The Weaponization of Disinformation in Canada

The weaponization of misinformation in Canada conference image

Deadline to register - April 21st, 2023

Digital disinformation presents a mounting threat to, and challenge for, liberal democracies. Global events like Brexit, electoral interference, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, have made the abstract threat of digital disinformation into a distinct reality. The shifting global balance of power, characterized by growing multipolarity, is unfolding alongside the expansion of tools, strategies, and spaces for adversarial states and non-state actors to expand their influence, disrupt multilateral diplomacy, threaten liberal democratic norms and values, and de-legitimize a rules-based global order.

Adversarial states and non-state actors are increasingly adept, agile, and strategic in digital spaces, using information and communication technologies to advance geopolitical, ideological, and strategic objectives. Digital disinformation poses a growing geopolitical, foreign policy, and national security challenge for democracies like Canada and the need to identify risks and threats is increasing in importance. This two-day workshop at the University of Waterloo focuses on the weaponization of digital disinformation including discussions on the problem of digital disinformation from a theoretical perspective, empirical and evidence-based examples of how disinformation is weaponized, the rapidly changing threat landscape for liberal democracies, as well as mitigation strategies, policy responses, and best practices of dealing with the growing threat of digital disinformation. The workshop will feature panels of academics with expertise on digital disinformation in Canada and more generally, tech industry and civil society stakeholders working in the space of digital disinformation and mitigation, journalists and independent researchers, and senior government officials from heritage, national defense, and national security.

This interdisciplinary workshop will help to bring together awareness among the academic community, industry, civil society, and government, outlining and assessing the evolving threat of digital disinformation while also providing direction and guidance on how to protect liberal democracies like Canada from weaponized digital disinformation.

Additional information

The workshop will be operating under Chatham House Rules

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Day 1 Agenda: April 27, 2023

Time	Programming
9:00 - 10:30am	Problematic Disinformation Disinformation, like all forms of propaganda, are old phenomenas of statecraft used by many governments. But something is different about the veracity and sophistication of disinformation that will be unpacked by this panel, including how technology is amplifying these tactics in concerning ways in our hyper connected societies. Moderator: Bessma Momani Marcus Kolga, The Macdonald-Laurier Institute Jonathan Fugelsang, University of Waterloo Samantha Bradshaw, American University Akshay Singh, University of Ottawa, Center for International Policy Studies Gautam Kamath, University of Waterloo
10:30 - 12:00pm	Understanding Disinformation This panel looks at how we conceptualize and understand digital disinformation and its effects. What is distinct about digital disinformation and how does it differ from other forms of problematic or disordered information? How do we theorize and explain its causal effects on political outcomes? Discussant: Irene* Poetranto, University of Toronto* Scott DeJong, Concordia University - Play or be Played: Theorizing Disinformation through a Framework of Play Valerie Kindarji, University of Toronto - Digital Subversion: Assessing the Indirect Effects of Foreign Disinformation Campaigns on Democracy
12:00pm	Lunch
12:30 - 1:30pm	Keynote Address by Shelly Bruce Foreign Disinformation Campaigns:  A View from the Security and Intelligence Trenches
1:30 - 3:00pm	Foreign Threat Actors and Disinformation Operations This panel considers how specific state actors, namely Russia and China, weaponize digital disinformation and use the information space as an operational domain to advance geopolitical and strategic interests and narratives. How do adversarial states like Russia and China deploy disinformation against liberal democratic targets like Canada? What are the implications of disinformation operations, subversion, and influence campaigns? Discussant: Veronica Kitchen, University of Waterloo Pierre Joliocoeur& Anthony Seaboyer, Royal Military College of Canada - Implications of the Weaponization of Information by Russia and China Thiora Meegammana & Benjamin C.M. Fung, McGill University - China’s Weaponization of Disinformation to Undermine Democracy in the Free World
3:00 - 3:30pm	Break and Networking
3:30 - 5:00pm	The New Threat Landscape This panel explores why and how digital disinformation constitutes a distinct threat to liberal democracies like Canada. How does disinformation disrupt liberal democratic norms, values, beliefs, and processes? What strategies, techniques, and tools are often deployed against liberal democracies like Canada? Discussant: Akshay Singh, University of Ottawa, Center for International Policy Studies Karmvir Padda, Sarah-May Strange, Barry Cartwright & Richard Frank, University of Waterloo & Simon Fraser University - Thematic Analysis of Major Disinformation Narratives and Discursive Techniques Employed by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian Operatives: A Canadian Viewpoint

Day 2 Agenda: April 28, 2023

Time	Programming
9:00 - 10:20am	Disinformation and Identity This panel examines the interaction of digital disinformation and the politics of identity. How can disinformation impact marginalized and at-risk subpopulations in liberal democracies? How does disinformation reinforce and exacerbate stigmatization, and discrimination of marginalized and at-risk subpopulations like the LGBQT+ communities, racialized and minoritized communities, and women? Discussant: Samantha Bradshaw, American University Bessma Momani & Shelly Ghai Bajaj, University of Waterloo - Pandemic Mis/Disinformation, Private Chat Apps, Diasporas, and Digital Disinformation Esli Chan, McGill University - Identity Politics and Misinformation in the Canadian National Security Landscape
10:35 - 12:00pm	Responses to Digital Disinformation This panel focuses on the range of responses to the threat of weaponized digital disinformation. How can new and emerging technologies be deployed and utilized to identify and respond to digital disinformation? How can liberal democracies like Canada build resiliency against weaponized disinformation and what lessons can be learned from other settings? Discussant: Anatoliy* Gruzd, Toronto Metropolitan University* Richard Frank, Sarah-May Strange, Karmvir Padda & Barry Cartwright, Simon Fraser University and University of Waterloo - Utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Identify and Respond to Digital Disinformation Activities Orchestrated by Adversarial State Actors: A “Made-in-Canada” Solution Benjamin Toettoe, University of Montreal - Building Canada’s Resilience against China’s State-Sponsored Misinformation: Insights from Australia and Taiwan
12:00 - 1:00pm	Lunch
1:15 - 2:35pm	Domestic and Foreign Policy Perspectives on Disinformation This section examines the range of responses in our domestic and foreign policy toolkit, considering the need for multileveled and multidimensional action plans. What can be done at domestically to respond to the complex problem of digital disinformation? What are the foreign policy considerations when responding to digital disinformation? Discussant: Aaron Shull, CIGI Sam Andrey & M.J. Masoodi, Toronto Metropolitan University - Potential Policy Responses to the Wicked Problem of Disinformation Nicole Jackson, Simon Fraser University - Canada’s Response to Foreign Disinformation: The Case of Russia’s War in Ukraine
2:45 - 4:00pm	The Domestic Disinformation Dilemma This panel considers digital disinformation from a domestic perspective, examining how digital disinformation proliferates and is spread by adversarial non-state actors. How, for example, is digital disinformation weaponized at home? What are the implications of digital disinformation within the domestic context and how do we understand the use of digital disinformation as a tool of far right and nationalist movements? Discussant: Ahmed Al-Rawi, Simon Fraser University Mike Habegger, University of Delaware & Tobias Lemke, Washