.
(1-2) Investigation and punishment of election interference
The UK has not yet developed legislation to investigate and punish disinformation campaigns byforeign powers, as is the case in the US. However, in January 2017, the House of Commons Digital,
Socialisation, Media and Sport (DCMS) Select Committee launched an investigation into the impactof fake news on democracy, publishing an interim report 110 in July 2018 and a final report111 in
February 2019. The report discloses how much research the Government has conducted so far into the52

2014 Scottish referendum, the 2016 UK referendum and the 2017 UK general election, and calls for
it to conduct its own research again. In addition, it has recommended that stiffer penalties should beprescribed for users who misuse social networking and other information systems for the purpose ofmanipulating information, and it is anticipated that such legislation will be introduced in the future.
(2) Designation of elections as critical infrastructure
As of November 2022, elections have not been designated as critical infrastructure.
(3) Active Cyber Defence
As of November 2022, cyber counter-attack legislation targeting disinformation is not in place.
However, the interview112 of the UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace revealed that the UK Ministry of
Defence is planning to establish a Digital Warfare Centre with a cyber counter-attack capability ofseveral thousand people to conduct cyber counter-attacks against cyber-attacks and disinformationfrom hostile states.
(4) Platform regulation.
The DCMS final report mentioned above also makes recommendations on the development of acode of ethics, the establishment, monitoring and enforcement of an independent regulatory body for
platformer companies, and charging and taxing platformers. In response, the UK Government hasannounced that a new dedicated organisation to monitor and regulate platformers will be establishedwithin the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the equivalent of Japan's Fair Trade
Commission, and that a Digital Marketing Unit (DMU) will be launched within the CMA in April
2021. The DMU will have various legal powers, such as injunctions and corrective action orders
against platform companies, including Google and Facebook, on which digital advertising is based, if
they are deemed to be problematic in terms of fair market competition. Specifically, the CMA willdevelop legal rules requiring greater transparency in the handling of services and user data; the CMA
has also noted the use of information provided by the press by platform companies without payment,
and will also oversee the content of contracts for the use of articles to ensure that news organisations
receive fair compensation. .
(5-1) Media literacy education
The DCMS final report above recommends initiatives to improve the public's information literacy. In
addition, in June 2018, the Fake News and Critical Literacy Education Committee, a bipartisan groupin the UK Parliament, released its final report entitled 'Fake News and Critical Literacy', which stressed
the need for critical literacy cultivation to counter fake news. In light of this situation, a curriculum tocounter fake news was introduced in school education from 2020 as a joint initiative of the Ministry53

of Education and the Ministry of Health.
In addition, the Government Communication Service's (GCS) new programme, the Accelerate
Programme, has introduced a media officer using the FACT model to detect and assess disinformationand misinformation used by RRUs. The Accelerate Programme is developing bespoke training formedia officers using the FACT model to detect and assess disinformation and misinformation used by
RRUs. This includes a series of secondments to RRUs for training. These initiatives show acommitment to educate and train the senders as well as the recipients of information.
(5-2) Fact-checking organisations
In the UK, seven fact-checking websites are operated, mainly by media organisations such as theBBC, Channel 4, Reuters and the Guardian. Full Fact, run by a charity based on private donations, has
secured funding from Google and developed a tool called LIVE AND TRENDS that automaticallyfact-checks from TV subtitles and other real-time information sources113.
6-1-3. Germany(1-1) Agencies and systems to detect and monitor disinformation.
As of November 2022, there is no institution in Germany that monitors disinformation on a permanent
basis. However, in the new Cyber Security Strategy approved on 8 September 2021 and the Federal
Election IT Security Plan developed on the basis of the Strategy, the Federal Information Security
Agency (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik: BSI) was was designated as thecompetent authority. In the Agency, a department was set up to intervene in social networking sites
during the election period by notifying the corresponding social media providers when automated botsor coordinated fraudulent activities were detected. The Federal Election Commission is also
responsible for identifying and addressing disinformation related to the overall electoral process, andpublishes the information it identifies through its fact-checking website.
(1-2) Investigation and punishment of election interference.
In Germany, measures are mainly focused on platform regulation, which will be discussed below,
and even during the election period, the above-mentioned monitoring investigations are limited to theelection period. At present, there is no post-sanction legislation to investigate and punish thedisinformation activities of foreign forces.
(2) Designation of elections as critical infrastructure.
As of November 2022, elections have not been designated as critical infrastructure.
(3) Active cyber defence54

As of November 2022, there is no legislation in place for cyber counter-attacks targeting
disinformation.
(4) Platform regulation.
In June 2018, Germany passed a law (SNS Enforcement Act [Gesetz zur Verbesserung der
Rechtsdurchsetzung in sozialen Netzwerke: NetzDG]) to improve law enforcement on SNS. SNS
operators with more than 2 million registered users in the country are subject to the law, and the subject
operators are obliged to set up a window air strip for reporting content that is illegal under the Criminal
Code, immediately examine the illegality if a report is received, and delete or block access within aprescribed period (within 24 hours or 7 days depending on the degree of illegality). Obligation. Subject
operators who receive more than 100 complaints about illegal content per year are obliged to prepare
a complaint-handling report covering the period in question every six months and publish it in theFederal Official Gazette and on their own websites. Non-compliance with these is subject to a fine of
up to EUR 50 million.
In July 2019, the judicial authorities ordered Facebook to pay a fine of EUR 2 million for deficiencies
in the report on deletion cases it submitted, including the fact that only some of the cases werementioned; until 2020, this was the only case in which a fine was imposed under the Act114. The law
has raised concerns about 'overblocking', in which it is difficult to understand the criteria for content
to be removed and internet operators excessively restrict the content they publish. In response to thissituation, the SNS Enforcement Act was also amended in the same year to encompass the Bill on
Right-wing Extremism and Hate Crime, which was passed in June 2020, and clarifies the process forfiling complaints about illegal content, as well as the obligation to report removed offending content
to the Federal Criminal Agency (Bundeskriminalamt : BKA) on the offending content that has been
removed. In addition, in order to increase transparency, the operators' reports were amended in the
direction of stricter regulations overall, with the added obligation to report whether automatic content
detection algorithms for illegal content are used and, if so, how they work.
(5-1) Media literacy education
EU-sponsored media literacy education project for young people and older people by the German
private foundation Stiftung Digitale Chancen (Digital Opportunities Foundation) under the auspicesof the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the Federal Ministry for Family, Ageing,
Women and Youth "Get your facts straight!115" as a partner organisation to raise awareness in Germany.
The BSI also conducts media literacy education campaigns for politicians at election time, and raises
awareness on how to increase the safety of social network accounts of candidates and election officials,
for example by producing a security guide116.

55

(5-2) Fact-checking organisations
As mentioned in (1-1) above, information on the correction of disinformation identified by theFederal Election Commission is made public through the fact-checking website117. In the private sector,
six fact-checking websites are operated, mainly by broadcasters and media organisations of regional
origin, such as Second German Television (ZDF).
6-1-4. France(1-1) Institutions and systems to detect and monitor disinformation
In June 2021, the French Government announced plans to establish an agency to counter foreign
disinformation and fake news aimed at 'undermining the State' (Viginum: Le service de vigilance etde protection contre les ingérences numériques étrangères), which aims to 'combat foreign
disinformation and fake news'. This was intended as a countermeasure to the forthcoming presidential
elections in April 2022. The agency was established under the General Directorate of Defence andSecurity (SGDSN) by decree in July 2021 and became operational on 15 October of the same year.
The agency's mandate, according to the Director General of the SGDSN, is to 'monitor, detect andcharacterise foreign digital interference activities aimed at manipulating information on social
networks' and 'never to certify the authenticity of information'. The certification of the authenticity of
information is carved out as a role for politicians, the media and the judiciary, and the agency's
activities are reviewed by an ethics committee made up of parliamentary, judicial, diplomatic, media
and research officials.
(1-2) Investigation and punishment of election interference.
In France, there is no legislation on ex-post sanction-type investigations and punishments, as in the
United States. However, in the report118 in 2018 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Strategic
Research Institute of the Military Academy (L' Institut de recherche stratégique de l'École militaire:
IRSEM), entitled 'Information operations - a challenge to our democracy', the report urged theGovernment to Citing the example of US Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's prosecution of Russian
officials and Russian-related entities in the 2016 US presidential election, the report recommends thatthose responsible for serious interference during the election period and elsewhere should be punished.
Specifically, it mentions punishing those responsible for serious interference in the electoral process,etc., through economic sanctions or legal proceedings if the responsibility can be clearly identified,and it is likely that legislation similar to the US ex-post sanctions type will be developed in the future.
(2) Designation of elections as critical infrastructure.
As of November 2022, elections have not been designated as critical infrastructure.

56

(3) Active cyber defence
As of November 2022, there is no legislation in place for cyber counter-attacks targeting
disinformation.
(4) Platform regulation.
In November 2018, a law on combating disinformation was passed. During the election period,
courts may order anti-transmission measures if information is disseminated that fits the stipulated
definition of fake news. Platforms are also obliged to cooperate in disclosing the source of funding forarticle body advertising (sponsored content) and the originating entity, anti-bot measures and literacy
education, etc. As for television and radio, if media outlets with foreign management rights report fakenews, the media regulatory body can order them to stop broadcasting The media regulator can orderthem to stop broadcasting.
(5-1) Media literacy education
In the report, 'Information Manipulation - A Challenge to Our Democracy', the Government has
recommended that media literacy education should be provided not only to young people but also to
adults as well.
Since 2015, the French Government has increased funding for educational courses on improving
media literacy online, with some 30,000 teachers and other education professionals receiving
government training on the subject each year. The French Ministry of Culture doubled the annual
budget for the course to EUR 6 million (USD 6.8 million) in 2018, double the previous budget, while
the Ministry of Education added a similar high school course to the national curriculum as an elective
subject, making it available to thousands of people via the internet and other media. In the same year,
the Government also established a new secondary school course in cooperation with journalists andeducators. In addition, some local authorities are working to improve media literacy education acrossthe country, for example by requiring young adults to have completed an internet literacy course when
they receive monthly benefits and other benefits.
(5-2) Fact-checking organisations.
In France, 17 fact-checking websites are operated, mainly by media organisations such as AFP andLe Monde, and fact-checking websites dedicated to climate and immigration issues are also available.
6-1-5. EU(1-1) Institutions and systems to detect and monitor disinformation interference
The Strategic Communications Task Force (East StratCom Task Force) was established in March
2015 as part of the EU Action Plan on Strategic Communications to address Russian disinformation57

campaigns. The Task Force is part of the Strategic Communication and Information Analysis Division(AFFGEN.7) of the European External Action Service (EEAS), which includes the EU's Rapid Alert
System on Disinformation), as well as a coordination team focused on international cooperation. The
Strategic Communications Task Force has a wide range of activities, including disinformation trend
analysis and reporting, clarification of disinformation narratives, literacy education aimed at raisingpublic awareness of the threat of disinformation, and international cooperation for information sharing.
As of March 2021, it had 16 full-time staff and a budget of EUR 11 million.
(1-2) Investigation and punishment of election interference
The EU as a whole, mainly led by the European Commission, was early on considering measures
to counter Russian disinformation with regard to election interference: a High-Level Expert Group(HLEG) was set up in November 2017 and a report by the HLEG was published in the following
March 2018. Based on that report, a European Commission statement on countering fake news was
published in April, and a Code of Conduct on Disinformation was developed based on this statement.
The Code aims to improve transparency and ensure cyber hygiene in social networking and web media,
and requires platforms that have agreed to the Code of Conduct to implement it.
Against this background, the European democracy action plan119 was published in December 2020.
The plan also explicitly states that one of its objectives is to impose costs on perpetrators of
disinformation, and states that it will strengthen task forces and provide capacity-building support topromote monitoring and investigation of disinformation activities in the region. While the direction of
imposing sanctions on perpetrators is indicated, the details of these sanctions have not been clarified.
(2) Designation of elections as critical infrastructure.
As of November 2022, there is no EU-wide system to designate elections as critical infrastructure.
However, in 2019, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) will require Member
States to classify their electoral systems, electoral processes and electoral infrastructure as criticalinfrastructure and to implement the necessary cybersecurity measures120.
(3) Active cyber defence
As of November 2022, there is no legislation in place for cyber counter-attack targeting
disinformation.
(4) Platform regulation
The EU has been working on platformer regulation since early on. The Code of Conduct to date has
focused on platformer self-regulation, requiring platformers who have agreed to the Code of Conduct
to (i) scrutinise the content of their advertisements and the source of their funding, (ii) work to increase58

transparency in advertising based on political issues, and (iii) report regularly on the status of theirimplementation. The Code of Conduct was then strengthened by the European Democracy Action Planin December 2020, which resulted in the publication of the Guidance on Strengthening the Code of
Conduct on Disinformation in May 2021. The 'Guidance' establishes the Digital Services Act, which
provides for a move towards a co-regulatory regime with platforms; the expansion of signatories toinclude private messaging service providers; a strengthened commitment to achieving the objectivesof the Code; a robust monitoring framework, including clear key performance indicators for thedelivery of the Code; a standardised format, classified by Member State, for reports, the establishmentof a transparency centre and a permanent task force to evolve and adapt the Code.
The Commission has also proposed legislation on transparency of sponsored political content.
(5-1) Media literacy education
The above-mentioned European Democracy Action Plan provides for media literacy education tocombat disinformation, in conjunction with the New Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027) The
New Digital Education Action Plan includes the development of common guidelines for teachers andeducational staff, collaboration with different stakeholders such as telecommunications operators,
journalists and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) The plan also provides directions
for collaboration with various stakeholders, such as telecommunications operators, journalists and theEuropean Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), as well as financial support for educational andresearch organisations to promote digital education.
(5-2) Fact-checking organisations
The EU-wide fact-checking organisations are EU vs Disinfo and EU factcheck. The former
publishes information monitored and verified by the Strategic Communication Task Force. Although
not independent of the executive branch, it publishes a systematic database of disinformation, mainly
on Russia, and provides useful analysis. The latter is a private sector-based fact-checking organisation
based on the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA).
6-1-6. Singapore(1-1) Institutions and systems to detect and monitor disinformation.
In October 2021, the Foreign Interference [Countermeasures] Act (Fica) was passed by theSingapore Parliament. The Act aims to introduce countermeasures to prevent, detect and hinder Hostile
Information Campaigns (HIC) by hostile foreign powers and interference in domestic politics
conducted through domestic agents deemed politically significant.
According to Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs, HIC aims to influence domestic political
discourse, incite social discord and undermine political sovereignty, using sophisticated online tools
59and tactics as a way to promote foreign interests. Therefore, if there is a suspicion that HIC content isoccurring, the Home Secretary can order preventative measures to be taken on social media services,
related electronic services, internet access services, etc., and the Ministry of the Interior has the power
to investigate HIC for this purpose.
(1-2) Investigation and punishment of election interference
The above-mentioned Foreign Interference Prevention Act is not limited to election periods, but
defines individuals and non-individuals directly involved in Singapore's political process as PoliticallySignificant Persons (PSPs) and provides for measures to reduce the risk of foreign interference. It
states that measures will be taken to reduce the risk of foreign interference, and measures againstelectoral interference are also considered.
PSPs cover political parties, persons in key political positions, members of parliament, parliamentary
leaders, leaders of opposition parties, election candidates and their election agents. In addition, otherindividuals and organisations that are vulnerable to foreign interference may also be designated as
PSPs by the relevant competent authority designated by the Minister of the Interior, if their activities
are directed towards political objectives. Individuals and organisations designated as PSPs may besubject to foreign influence if they They are obliged to disclose if they receive donations that could beconsidered to be of foreign influence, or if they are asked to disclose the affiliations of those involved
as volunteers or members.
Measures such as blocking access to websites and other sites suspected of being involved in HIC,or blocking advertising revenues after identifying them as prohibited sites, are taken; for PSPs, theoffence of publishing information online without declaring foreign involvement (or the intention to doso) is punishable by imprisonment of up to 14 years and a fine of S$100,000 for individuals and S$1
million for legal entities such as news websites.
(2) Designation of elections as critical infrastructure.
As of November 2022, elections have not been designated as critical infrastructure.
(3) Active cyber defence
As of November 2022, there is no legislation in place for cyber counter-attack targeting
disinformation.
(4) Platform regulation.
In October 2019, the Prevention of Fake News Act (POFMA), commonly known as the Preventionof Fake News Act (POFMA), came into force with a view to countering false information in thefollowing general election in July 2020. The Act prohibits the dissemination of information that meets60

the following requirements: i) information that is identified by the Government as false; ii) informationthat could threaten national security or public welfare and is deemed to incite hostility or hatred
between groups; iii) disinformation that could affect the outcome of the election; iv) disinformationthat could undermine public confidence in the Government's ability to perform its duties. (iii)
misinformation that could potentially undermine public confidence in the government's ability to carryout its duties.
Section 7 of the Act also prohibits an individual from knowingly communicating (e.g. retweeting)a false statement that.
･Discourses that may adversely affect the security of Singapore.
･Discourses that are likely to adversely affect public health, public safety or financial stability･Discourse that may adversely affect the friendly relations between Singapore and other countries.
･ Discourses that may affect the outcome of presidential, general, by-elections, by-elections orreferendums.
･Discourses that may incite hostility or hatred between different groups of people.
･Discourses that is likely to reduce public confidence in the duties, functions and enforcement ofgovernment institutions.
Individuals who contravene Section 7 are liable to a fine of up to S$50,000 and/or imprisonment for
up to five years. Non-individuals, for example, online media platforms operated by high-techcompanies, face fines of up to S$500,000. Individual offenders are also liable to a fine of up to
S$100,000 and/or imprisonment for up to 10 years if they use fake online accounts or bots to spreadsuch falsehoods. Non-individuals are liable to a fine of up to S$1 million.
Section 3 of the Act provides that a communication subject to POFMA may be made via the internet,
social media such as Facebook and Twitter, multimedia messaging services (MMS) and short message
services (SMS) to It defines a communication as a discourse communicated to one or more end-users
in Singapore. Senior Minister for Law Edwin Tong clarified in Parliament that the POFMA also covers
closed platforms such as private chat groups and social media groups.
The Singapore Government may order anyone who disseminates information that contravenes the
Act to remove such information, stop posting it and post a correction stating that the information isincorrect. The Government also has the power to order companies providing social networking
platforms to communicate to their users that the information concerned was false. The government
has the authority to identify fake news and can issue instructions to the internet intermediary thatposted the information, requiring it to suspend service to the target account or prohibit it frominteracting with other users.
The content and corrections will be posted on the Singapore Government's websites “Factually”121,61

but a link to the Government's site must be attached to any web representation that the information isfalse.
Examples of law enforcement against platformers and others under the Act as follows.
･In November 2019, the Singapore Government instructed Facebook to correct a post accusing it ofelection fraud under POFMA; Facebook posted a 'correction notice' at the end of the corrected post,
while also urging the country's Government to carefully enforce the new law. It urged the government
to carefully implement the new law.
･ In January 2020, a Malaysian human rights group posted on Facebook that the Singaporean
Government had "not accepted" the statement that "prison officers in Singapore are trained in cruelexecution methods in case the rope breaks during executions" and that the Singaporean Government
had "not accepted" the statement and ordered the human rights group and the website that spread theclaim. The Singaporean Government ordered the human rights group and the website that spread theclaims to correct them, and ordered the operator to block access to the human rights group's website
from the country.
･In July 2020, in response to claims posted on Facebook by the opposition party People's Voice andon YouTube by the leader of the Lim Teen Party that the opposition party and the leader of the Teen
Party were "spending large amounts of money to provide free educational opportunities to foreigners",
the Singapore Government issued correction orders to the Opposition and Teen Party Leader under
POFMA.
･In August 2021, in response to a posting on a noticeboard on a website run by a local media giant
claiming that there had been deaths from a new virus in the country, the Singapore Government denied
the claim and ordered the operator of the board to correct it.
･In October 2021, Singapore health authorities announced that they would apply POFMA and pursue
a criminal investigation against the website Truth Warriors, which claimed that the vaccine for the newcorona was unsafe. Through a statement, the Singapore Health Authority noted that the informationwas "all unverified false material" and "puts the website's visitors at risk", and ordered that "having
decided to apply POFMA, the website must post a notice to its readers that it contains 'false facts about
the content'". The order stated that "the website must publish a notice to its readers that it contains'false facts about its content'".
With regard to the operation of POFMA, criticism has arisen that it could lead to the suppression of
speech, as the Government has the power to certify that certain information is false or 'fake news'
under the Act.

62

(5-1) Media literacy education
In January 2019, the Minister of Culture, Social Affairs and Youth announced the launch of two
new initiatives122: a seminar entitled 'Fighting Fake News' for religious and social organisations in the
country and the production and distribution of an advisory book on security .
(5-2) Fact-checking organisations.
Singapore accepts reports of potentially false information in accordance with the provisions of the
POFMA. Based on such reports, the government publishes the results of fact-checking on the website
Factually for information that it identifies as false. In addition, two fact-checking websites are operated
in the private sector, mainly by media organisations such as AFP.
6-1-7. Taiwan(1-1) Institutions and systems to detect and monitor disinformation
By the end of 2019, Taiwan has deployed Meme Engineering teams (迷因工程團隊) in all ministries
and agencies under the leadership of Political Affairs Commissioner for Digital Affairs Audrey Tan tomonitor social networking and disseminate fact-checking results. The Executive Yuan has adopted the'2-2-2 principle', which requires that if a ministry team discovers disinformation or misinformation, it
must publish a correct explanation for the information on the SNS within 20 minutes, 200 charactersor less and with two images.
(1-2) Investigation and punishment of election interference
In December 2019, the Anti-Intrusion Act was passed to prevent extraterritorial hostile forces fromintervening in Taiwan, and came into effect the following January 2020. The law prohibits political
donations under the direction, commission or funding of extraterritorial hostile forces, electioneering,
spreading disinformation and obstructing legitimate demonstrations. Violations of the Act can resultin imprisonment for up to five years and a fine of up to TWD 5 million (approximately NTD 18
million). The Act does not only target disinformation campaigns by foreign forces, but also aims toprevent political intervention in Taiwan by foreign forces themselves.
(2) Designation of elections as critical infrastructure.
As of November 2022, elections have not been designated as critical infrastructure.
(3) Active cyber defence
As of November 2022, there is no legislation in place for cyber counter-attack targeting
disinformation.

63

(4) Platform regulation.
Taiwan's policy on cracking down on fake news and other forms of news on social networking sites
is not oriented towards regulating platformers, but only towards regulating and punishing theoriginators of fake news. Seven laws, including the Disaster Prevention and Relief Act and the Radioand Television Act (廣播電視法), have been amended to prevent fake news, and in the Social Order
Maintenance Act, a provision on the spread of rumours has been added, expanding the scope to include
fake news and strengthening penalties such as fines and detention. Furthermore, ministers havecommented that they are considering amending the law to include fines for social networking
platforms that fail to remove fake news, and it is expected that the law will be amended in this directionin the future.
(5-1) Media literacy education
In Taiwan, the Government has established a cooperative relationship with Facebook, Google andLINE in media literacy education, and the three companies are funding educational programmes forthis purpose.
(5-2) Fact-checking organisations
In Taiwan, four organisations and websites are active, led by the Taiwan Fact Check Centre, which
was jointly set up by the Taiwan Media Watch Foundation (TAIWAN MEDIA WATCH) and theSuperior Quality Newspaper Development Association (weReport). Communication tools such asLINE and chatbots are also actively utilised123.
In addition, as mentioned above, ministries and agencies are working on disseminating factchecking based on the 2-2-2 principle. In this measure, the 'humour over rumor' strategy is adopted toensure that accurate information is disseminated more widely and faster than fake news, being awarethat fake news and misinformation spread faster because of their sensational content. strategy' toensure that accurate information spreads faster than fake news. The strategy uses a technique called'meme engineering', in which humorous content, such as mascot characters and comical images, istransmitted together with commentary on the fact-checking results.
6-2. Types of Legal Challenges
As seen in the previous chapter, the regulations by international law do not work effectively atpresent. So, for the time being, we should take countermeasures through national law.
In this section, to the report of the Poynter Institute124, that is, a guide for existing attempts
to legislate against what can broadly be regarded as online misinformation is referred. At present, they
investigated countermeasures of 53 countries and classified their types, focuses, orientations, anddetails. The authors also recognize the confusing use of the terms of mis- or disinformation, so they64

seem to choose the term “misinformation” to cover all these concepts, although they do not show andclear the definition in this guide. Then, rearranging these data can show the types of countermeasures.
So as to address the problems among the countermeasures, the discussion range is set wider covering
all information disorders such as mis-, dis-, mal-information.
Among countermeasures for information disorder, there are 31 of the 53 countries surveyed
adopted legal measures such as new legislation and amendments to current laws (see Table 3), which
is more than other measures. Additionally, to the measures listed in Table 3, each country has various
original measures, such as the establishment of specialized government offices, the creation of adisinformation database, taxation on social media, shutting down the Internet, and making policy
recommendations by legislators. Of course, most countries have adopted several measures in multiple
layers. However, Table 3 shows that legal regulation is a priority for these countries.

Table 4 Countermeasures for Information Disorder (Top 5 types)
Countermeasures

Contents

Countries

New Law

Regulations by a legislation or a amendment

31

ArrestApplying existing laws to cases to arrest and charge actors

12Media Literacy Campaign

Improving the media literacy of voters or the entire nation

11

Task Force

Setting a special team to monitor or investigate suspicious operations

8

Fact Checking

Checking factual information whether it is true or false, and opening the result

8

Therefore, it has classified into the following three types by examining what kind of legal regulationeach country enforces: rules on contents of media and platformers, posterior sanctions against foreignstate actors, and rules on anti-establishment speeches.
First, the typical examples of regulations on the contents of media and platformers are German
and French legislation. In Germany, the Network Enforcement Act (Gesetz zur Verbesserung der
Rechtsdurchsetzung in sozialen Netzwerken, NetzDG) passed in 2017 forces online platforms toremove posts that express obvious illegal contents based on German penal code, including mis-, disand mal-information, within 24 hours or face risk fines of €50 million. This Act target social networks
with more than 2 million users such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Furthermore, France passed
the law against the manipulation of information (LOI organique n°2018-1201 du 22 décembre 2018
relative à la lutte contre la manipulation de l’information) in 2018. The law gives authorities the power
to remove fake content spread via social media and even block the sites that publish such, as well as
enforce more financial transparency for sponsored content, in the three months before an election.
This law also provides a definition of “fake news”: “Inexact allegations or imputations, or news that65

falsely report facts, with the intention of changing the genuineness of a vote.” It is created to enact
strict rules on the media during electoral campaigns and, more specifically, in the three months
preceding any election. As for television and radio, if the media that the foreign country has the
management rights is reporting fake news, the authorities may order the broadcast to stop. The typeof legal regulation on the contents of traditional media or SNS before information disorder, including
disinformation spread. However, because of this legal character, this type sometimes is criticizedviolating freedom of expression.
Second, the typical examples of posteriori sanctions against foreign state actors are American andTaiwanese legislation. In the US, the executive order 13848 (i.e., Imposing Certain Sanctions in the
Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election) was issued in 2018. Thus, within 45 daysof the election results, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) investigated whether there was any
election interference, and within another 45 days, the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland
Security to decide whether or not to impose sanctions. It freezes sanctioned persons’ assets in the
United States and bars them from doing business with Americans. In 2018 midterm election, as a resultof the investigation, there was no confirmation of interference with the vote or the alteration of theaggregate results. Moreover, although there was confirmation of influence operations by Russia,
China, and Iran, the DNI did not assess the impact on the election results. Taiwan also enacted theanti-infiltration act (反滲透法) in 2020 to prevent foreign hostile forces from interfering to Taiwan.
The law prohibits political donations and campaigning for elections under the direction, commission,and financial support of foreign hostile forces, spreading disinformation and obstructing legal
demonstrations. This law imposes any miscreant who violates the results five years imprisonment ora fine of five million Taiwanese dollars. It does not regulate the distribution of information because
the authorities impose sanctions after the interference of foreign powers is found and upon
investigation. Therefore, this type of regulation is considered suitable for the country such as the US
or Japan where the right to freedom of expression is paramount, and this type is high possibility thatJapan can apply in the legal system from now on. However, it is not easy to operate this regulation
because to achieve this, a high attribution ability to identify foreign forces is required.
Finally, the typical example of regulations on anti-establishment speech is the legislation of
Russia, China, some other Asians, and African countries. In 2019, Russia passed two legislations
banning fake news and disrespect of authorities. One is the Federal Law on Amending Article 15-3 ofthe Federal Law on Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information(Федеральный закон от 18.03.2019 № 31-ФЗ "О внесении изменений в статью 15-3Федерального закона "Об информации, информационных технологиях и о защите
информации"), and another one is the Federal Law on Amending the Code of Administrative
Violations (Федеральный закон от 18.03.2019 № 27-ФЗ "О внесении изменений в Кодекс
Российской Федерации об административных правонарушениях"). Consequently, the66

dissemination of the wrongful information is banned, such as information that the government has
consider to be false; information that is judged to fuel the feelings of hostility, hatred, or malice
between groups because of the threat to national security or the threat of public welfare; and false
information that may affect the outcome of an election or may undermine the public confidence in thegovernment ability to perform her duties. Platformers are obliged to post corrections and remove
content that the government determines to be false, and the government has the authority to order thecompany to block accounts that spread false information. If the government finds that false
information is shared maliciously, the spreader could either face fines of $73,000 or 10 years in prison.
As for the amending the code of administrative violations, any act of disseminating information that
represents disrespect to Russian society, government, government symbols, constitutions, andministries is considered illegal. These laws have been criticized against freedom of speech because
they stipulate that it is the authority of the government to show that certain information is false or"fake news" under this law, and profane. Similar legislations such as in China, Singapore, and Burkina
Faso have also been criticized for the suppression of speech because they have resembled structuresthat the government, not the judiciary, determines what is illegal information. It is a critical problem
to enact the laws that regulate anti-establishment speech in this way on the excuse of countermeasures
for information disorder.
As described earlier, this paper classified and argued countermeasures for information
disorder. With the current situation in which the definitions of misinformation, disinformation, or fakenews are not defined certainly and they are used confusingly, I found it challenging to discuss clearly
what the legal regulations are subject to regulation. This paper suggests posteriori sanctions against
foreign state actors be considered and applied as the countermeasure for disinformation, because it canfocus only on disinformation by state strategy, and it is not related to the aspect of freedom of
expression. However, to a certain extent, regulations on contents also are effective to calm down theinformation disorder including mis-, dis-, and mal-information. Although the situation varies
depending on the legal system of the nation, it is necessary to consider the balance between
countermeasure for disinformation and freedom of expression in each country.

67

7. The Evaluation Model for Nations against Disinformation
7-1. Evaluation Model
Based on the previous discussions, this chapter presents and discusses an evaluation model of thenational strategies that each country should take as a countermeasure against disinformation. The
model divides the areas to be considered as strategies into six broad categories and quantifies theachievements in each area to assess the state of achievement and balance. As a result, it can be clearlyshown that Japan is significantly behind in the state of countermeasures, and by identifying Japan's
challenges, it will be connected to policy recommendations on events.
In constructing this evaluation model, reference was made to existing indicators of national
cybersecurity efforts. Typical of these indicators are the Global Cybersecurity Index (hereafter "GCI")
created in 2014 by the Cybersecurity Team of the Inter- national Telecommunication Union (ITU)125
and the Cybersecurity Capacity Maturity Model for Nations Revised Edition (hereafter“CSCMMN”)126. GCI is a questionnaire-based index in which Member States answer and score 157
questions in five areas - legal, technical, organisational, capacity development and cooperation.
However, the questions do not take into account the process of legal and regulatory reform or thequality of capacity development training. Therefore, the ability to autonomously and continuously
improve their capacities is not required. Furthermore, as the questions are not prioritised, the GCI has
been assessed as not being suitable for a step-by-step measure of national capacity127. Therefore, the
GCI is not suitable as a checklist for considering national cybersecurity strategies.
For this reason, the CSCMMN was adopted as the starting point for the creation of the evaluation
model in this paper.
The CSCMMN was published in 2014 by The Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre, anorganisation led by the University of Oxford, and is currently in its latest edition in 2021. The
CSCMMN is designed to help countries systematically and effectively improve their cybersecurity
capabilities and has been assessed as having the features needed to improve national cybersecurity
strategies128. The indicator consists of the following five Dimensions, each of which is categorised
into 24 'factors' and further divided into 53 'aspects'. Furthermore, in each Aspect, there are five levelsof maturity.
1. Devising cybersecurity policy and strategy
D.1.1: National Cybersecurity Strategy
D1.2: Incident Report and Crisis Management
D1.3: Critical Infrastructure (CI) Protection
D1.4: Cybersecurity in Defense and National Security
2. Encouraging responsible cybersecurity culture within society68D2.1: Cybersecurity Mindset
D2.2: Trust and Confidence in Online Service
D2.3: User Understanding of Personal Information Protection Online
D2.4: Reporting Mechanisms
D2.5 Media and Social Media
3. Developing cybersecurity knowledge
D3.1: Building Cybersecurity AwarenessD3.2: Cybersecurity Education
D3.3: Cybersecurity Professional Training
D3.4: Cybersecurity Research and Innovation
4. Creating effective legal and regulatory frameworks
D4.1: Legal and Regulatory Provisions
D4.2: Related Legislative Framework
D4.3: Legal and Regulatory capability and Capacity
D4.4: Formal and Informal Co-operation Frameworks to Combat Cybercrime
5. Controlling risks through standards, organizations and technologies
D.5.1: Adherence to Standards
D5.2: Security Controls
D5.3: Software Quality
D5.4: Communications and Internet Infrastructure Resilience
D5.5: Cybersecurity Marketplace
D5.6: Responsible DisclosureThis classification of CSCMMN was developed as an evaluation model for Disinformation basedon the following ideas, also taking into account the Disinformation measures of the countries that have69

been investigated so far.
First, as Disinformation has the nature of both a cyberspace problem and a security issue, it isnecessary to evaluate both aspects. In light of this, for D1, the National Defence Strategy section,
which had been a Factor in D1-4, was elevated to a Dimension, and the two sections "Cybersecurity
Policy and Strategy" and "Defence Strategy" were added to D1. Defence Strategy".
As D2 and D5 are rather broad categories to be applied to Disinformation, they were combined into
one category as D6, a new model for comprehensive measures such as collaboration with platforms.
D3 is organised as measures for fact-checking and literacy education by applying it to
Disinformation.
D4 is set as D3 in the new model as a category of laws and regulations of Disinformation. However,in Disinformation, laws and regulations to protect election security are even more important because
major manipulations have been carried out in elections in various countries, as can be seen from thestate of countermeasures in various countries. Therefore, among the legal and regulatory frameworks,
those related to election security were set as a separate Dimension and made a priority assessment
item.
The number of factors in the Dimension was unified into the top five priority items to ensure a fairbalance between the Dimensions, and while the selection method of the five items conforms to the
CSCMMN to some extent, it also reflects the countermeasure situation in each country, so it cannot
escape criticism that this point is subjective. Criticism that the selection of the five items is subjectivein this respect is inescapable. Further discussion is needed on this point.
In terms of the level of countermeasures, the CSCMMN has a set of five levels, but it should be
noted that countermeasures against disinformation in cyberspace are relatively new initiatives thathave progressed rapidly over the past five to six years, and that disinformation is a more specific andnarrower concept than cybersecurity. As it is a more specific and narrow concept, it was considereddifficult to set the same level of awareness as the CSCMMN. Therefore, it was decided to organiseand score the measures in three levels: 'whether such measures are actually being taken' (=2 points),'not implemented but under consideration by Parliament or others, or there are similar policies' (=1point), and 'no such measures are being taken at all' (=0 points).
The evaluation model for Disinformation measures developed from the above perspective is shownin Table 5.
For D 1, factors such as 'disinformation countermeasures are incorporated into the cyber security
strategy' and 'the competent authorities and corresponding units for disinformation countermeasures
are defined and the necessary budget is allocated' were included based on the need to strategically deal
with information warfare, including disinformation, as a state. The elements were included. The
CSCMMN also incorporates critical infrastructure as a Factor and, as Disinformation operations are
an attack on the values and institutions of democracy, it mentions that 'CI designation of elections70

infrastructure as a countermeasure against Disinformation'. In addition, data collection for attribution
is essential in implementing Disinformation measures, and at the same time, from the perspective ofwhether the issue of conflicting legal interests, such as the secrecy of communications, can be cleared,
the Factor that "the government can intercept communications and collect bulk data as a
Disinformation measure is The Factor that "the administration can intercept communications andcollect bulk data as a disinfo measure" is set. And in order to fight back against such operations as astate, the Factor is also that "policy ACD, such as financial sanctions, prosecution and diplomaticname-calling and criticism, can be carried out against the Disinfo Op".
As the discussion so far has confirmed, Disinformation operations are handled by the military andintelligence departments on the attacker's side, with Disinformation being a security issue. Therefore,
as the defence side needs to deal with the same level of operations, D2 has set the following Factor.
'National defence departments have mechanisms in place to deal with disinformation' and 'have theintelligence community embedded in their countermeasures', which is necessary in light of theattacker's system. And since these operations also target our cognition, they must "have an all-domain
military strategy that includes the cognitive domain". In addition, the ability to fight back moreaggressively than policy-based ACD is an evaluation point for countermeasures, so it is necessary to
be able to "conduct ACD against disinfo Op for attribution resolution, such as intrusion or hackback
against the other party" and to "conduct ACD against disinfo Op for takedown of the other party's siteor domain, communication blocking and malicious attacks against the other party's site or domain".
The Factor incorporates that "technical ACD can be carried out against the disinfo Op, such as
takedown of the other party's site or domain, blocking communications or counterattacking throughthe use of malware".
D3 incorporates various types of legislation as a factor: as Disinformation operations are conductedby foreign powers in a manner similar to interference in internal affairs, the Factor states that"legislation is in place to investigate and punish foreign interference", and that Disinformation is a socalled Factor is that "there is legislation to control the dissemination of false information", given thenature of false information, such as so-called fake news. On the other hand, the determination of what
is false and what is Disinformation must not be arbitrary, and as long as laws and regulations are madeas an act of the State, it is necessary that the decentralisation of judicial, legislative and administrative
power is established ('decentralisation is established for the recognition of falsehoods anddisinformation'). And, as laws and regulations centred on social networking sites, the first requirement
is to clarify the senders of disinformation, so "there are schemes to encourage platforms to respond to
the transmission of information suspected of disinformation, including the disclosure of sender
information and the deletion of information" and "for the distribution of political advertisements
Factors such as 'There is legislation to increase transparency in the distribution of political
advertisements' were set.
71

Based on past cases, D4 focuses on preventing interference by foreign powers in elections and thedissemination of false information, enabling attribution to the originators of disinformation, andpreventing coordination with information-stealing cyber-attacks. In these terms, the following aresome of the key issues that need to be addressed: legislation is in place to investigate and punish
foreign interference in democratic processes such as elections; legislation is in place to control thedissemination of false information for the purpose of harming the fairness of elections; legislation
restricts campaigning by foreign nationals; and during elections, legislation is in place to prevent thedisinformation of candidates and parties from being targeted. Factors such as: there is a scheme forprompt disclosure and suspension of disinformation to candidates and political parties during
elections; and there is a mechanism to provide cybersecurity support to political parties and candidates
to prevent hacking that could serve as a basis for disinformation operations.
In D5, the cybersecurity knowledge and education aspects of D3 of the CSCMMN were applied todisinformation measures, with Factors on fact-checking measures and improving literacy. In policyrelated content, it is not possible to gain trust if the information is only communicated from thegovernment's perspective, so it is important for both the public and private sectors to work together
from multiple angles. For this reason, two factors were set: the existence of public fact-checking
transmissions and the existence of private sector fact-checking organisations active in the field.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, due to the importance of measures in elections, the element 'there
is an election-specific fact-checking dissemination' was also set. And in terms of literacy, because
measures for people other than young people who can be educated are also needed, and because it isnecessary to provide not only simple media literacy education, but also guidance based on thecharacteristics of disinfo, the elements "media literacy with a focus on disinfo, targeting all voters,with efforts are being made" and that "education with disinfo in mind is being introduced into public
education, including the cultivation of critical thinking, the RAVEN method, the study of logicalfallacies and the dissemination of knowledge on methods of attack on the cognitive domain" as factors.
D6 elements comprehensive measures that cannot be classified under the previous Dimensions. It
incorporates the perspectives of international cooperation, public-private collaboration, technicalmeasures and human resources development, and includes the following elements: participation ininternational norms on disinfo, such as the Paris Call; a framework for governments and platforms towork together on disinformation measures; a framework for platforms to have regulatory authority
over ad networks and algorithms. The following elements were set: 'Has regulatory authority over ad
networks and algorithms', 'Has initiatives to provide countermeasure functions such as automatic
detection, notification and reporting in SNS and messenger apps', and 'Has a system to train andsupport researchers in SNS analysis and deepfake research as a countermeasure against disinformation'.
The following elements were set out.
Then, as target countries for comparison with Japan, this paper selected the USA, the UK, Germany,72

France, Singapore and Taiwan. The four Western countries were chosen because they haveexperienced election interference allegedly by Russia and have been among the first countries toformulate disinformation measures. Singapore was also selected because it is located in Asia, the same
region as Japan, and because it is unique in that it has developed strong legal measures with somewhat
authoritarian characteristics, as described in Chapter 6, and has adopted a stance of eliminatinginterference by foreign powers. Taiwan was selected because it is located in Asia, like Japan, and has
actively developed a number of disinformation measures after experiencing repeated election
interference and disinformation cyber-attacks from China.
Chart.1 shows the results of the evaluation of each country in Table 5. The chart clearly shows thatJapan is very far behind in disinformation countermeasures compared to the countermeasures taken inother countries.

73

The Evaluation Model for Nations against Disinformation（Yes＝2points, TBD=1point, No=0point. TBD means "partially implemented" or "under consideration".）
Dimension 1: Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy
FactorUS

D 1.1: The cybersecurity strategy integrates
concepts of tackling Disinfo.
D 1.2: The competent authorities fortackling disinfo are defined and thenecessary budget is provided for it.
D 1.3: Election infrastructure is designatedas the critical infrastructure for disinfo
countermeasures.
D 1.4:Administrative agencies can intercept
communications and collect bulk data fordisinfo countermeasures.
D 1.5: Policy ACD, including financial
sanctions, prosecution and name andshame, can be operated against disinfo Op.

UK

Germany

FranceSingapore

Taiwan

Japan

2

1

2

2

0

2

1

2

2

2

2

1

2

1

2

1

1

1

0

0

0

2

2

1

1

2

2

0

2

2

0

1

2

2

1

10

8

6

7

5

8

3

Dimension 2 : Defence Strategy
FactorUS

D 2.1: National defence agencies have somefunctions to tackle disinfo.
D 2.2: Intelligence communities areintegrated into disinfo measures.
D 2.3: All-domain military strategy has beendeveloped, including in the cognitive
domain.
D 2.4: ACD for attributional resolution, suchas intrusion or hack-back to the adversary,can be operated against disinfo Op.
D 2.5:Technical ACD, including takedown ofadversarys' websites and domains,communication blocking and counter-attacks
using malware can be operated against
disinfo Op.

UK

Germany

FranceSingapore

Taiwan

Japan

2

1

1

1

0

2

1

2

2

2

2

1

2

0

2

1

1

1

0

2

2

2

1

1

2

0

1

0

2

2

1

2

0

1

0

10

7

6

8

1

8

3

Dimension 3: Legal and Regulatory Frameworks
Factor

D 3.1: Legislation is in place to investigate
and punish foreign interference.
D 3.2: Legislation is in place to regulate thedissemination of false information.
D 3.3 Separation of powers is in force withrespect to the judgement of false
information or disinformation.
D 3.4:Legal schemes are in place toencourage platforms to respond to suspected
disinformation by disclosing sender
information, deleting information, etc.
D 3.5: Legislation is in place to increasetransparency regarding the algorithms andfunding relationships for political advertising
distribution on websites and social
networking sites.

US

UK

Germany

FranceSingapore

Taiwan

Japan

2

1

0

1

2

2

0

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

0

2

2

1

1

2

2

2

2

0

1

1

2

2

0

1

2

8

7

8

9

6

9

6

74

Dimension 4: Election Security
FactorUS

D 4.1: Legislation is in place to investigate
and punish foreign interference in elections
and other democratic processes.
D 4.2: Laws are in place to regulate thedissemination of false information for the
purpose of harming the fairness of elections.
D 4.3: Electoral campaigning by foreign
nationals is restricted to a certain extent.
D 4.4: During elections, there is a legal
scheme that allows for sender disclosure andsuspension of disinformation targeted at
candidates and political parties.
D 4.5:Programs exist to provide
cybersecurity assistance to political parties
and candidates to prevent hacking thatwould constitute information theft used fordisinfo operations.

UK

Germany

FranceSingapore

Taiwan

Japan

2

1

1

1

2

2

0

2

1

2

2

2

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

0

1

1

2

2

1

2

0

2

2

1

2

0

1

0

8

6

7

8

6

8

2

Dimension 5: Fact check and Media Literacy
FactorUS

D 5.1: The government is taking theinitiative in disseminating public factchecking.
D 5.2: Private fact-checking organizations
affiliated with The International FactChecking Network (IFCN) are active.
D 5.3:Fact-checking dissemination isprovided specifically for elections by public
and private sectors.
D 5.4:The state is providing media literacy
education for all voters with a focus on
disinfo.
D 5.5:Education, including countermeasuresagainst disinfo such as the cultivation ofcritical thinking, the RAVEN method, thelearning of logical fallacies, and of theknowledge about attacks on the cognitive
domain, are introduced into public
education.

UK

Germany

FranceSingapore

Taiwan

Japan

2

0

2

0

2

2

0

2

2

2

2

0

2

2

2

1

2

1

1

2

1

2

1

1

1

1

2

0

2

1

1

1

1

2

0

10

5

8

5

5

10

3

Dimension 6: Comprehensive countermeasures
FactorUS

D 6.1: The government participates ininternational norms related to disinfo, suchas the Paris Call.
D 6.2: A framework has been developed forthe government and platforms to work
together to combat disinformation.
D 6.3: The government has regulatory
authority over ad networks and algorithms
for platformers.
D 6.4: Efforts are being promoted to add
countermeasure functions to SNS andmessenger apps, such as automatic
detection, notification, and reporting of
disinformation.
D 6.5: As a disinfo countermeasure, thegovernment is training and supporting
researchers in social network analysis, deepfake research, and other areas.

Table 5

UK

Germany

FranceSingapore

Taiwan

Japan

2

2

2

2

0

0

2

1

1

1

1

1

2

0

1

2

1

1

0

1

0

2

1

1

1

0

2

0

2

1

0

0

0

1

1

8

7

5

5

1

6

3

The Evaluation Model for Nations against Disinformation

75

Chart 1 the result of the evaluation model

7-2. National Security Challenges of Japan
This section summarises the challenges of disinformation countermeasures in Japan from thescoring in this evaluation model.
First, from the perspective of national strategy, the concepts of information warfare and cognitive
warfare were incorporated for the first time in the new National Security Strategy129 approved by the
Cabinet in December 2022. The description in this strategy marks the stage at which the developmentof the system will finally begin. Compared with other countries that have already made various efforts,
it is undeniable that the Japanese Government needs to make efforts to make up for this delay.
Furthermore, as discussed in the previous chapters, disinformation operations in recent years havemainly been conducted in cyberspace, so it will be necessary to incorporate disinformation
countermeasures into cybersecurity strategies in the future. And to ensure that such a strategy does notturn out to be a pipe dream, the conflict with the secrecy of communications in the Constitution must
be resolved so that data interception by the public administration is possible. Furthermore, it is also
necessary to develop a system that allows for judicial prosecution and financial sanctions as part ofpolicy ACD when attacks by state actors are discovered.
From the perspective of defence strategy, the establishment of a specialised intelligence unit in the
Ground SDF to deal with cognitive warfare, along with the revision of the National Security Strategy,
is a step forward. However, influence operations, including disinformation, and countering them are
conducted by many countries with the participation of intelligence agencies, and it must be said thatJapan, without a foreign counter-intelligence agency, is in a lopsided situation. Previous studies have76

already pointed out that in many countries, intelligence agencies play a central role in cybersecurity130,
and that a factor is that the attribution response, which anticipates and prevents cyber-attacks inadvance and identifies potential attackers, is similar to espionage and is the extension of this process.
This argument can also be applied to disinformation countermeasures, as there are many cases where
disinformation dissemination and cyber-attacks are combined in influence operations, and attributionof the source of disinformation operations alone is also crucial. Therefore, in order to fight the
information and cognitive warfare in Japan, it will be necessary to develop sufficient intelligenceagencies in the future. In addition, surveillance and cyber counter-attacks will require partial
amendments to relevant laws, such as the Constitutional Secrets of Communications and theUnauthorised Computer Access Law, which are barriers to such counter-attacks.
In terms of countermeasures through the legal system, including elections, the Criminal Codeprovides for the offences of dissemination of false information and defamation, and the Public Offices
Election Law provides for the offence of publishing false matters (Article 235(2)), so among
disinformation, there are certain checks on so-called fake news and hate speech. This is a certain
measure to prevent so-called fake news and hate speech from being used among disinformation. On
the other hand, the legal system is not well developed in terms of preventing foreign powers frominterfering in internal affairs. There is no legal system to investigate and punish interference by foreign
powers, either in peacetime in general or during elections, and there are no certain restrictions on thepolitical campaigning of foreigners in elections. Although it is difficult to obtain a legal basis fromcurrent domestic laws to prohibit foreign election campaigning or directly prohibit electioneering byforeign governments, it should be considered that international law has the principle of noninterference in domestic affairs, which can limit the influence of foreign governments and election
campaigning. The Guidelines for the Revised Public Offices Election Law 131 clearly state that"foreigners are not prohibited from election campaigning under the current law, and may continue todo so even after the ban on internet election campaigning is lifted", but the involvement of foreign
governments with the intention of interfering in Japanese politics should naturally be prevented. Thisshould be the case. In this age of disinformation, the approach of these guidelines is also required tochange in line with the trends of the times.
With regard to the dissemination of fact-checking, the Japan Fact-check Center (JFC) wasestablished in October 2022, becoming the first private fact-checking organisation in Japan to join The
International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). However, there has been no public fact-checking or
counter-narrative dissemination by the government itself, and it will be necessary for both the public
and private sectors to work together in the future. It is also necessary to incorporate media literacy
education for voters and youth into public education, while also working with media and platforms.
With regard to comprehensive measures, the challenge is to actively promote initiatives incollaboration with platform operators, as in the EU. The final report of the study group on platform
77

services led by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, published in February 2020,132
concluded that "it is appropriate to promote measures based on voluntary initiatives by the relevant
parties in the private sector, including platform operators". Of course, from the perspective of freedomof expression, it is not permissible for the government to impose regulations such as censorship, but
we believe that encouraging operators to take initiatives to improve transparency and requiring regular
reporting, as in the EU Code of Conduct, is a range that can be adequately addressed within the current
constitutional framework. It is obvious from the case studies conducted so far that the EU and national
governments are taking measures because there are limits to what can be achieved through voluntary
initiatives, and Japan will be forced to take similar measures sooner or later.
Finally, a discussion is presented on the concerns underlying various countermeasures against
disinformation, such as removing disinformation on the web, government fact-checking and platform
regulation, that these measures may correspond to government censorship and infringe freedom of
expression. For this, reference is made to the case of Judgment upon case of constitutionality on
customs inspection (12.12.1984, 1982 (Gyo-Tsu) 156, Minshu Vol. 38, No. 12 at 1308). First, it is said
that the prohibition against censorship in the first sentence of Article 21(2) of the Constitution should
be interpreted as not permitting exceptions on the grounds of public welfare. The term 'censorship' as
used in Article 21(2) of the Constitution refers to 'censorship of the content of ideas and other formsof expression by the administrative power as the subject matter, with the aim of prohibiting the
publication of all or part of the content of ideas and other forms of expression, by examining thecontent of certain forms of expression to be covered, in a comprehensive and general way, before
publication and prohibiting the publication of those that are deemed inappropriate'. The court held thatthe term "censorship" should be interpreted as having as its characteristic feature the prohibition of the
publication of material that is found to be unsuitable. According to this definition of censorship,
restricting the dissemination of web media articles and social networking posts that are subsequently
found to be disinformation by a foreign power after an investigation of the sender and the facts does
not constitute censorship. In addition, if the sender is a foreign web media outlet, such as RT, anddisinformation directed at Japan is only restricted by deleting the account, it does not constitutecensorship, as the opportunity to publish is also available outside Japan and is not entirely taken
away133. Furthermore, the case law states that when it is permissible to give a limited interpretation toa provision of a law regulating freedom of expression, "the interpretation must clearly distinguishbetween what is subject to regulation and what is not, and must make clear that only what can beconstitutionally regulated is subject to regulation" and that "the interpretation must be based on thefact that the law is not a censorship law". The provisions must also be read in such a way that thegeneral public can understand the criteria that enable them to determine whether or not the expressive
material is subject to regulation in a specific case". As for the various regulations on measures against
disinformation, the regulations should focus on disinformation from foreign powers as a matter of78

security, and in a liberal democratic state, the transmission of misinformation by its own citizens must
be tolerated to some extent in the free marketplace of ideas. From this perspective, if the regulation islimited to disinformation by foreign powers, the target of the regulation is clear and generally
understandable. Chapter 6 also touched on the problems of authoritarian state regulation, but Japan,
as a liberal democratic state, should take an autonomous stance in resolving issues.
As mentioned above, there are many challenges for Japan, which is lagging behind in disinformation
measures. Based on the above, the next chapter will examine policy recommendations for Japan inrelation to disinformation measures, and will also refer to what each country should aim for as astandard.

798. Conclusion
8-1. Policy Recommendation for Japan
Based on the above policy assessment, the following disinformation measures are recommended forJapan134.
1. Establishment of monitoring centre to combat disinformation(1) In order to combat disinformation by foreign actor aiming the democratic electoral process, anmonitoring centre collecting information on interference by foreign powers using disinformation shallbe established.
At the centre, monitoring, research and analysis of activities similar to foreign disinformation shallbe carried out. It will also be responsible, together with the judicial authorities, for operations in
response to foreign disinformation. The Act on the Limitation of Liability for Damages of Specified
Telecommunications Service Providers and the Disclosure of Identification Information of Senders(Provider Liability Limitation Act) will be amended to enable these activities to be carried out
effectively. Additionally, in future, Japan needs to establish the strong counter-intelligence agency tocombat disinformation, influence operations and finally information warfare as the previous chapter
pointed out. This monitoring center is just the starting point, and it should be positively dissolved andabsorbed into new intelligence agency.
(2) Consider enacting a law that enables the imposition of ex post sanctions and countermeasurespermitted under international law against disinformation attacks.
The Public Offices Election Law and the Law on Procedures for Amending the Constitution of Japan(Referendum Law) should be amended to crack down on interference by foreign powers using
disinformation. In doing so, the right to knowledge of the people guaranteed by the Constitution ofJapan should be taken into account. In doing so, the State should actively disclose information on thecrackdown, paying attention to the right to knowledge of the people guaranteed by the Constitution ofJapan.
2. Designation of electoral infrastructure as critical infrastructure(1) Actions will be taken based on severity assessments in line with the designation as criticalinfrastructure.
(2) Establish an Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (ISAC) and make incident reporting andsharing mandatory.
(3) During elections, the Government will provide cyber security support to political parties andelectoral commissions.
(4) Appropriate cybersecurity support should also be provided to polling systems that influenceelection results.
80Designate electoral infrastructure as critical infrastructure and make it a priority cybersecurity
protection target. Create an Election Management ISAC with local government electoral commissions
as constituents to share and collaborate on cyber threat information and implement effective security
policies or guidelines.
Specifically, the 14 sectors currently identified as 'critical infrastructure sectors' - 'information andcommunications', 'finance', 'aviation', 'airports', 'railways', 'electricity', 'gas', 'government andadministrative services (including local authorities)', 'healthcare', 'water', 'logistics', 'chemicals', 'credit'and 'petroleum' - will be included in the ISAC. Of the 'Election system', 'Election system' is set under
the 'Government and administrative services (including local authorities)' sector. It defines 'casting
and counting systems', 'electronic voting systems', 'tabulation systems' and 'information dissemination
media for each electoral authority' as its protective objects.
3. Active Cyber Defence (ACD) system(1) Attribute disinformation operating entities.
(2) Establish legislation to conduct ACD as a legitimate business act of the State even in peacetime.
(3) Adequate budgetary measures should be taken to ensure effective attribution through cooperation
between the public and private sectors.
To counter foreign disinformation, apart from judicial ex post sanctions and crackdowns to conduct
ACD, including conducting attribution on the attacking entities. In addition, legislation such as theconcept of secrecy of communications in the Constitution or Act on Prohibition of UnauthorizedComputer Access should be amended and developed so that ACD can be carried out as a legitimate
business act of the State. In these efforts, Japan, together with our allies, declares that we will take all
possible measures, including strategic communication, to counter disinformation.
4. Cooperative regulatory efforts by the government and platformers and formulation of a code of
conduct(1) With reference to precedents in the EU and the UK, consider a system of cooperative regulation ofdisinformation by the government and platformers, while taking into account restrictions on freedomof expression and confidentiality of communications in Japan, and respecting voluntary efforts byplatformers.
(2) Develop a code of conduct for platformers in Japan, setting out the direction for cooperative
regulatory efforts. This code of conduct should include the following items; ① Establishment of asystem for reporting and removing false information; ② Establishment of a system for reporting andremoving bot accounts; ③ Ensuring transparency regarding diffusion algorithms; ④ Ensuringtransparency regarding political advertising; and ⑤ Requiring platforms to post links to originalarticles when reproducing news from existing news organisations.
81

(3) Designate SNS operators as 'specified digital platform providers' in the Law on Enhancing
Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms (Digital Platform Transparency Law) as
regulated operators, and require them to comply with Article 5 'Terms and Conditions of Provision ofSpecified Digital Platforms'. Disclosure of Terms and Conditions of Provision of Specific Digital
Platforms", and promote transparency in the distribution of political advertisements.
5. Enhance the media literacy education and fact-checking(1) With disinformation in mind, introduce programmes to enhance media literacy into primary andsecondary education in a manner that is clearly stated in the Courses of Study. (2) Work on thecultivation of critical thinking, the RAVEN method, the study of logical fallacies, and thedissemination of knowledge on methods of attack on the cognitive domain.
(2) Leaflets on media literacy during elections are prepared and distributed together with election
publicity.
(3) Establish a government fact-checking portal. The Government will not disseminate information on
the content, but will only operate the portal and establish a mechanism for the public to know whatkind of disinformation is currently being talked about and disseminated. Fact-checking will beoutsourced to private organisations, and a fact-checking platform will be set up with the participationof major media, universities and think tanks. The portal will be equipped with a mechanism forregistering organisations, so that the fact-checking of various organisations can be compared andviewed. In addition, a White Paper on Disinformation will be published by the Government.
(4) Adequate budgetary measures, such as the use of universal service charges, should be taken to
cover the costs of fact-checking.
(5) Establish a fact-checking system during election periods. In the US, a presidential decree wasissued in 2018 ordering intelligence agencies to investigate the existence of foreign interference inelections within 45 days of a national election. As in the US, the Government will take the lead inchecking whether falsehoods in breach of the Public Offices Election Law are disseminated during theelection period. For this purpose, fact-checking bodies will be accredited at the time of the election.
8-2. Strategic Goals against Disinformation
Following the policy recommendation for Japan, the strategic goals against disinformation for eachnation are posed in this section as the conclusion.
As for individual national strategies, it is important to fulfill the factors of each dimension listed in
the evaluation model in a balanced approach. Since this model is created for liberal democratic nations
taking countermeasures against disinformation, the separation of powers and protection of
fundamental human rights must be firmly maintained in every situation of data collection andinvestigation, punishment of attackers by the state power. Furthermore, as some research135 referred,82

the disinformation tactics must be never applied as the democracies’ countermove against thedisinformation of adversaries, because they compromise the value of democracy. These are thechallenges that each country should strategically address with dignity and autonomy as a liberal
democratic nation.
In terms of the next goal at the regional level, similar to EU, the Indo-Pacific region should
cooperate to counter China's intelligentized warfare based on changing the status quo by force. To thispurpose, an initiative of “the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy (FOIP) vs. Disinfo” is proposed
here, modeled after EU vs Disinfo. Tackling disinformation is suitable to the core idea of the FOIP
concept which is to establish a rules-based international order and consolidate principles such as free
trade, freedom of navigation, and the rule of law, which are essential for the stability and prosperity of
the region. In order to enhance security in the region against the disinformation and strategic narratives
that China operates in this region, a system of cooperation and deterrence through information andtechnology sharing across countries is necessary. Furthermore, this region should naturally cooperatewith European nations as well, as China and Russia's information warfare is conducted throughout theworld.
A proposal for an Indo-Pacific hybrid threat center by Australian Strategic Policy Institute 136 is
instructive in establishing this structure. Since disinformation is a part of hybrid threats, it would be
effective that such a center leads the initiative titled FOIP vs Disinfo to study cases in the Indo-Pacificregion, formulate common disinformation countermeasures, provide support to countries for devisingcountermeasures, and disseminate information such as fact checking. However, since the FOIP
strategy was proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Abe in 2016137, Japan is expected to be actively
involved and take the lead in this initiative.
While the discussion in Chapter 5 indicates that international legal restrictions on disinformation
are difficult to enforce, at the normative level, it is desirable to formulate new norms that would restrainstate involvement in disinformation operations. This point has not been fully explored in this thesis
and is an issue for future work.
This paper presents the evaluation model for nations against disinformation to contribute to thesurvival of liberal democracies in the age of disinformation, in accordance with law, order anddemocratic value. However, in the information warfare waged in the cyber and cognitive domains,both attackers' and defenders' technologies are advancing at a dizzying pace, and this model may need
to be revised in line with the changing situation.
May this research serve as a contribution to the security of Japan and other countries that advocate
liberal democracy.

83

Acknowledgement
Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Prof. H. Yuasa for thecontinuous support from my master to my Ph.D. study and related research, for his patience,motivation and kind advice based on insightful immense knowledge, even after he moved fromIISEC to Meiji University. His guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of thisthesis. I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my research period.
Additionally, I would like to thank my present supervisor Prof. H. Doi for the support of a lot ofprocedure to submit the thesis and related matters.
Besides my advisors, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee: Prof. T. Okubo andProf. Y. Murakami for their instructive comments and encouragement, and also for the challenging
questions which leads me to widen my research from various perspectives.
I thank the member of Yuasa Lab. who provides me a lot of diversified and inspiring comments tomy research in the seminar, and thank all professors and staff of the Institute of Information Security
for their guidance and great support.
Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to the team of the cybersecurity program in the
Sasakawa Peace Foundation, especially a senior researcher Mr. Osawa. The experience of writing
the policy recommendation regarding disinformation under his leadership and guidance provided me
the great opportunity to deepen my research of this thesis.
At last, I would like to thank my friends and my family for supporting me spiritually throughout
writing this thesis and my life in general.

84

1

T. Rid, 2020, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare, New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
2
Ibid.
3
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION WARFARE (https://www.jinfowar.com/)
4
From the perspective of the right to know in a free marketplace of ideas, some have questioned theregulation of disinforamtion from abroad and that within one's own country by distinguishing between
sources of disinforamtion. (e.g., Erwin Chemerinsky, 2018, Fake News and Weaponized Defamation andthe First Amendment, 47 Sw. L. Rev. 291-296., Eijiro Mizutani, 2019, “Fake News” in the freemarketplace of idea, Keio media communications research, vol.69, 55-68.) However, as this paper
discusses the issue of disinformation from the perspective of national security and strategy, it does notelaborate on the issue of freedom of expression in the Constitution.
5
P. Brangetto and M. A. Veenendaal, Influence Cyber Operations: The use of cyberattacks in support of
Influence Operations, p115, 2016 8th International Conference on Cyber Conflict (CyCon), 2016, pp.113126.
6
US Department of Defense, Directive 3600.01. May 2, 2013. p.12.
7
Sean Cordey, 2019, Cyber Influence Operations: An Overview and Comparative Analysis, Center for
Security Studies (CSS).
8
EUvsDisinfo (https://euvsdisinfo.eu/)
EUvsDisinfo is the flagship project of the European External Action Service’s East StratCom Task
Force(opens in a new tab). It was established in 2015 to better forecast, address, and respond to theRussian Federation’s ongoing disinformation campaigns affecting the European Union, its Member
States, and countries in the shared neighbourhood.
9
The Kremlin, “Address by the President of the Russian Federation,” 24 February 2022.
(http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843)
10
Reuters, “US, UK: Russia responsible for cyberattack against Ukrainian banks,” 19 February 2022.
(https://www.reuters.com/world/us-says-russia-was-responsible-cyberattack-against-ukrainian-banks2022-02-18/)
11
Bloomberg, “Russia’s Cyberwar on Ukraine Aims to Damage Psyche Not Pocketbook,” 23 February
2022. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-02-23/russia-s-cyberwar-on-ukraine-aims-todamage-psyche-not-pocketbook)
12
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, “Statement of the Russian Defence Ministry
spokesperson, Major General Igor Konashenkov, on the return of formations and military units topermanent locations,” 15 February 2022.
(https://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12408929@egNews)
13
The White House, Remarks by President Biden Providing an Update on Russia and Ukraine, 18
February 2022. (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/02/18/remarks-bypresident-biden-providing-an-update-on-russia-and-ukraine-2/)
14
Two typical examples are as follows.
Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare, 2020.
Claire Wardle, PhD and Hossein Derakhshan (2017) Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary
framework for research and policymaking. Council of Europe.
15
Claire Wardle, PhD and Hossein Derakhshan (2017) Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary
framework for research and policymaking. Council of Europe. p5.
16
the independent High level Group on fake news and online disinformation (2018) A multi-dimensional
approach to disinformation. European Commission. p5.
17
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) (2017) Assessing Russian Activities andIntentions in Recent US Elections. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
18“Ex-French Economy Minister Macron Could be ‘US Agent’ Lobbying Banks’ Interests,”
https://sputniknews.com analysis/201702041050340451-macron-us-agent-dhuicq/ (last accessed
2020/2/17)

85

19

“France election: Macron laughs off gay affair rumours” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-

38892409
20

See also note 4 as for the disclaimer regarding the conflict with the freedom of speech.
Marc Laity, 2015, NATO AND THE POWER OF NARRATIVE, Peter Pomerantsev ed., Information
at War: From China’s Three Warfares to NATO’s Narratives, London: LEGATUM INSTITUTE, 22-27.
22
Ibid.
23
Sternberg, R. J., & Sternberg, K., 2017, Cognitive psychology (7th edition), Wadsworth: Cengage
Learning.
24
C4ISRNET, “DIA director: We are preparing to fight the last war,” 15 August 2017.
(https://www.c4isrnet.com/show-reporter/dodiis/2017/08/14/dia-director-we-are-preparing-to-fight-thelast-war/)
25
U.S. Air Force, “Air Force Association 2017 Air, Space & Cyber Symposium Remarks by General
David L. Goldfein U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff,” 19 September 2017.
(https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/documents/csaf/CSAF_AFA_2017%20Air_Space_and_Cyber_Symposium.
pdf)
26
INNOVATION HUB, “Cognitive Warfare Project- Reference Documents”(https://www.innovationhub-act.org/cw-documents-0)
27
F. Cluzel, 2020, “Cognitive Warfare,” INNOVATION HUB. (https://www.innovationhubact.org/sites/default/files/2021-01/20210122_CW%20Final.pdf)
28
R. Alderman, “Domains of warfare and strategic offsets,” Military Embedded systems, 31 January
2017. (https://militaryembedded.com/comms/satellites/domains-of-warfare-and-strategic-offsets)
29
Y. Rosner and D. Siman-Tov, “Presidential Elections: The New Threat of Cognitive Subversion,” INSS
Insight No. 1031, 8 March 2018. (https://www.inss.org.il/publication/russian-intervention-in-the-uspresidential-elections-the-new-threat-of-cognitive-subversion/)
30
D. Mackiewicz, 2018, “Cognitive Warfare: Hamas & Hezbollah and their insidious efforts,” Tel Aviv:
INSS-Summer Institute. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337228818_Cognitive_Warfare__Mackiewicz-Diana_2018)31
P. Ottewell, “Defining the Cognitive Domain,” OTH, 7 December 2020.
(https://overthehorizonmdos.wpcomstaging.com/2020/12/07/defining-the-cognitive-domain/)32
L. K. Bjørgul, “Cognitive warfare and the use of force,” Stratagem, 3 November 2021.
(https://www.stratagem.no/cognitive-warfare-and-the-use-of-force/)
33
Carl von Clausewitz, 1832, Vom Kriege, Berlin: Ferdinand Dummler. (Michael Howard and Peter
Paret, trans., 1993, ON WAR, London: Everyman’s Library.)
34
The Soufan Center, “QUANTIFYING THE Q CONSPIRACY: A Data-Driven Approach toUnderstanding the Threat Posed by QAnon,” 2021.
35
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat
in 2021.” March 17, 2021. (https://www.dhs.gov/publication/domestic-violent-extremism-posesheightened-threat-2021)
36
Winter, Jana. “Exclusive: FBI Document Warns Conspiracy Theories Are a New Domestic Terrorism
Threat.” Yahoo! News, August 1, 2019. (https://news.yahoo.com/fbi-documents-conspiracytheoriesterrorism-160000507.html)
37
Der Generalbundesanwalt beim Bundesgerichtshof, “Festnahmen von 25 mutmaßlichen Mitgliedernund Unterstützern einer terroristischen Vereinigung sowie Durchsuchungsmaßnahmen in elf
Bundesländern bei insgesamt 52 Beschuldigten,” 7 December 2022.
(https://www.generalbundesanwalt.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/aktuelle/Pressemitteilungvom-07-12-2022.html?nn=478184)
38
Diaz Ruiz C, Nilsson T. EXPRESS: Disinformation and Echo Chambers: How Disinformation
Circulates in Social Media Through Identity-Driven Controversies. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing.
July 2022. doi:10.1177/07439156221103852.
39Joseph E. Uscinski, “Conspiracy Theories: A Primer,” 2020, London: The Rowman and Littlefield
Publishing.
40
F. Toriumi “Who is spreading the word on Twitter that the Ukrainian government is a neo-Nazi
regime?” Yahoo News, 3 March 2022. (https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/toriumifujio/20220307-00285312)
41
The Communications Security Establishment (2019) 2019 UPDATE: CYBER THREATS TO
CANADA’S DEMOCRATIC PROCESS. The Communications
Security Establishment.
86
21

42

Ibid., p16.
Ibid., p15.
44
Ibid., p17.
45
National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center （NCCIC）, “ GRIZZLY STEPPE –43

Russian Malicious Cyber Activity,” 29 December 2016 （https://uscert.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRIZZLY%20STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf）
46
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hearing, 1 November 2017（https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-social-media-influence-2016-uselections#）
47
Intelligence Community Assessment, “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US
Elections,” Office of the Director of National Intelligence （ODNI）, 6 January 2017（https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf）
48
Ibid. p.ii
49
Alex Isenstadt, John Bresnahan, “Exclusive: Emails of top NRCC officials stolen in major 2018 hack,”
POLITICO, 4 December 2018（https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/04/exclusive-emails-of-topnrccofficialsstolen-in-major-2018-hack-1043309）
50
ODNI, “DNI Coats Statement on the Intelligence Community's Response to Executive Order 13848 on
Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election,” 21
December 2018. （https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases2018/item/1933-dni-coatsstatement-on-the-intelligence-community-s-response-to-executive-order-13848on-imposing-certain-sanctionsin-the-event-of-foreign-interference-in-a-united-states-election）
51
Ellen Nakashima, “U.S. Cyber Command operation disrupted Internet access of Russian troll factoryon day of 2018 midterms,” The Washington Post, 27 February 2019.
（https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nationalsecurity/us-cyber-command-operation-disruptedinternet-access-of-russian-troll-factory-on-day-of-2018-midterms/2019/02/26/1827fc 9 e-36d 6 -11e 9 -af
5 b-b51b 7 ff322e 9_story.html?noredirect=on）
52
National Intelligence Council, “Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections,” 10 March 2021.
（https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-declass-16MAR21.pdf）
53
House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, “Disinformation and ‘fake news’ :Interim Report Fifth Report of Session 2017-19,” House of Commons, February 2019, p.43.ff.
54
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/171103-Chairto-Jack-Dorsey-Twitter.pdf
https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-andsport/171019-Chair-to-Mark-Zuckerberg-Facebook.pdf
55
Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate, “Putin's Asymmetric Assault on Democracy inRussia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security,” 10 January 2018, p. 129.
56
StopFake, “Fake: Merkel Takes Selfie with Belgian Suicide Bomber,” 27 March 2016（https://www.stopfake.org/en/fake-merkel-takes-selfie-with-belgian-suicide-bomber-2/）
57
Thomas Davidson and Julius Lagodny, “Germany's far-right party AfD won the Facebook battle. By alot,” The Washington Post, 26 September 2017 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkeycage/wp/2017/09/26/germanys-far-right-party-afd-won-the-facebook-battle-by-a-lot/)
58
Mark Scott, “Russian ‘botnet’ promotes far-right messages in German election,” Politico, 24
September 2017（https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-botnet-promotes-far-right-messages-in-germanelection/）
59
Lars Petersen, “Hacker attack on the Federal Election Commissioner’s server, ” Business Insider, 15
Sep 2021(https://www.businessinsider.de/politik/deutschland/hackerangriff-auf-server-desbundeswahlleiters/)
60
Tagesschau, “Bundesregierung kritisiert Russland87
scharf,” 6 September 2021

(https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/cyberangriffe-russland-gru-ghostwriter-101.html)
61
DW, “Federal government urges Russia to end cyberattacks,” 6 September 2021
(https://www.dw.com/de/bundesregierung-fordert-von-russland-ende-der-cyberattacken/a-59100108)
62
Der Bundeswahlleiter, “Erkennen und Bekämpfen von Desinformation”(https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/bundestagswahlen/2021/fakten-fakenews.html)
63
Volker Witting, Ian Bateson, “German election: The postal vote and fraud claims,” DW, 25 September
2021 (https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-the-postal-vote-and-fraud-claims/a-58844693)
64
Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate, “Putin’s Asymmetric Assault on Democracy inRussia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security,” 10 January 2018, p.123.
65
Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate, “Putin’s Asymmetric Assault on Democracy inRussia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security,” 10 January 2018, p.122.
66
European Comission, “A Europe that protects: EU reports on progress in fighting disinformation aheadof European Council,” 14 June 2019 (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_19_2914)
67
Michael Yip, “Taiwan Presidential Election: A Case Study on Thematic Targeting,” PwC, 17 March2016(https://paper.seebug.org/papers/APT/APT_CyberCriminal_Campagin/2016/2016.03.17.Taiwan-electiontargetting/taiwant-election-targetting.html.pdf)
68
Nicholas J. Monaco, Google Jigsaw, “Computational Propaganda in Taiwan- Where Digital
Democracy Meets Automated Autocracy,”February 2017, p.22.
69
Kaori Fukushima「Will China collapse inner Taiwan?」『Nikkei Business』28 Novemver 2018(https://business.nikkei.com/atcl/opinion/15/218009/112700187/)
70
Ibid.
71
Nikkei Shimbun,「Taiwan presidential election: debate over 'Chinese election intervention' at
Television debate」29 December 2019.
(https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO53986070Z21C19A2FF8000/)72
IP Defense Forum, “CCP intervening in 2020 Taiwan elections, wielding many political influence
weapons,” 4 December 2019. (https://ipdefenseforum.com/2019/12/ccp-intervening-in-2020-taiwanelections-wielding-many-political-influence-weapons/)
73
United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, “U.S.-CHINA Relations in 2019: A
Year in Review,” Hearing, 4 September 2019 (https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/201910/September%204,%202019%20Hearing%20Transcript.pdf)
74
Meta, “Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From China,” 19 August 2019.
(https://about.fb.com/news/2019/08/removing-cib-china/)
75
Twitter, “Information operations directed at Hong Kong,” 19 August 2019（https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/information_operations_directed_at_Hong_Kong）; Nathaniel Gleicher, “Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From China, ” Meta, 19 August
2019
76
Ryukyu Shimpou “US plans to deploy new medium-range ballistic missiles in Okinawa,
communicated to Russian side within two years, fearing significant amplification of base burden”, 3October 2019. (https://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/entry-1000469.html)
77
Hiroyuki Fujishiro, "The Production Process of Fake News Verification Articles - A Case Study of the
Okinawa Times in the 2018 Okinawa Prefectural Governor Election", Journal of Social Informatics, Vol.
8, No. 2, The Society for Social Informatics, 2019, pp. 143-157(http://www.ssi.or.jp/journal/pdf/Vol8No2_ 10.pdf).
The main subject of the article is the case of the Okinawa Times, but it also discusses the fact-checking
trend of the Ryukyu Shimpo.
78
The Ryukyu Shimpo, 'Disinformation on the governor's election, who? The same person's name on
two websites. When we track down the identity... ", 1 Jan 2019 (https://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/entry856174.html).
79
Public Security Intelligence Agency, "Raising the undecided theory of 'Ryukyu belonging' and China's
efforts to shape public opinion in Okinawa", Domestic and Foreign Affairs Retrospect and Outlook,
January 2017, p. 23 (http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001221029.pdf).
The 'undecided theory of Ryukyu's belonging' refers to the argument in the Chinese Communist Party's
official newspaper, People's Daily, etc., that 'the US has only handed over administrative authority over88the Ryukyu Islands to Japan, and the belonging of the Ryukyu Islands is undecided'. We (China) havecalled the Ryukyu Islands 'Okinawa' for a long time, but this name is tantamount to our implicit
acknowledgement that Japan has sovereignty over the Ryukyu Islands and should not be used".
80
Takeshi Aragaki, "Exclusive interview with President Putin's aide, Okinawa's bases are an 'obstacle to
Japan-Russia relations', Sergei Glazyev points out the harmful effects of subordination to the US,"Ryukyu Shimpo, 7 October 2019. (https://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/entry-1002716.html)
81
On the official website of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Far Eastern
Federal District of the Russian Federation, it is stated that Yuri Trutnev, Deputy Prime Minister of theRussian Federation and Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Far Eastern Federal
District, will visit Tokyo and Okinawa in October 2018 to meet representatives of the Japanese
Government and business community to discuss future cooperation between Japan and the Far Easternregion. "В рамках рабочей поездки Юрия Трутнева пройдет обсуждение сотрудничества Росссии иЯпонии на Дальнем Востоке, "Официальный сайт поллномочного представителя Президента
Росссийской Федерации в Дальневосточном федеральном округе, 26 октября 2018.
(http://dfo.gov.ru/trutnev/3157/)
82
Fact vs. Fiction: Russian Disinformation on Ukraine, JANUARY 20, 2022, US Department of State.
(Fact vs. Fiction: Russian Disinformation on Ukraine - United States Department of State)
83
EU vs Disinfo, Disinfo targeting Ukraine (https://euvsdisinfo.eu/category/ukraine-page/)
84
Putin says some Russian troops are withdrawing after drills, but skepticism in Ukraine and US
remains, February 15, 2022,（Countermeasures must be proportionate to the corresponding damage.）
85
Remarks by President Biden Providing an Update on Russia and Ukraine, FEBRUARY 18, 2022.
(https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/02/18/remarks-by-president-bidenproviding-an-update-on-russia-and-ukraine-2/)
86
The Cylance Research and Intelligence Team, “The Cylance Research and Intelligence Team Reaver:
Mapping Connections Between Disparate Chinese APT Groups,” 14 May 2019.
(https://blogs.blackberry.com/en/2019/05/reaver-mapping-connections-between-disparate-chinese-aptgroups)
87
Ibid
88
Taiwan Presidential Election: A Case Study on Thematic Targetinghttps://pwc.blogs.com/cyber_security_updates/2016/03/taiwant-election-targetting.html
89
APT1 Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units
https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/services/pdfs/mandiant-apt1-report.pdf
90
APT40：Investigations into Chinese government-sponsored spy groups.
https://www.fireeye.com/blog/jp-threat-research/2019/03/apt40-examining-a-china-nexus-espionageactor.html
91
V. Gerasimov, 2013, Ценнность науки в предвидении, Military-Industrial Kurier. (Robert
Coalson, trans., 2016, The Value of Science is in Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking theForms and Methods of Carrying out Combat Operations, the Military Review.)
92
J. Berzins, 2014, “Russia's New Generation Warfare in Ukraine: Implications for Latvian Defense
Policy,” National Defence Academy of Latvia Center for Security and Strategic Research. pp. 1–13.
93
Janne Hakala and Jazlyn Melnychuk, RUSSIA’S STRATEGY IN CYBERSPACE, NATOSTRATCOM COE, 2021.
94
Major C. Kamphuis BSc., 2018, “Reflexive Control: The relevance of a 50-year-old Russian theory
regarding perception control,” Militaire Spectator. (https://militairespectator.nl/artikelen/reflexive-control)
95
A. Kowalewski, 2017, “Disinformation and Reflexive Control: The New Cold War,” Georgetown
Security Studies Review. (https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2017/02/01/disinformation-andreflexive-control-the-new-cold-war/)
96
The following five paragraphs refer to and summarise this paper; Takahiro Tsuchiya, 2015, Neuro
Security “Brain Supremacy” and “Mind Wars,” KEIO SFC JOURNAL Vol.15 No.2, 12-31.
97
Michael N. Schmitt (ed.) and Liis Vihul (ed.), 2017, Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the Interna-tional Law
Applicable to Cyber Operations. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
98
Ibid., pp17 ff..
99
Ibid., pp168 ff..
100
ODNI, supra note7.
101
Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, 2019, INTERNATIONALSECURITY AND ESTONIA 2019,89

Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service.
102“APT40: Examining a China-Nexus Espionage Actor”,
https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2019/03/apt40-examining-a-china-nexus-espionageactor.html (last accessed 2020/2/17).
103
Schmitt, supra note14, pp312 ff..
104
Typical example is as follows.
Jessica Brandt, How Democracies Can Win an Information Contest Without Undercutting Their Values,
PCIO POLICY PROPOSAL, AUGUST 02, 2021. (https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/02/howdemocracies-can-win-information-contest-without-undercutting-their-values-pub-85058)
105
G7 DECLARATION ON RESPONSIBLE STATES BEHAVIOR IN CYBERSPACE,
https://www.mofa.go.jp/files/000246367.pdf (last accessed 2020/2/17).
106
The report of this section based on the following policy recommendation which the author
participated in the project to publish.
SPF, 2022, “Prepare for Foreign Disinformation! -Threat of Information Manipulation in Cyberspace-”(https://www.spf.org/security/publications/20220207_cyber.html)
107
Michael Conte, “US conducted more than two dozen cyber operations targeting foreign threats to the2020 election,” CNN, 25 March 2021 (https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/25/politics/us-cyber-operationselection-threats/index.html)
108
The project identifies fact-checking projects in each country as follows: whether they 'examine
statements by all parties and positions'; whether they 'examine individual claims and draw conclusions';
whether they 'identify sources of information and explain how they do this'; whether they 'disclose
funding and affiliations'; whether they 'disclose the fact-checking project's main mission is news andinformation', 'whether the project is run by professional journalists or media organisations', 'whether the
project is affiliated with an academic journalism education programme', and other diverse criteria todetermine its record of activity and to be included in the database.
（Bill Adair, Mark Stencel, ”How We Identify Fact-Checkers, Duke Reporters' Lab, 22 June 2016”［https://reporterslab.org/how-we-identify-fact-checkers/］）
109
Rumor Control (https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol)
110
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, “Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim Report,”
29 July 2018 (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/363/36302.htm)
111
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Final Report, The
House of Commons, 14 February 2019(https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf)
112
Edward Malnic, ”Britain to carry out ‘offensive’ cyber attacks from new £5bn digital warfare centre,”
The Telegraph, 2 October 2021 (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/10/02/britain-capablelaunching-offensive-cyber-attacks-against-russia/)
113
Full Fact awarded $500,000 to build automated factchecking tools(https://fullfact.org/blog/2017/jun/awarded-500000-omidyar-network-open-society-foundationsautomated-factchecking/)
114
Anne Catherine-Stolz, “Germany: Facebook Found in Violation of ’Anti-Fake News‘ Law,” Libraryof Congress, 20 August 2019 (https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2019-08-20/germanyfacebook-found-in-violation-of-anti-fake-news-law/)
115
GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT! (GETFACTS) (https://all-digital.org/projects/get-your-factsstraight/)
116
Raquel Miguel, “The battle against disinformation in the upcoming federal election in Germany:
actors, initiatives and tools,” EU Disinfo Lab, 24 September 2021
(https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/the-battle-against-disinformation-in-the-upcoming-federal-electionin-germany-actors-initiatives-and-tools/)
117
Der Bundeswahlleiter, “Erkennen und Bekämpfen von Desinformation -Desinformation in SocialMedia-Kanälen”(https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/bundestagswahlen/2021/faktenfakenews.html#b1f77833-c1f9-4167-9e83-51019b667552)
118
Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, Alexandre Escorcia, Marine Guillaume, and Janaina Herrera,
Iinformation Mnipulation: A Challenge for Our Democracies, CAPS (Ministry for Europe and Foreign
Affairs) and IRSEM (Ministry for the Armed Forces), August 2018(https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/information_manipulation_rvb_cle838736.pdf)
119Europian Commission, “European Democracy Action
90 Plan”(https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/new-push-european-democracy/europeandemocracy-action-plan_en)
120
European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, “ENISA makes recommendations on EU-wide election
cybersecurity,” 28 February 2019 (https://www.enisa.europa.eu/news/enisa-news/enisa-makesrecommendations-on-eu-wide-election-cybersecurity)
121
Factually (https://www.gov.sg/factually)
122
Venessa Lee, “2 initiatives launched to help fight fake news, terrorism,” The Straits Times, 13 January
2019 (https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/2-initiatives-launched-to-help-fight-fake-news-terrorism)123
池 雅蓉（Chih Ya Jung）, ” Fighting disinformation in cooperation with citizens: Taiwan's diverse
fact-checking initiatives,” FIJ, 16 October 2019.（https://fij.info/archives/3242）
124

Daniel Funke and Daniela Flamini, A guide to anti-misinformation actions around the world.
(https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/anti-misinformation-actions/)
125
Global Cybersecurity Index (https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Cybersecurity/Pages/global-cybersecurityindex.aspx)
126
Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre – The CMM (https://gcscc.ox.ac.uk/the-cmm)
127
S. Mori and A. Goto, “Reviewing National Cybersecurity Strategies,” J. Disaster Res., Vol.13, No.5,
pp. 957-966, 2018.
128
Ibid
129
NSC, “National Security Strategy of Japan”, December 2022.
(https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/siryou/221216anzenhoshou/nss-e.pdf)
130
M. Tsuchiya, “Cybersecurity and Intelligence Agency,” International Politics, Vol.179, pp. 44-56,
2015.
131
Council of Parties on Internet Election Campaigning, “Guidelines for the Revised Public OfficeElection Law,” 2013. (https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000222706.pdf)
132
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications,” Final Report of the Study Group on Platform
Services”, March 2022. (https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000668595.pdf)
133
The judgment states that the customs authorities are deprived of the opportunity to come into contact
with the content of the ideas expressed in the relevant expressive material in Japan, thereby restricting theright to freedom of knowledge, and that even if customs inspections are not prior regulation themselves, itcannot be denied that they have aspects of prior regulation, and special consideration is required when
determining the constitutionality of customs inspections. Special consideration is required in determining
constitutionality. It is important to note that the Court argues that special consideration is required indetermining the constitutionality of customs inspections. (Summarized and translated from 木下昌彦、片桐直人、村山健太郎、横大道聡、西貝小名都、御幸聖樹、山田哲史・編、2018『精読憲法判例［人権編］』弘文堂．p277.)

The discussion in this section bases on the policy recommendation of the Sasakawa Peace Foundationin 2022 “Prepare for Disinformation by Foreign Actors! -Threat of Information Manipulation in
Cyberspace-” which I partly wrote. (https://www.spf.org/security/publications/20220207_cyber.html)
135
Representative discussions are as follows.
J. Brandt, “How Democracies Can Win an Information Contest Without Undercutting Their Values,”
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 02 August 2021.
(https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/02/how-democracies-can-win-information-contest-withoutundercutting-their-values-pub-85058)
136
L. Seebeck, E. Williams and J. Wallis, “Countering the hydra : a proposal for an Indo-Pacific hybrid
threat centre,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 07 Jun 2022.
(https://www.aspi.org.au/report/countering-hydra)
137
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Address by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Opening Sessionof the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI)”, 27 August 2016.
(https://www.mofa.go.jp/afr/af2/page4e_000496.html)
13491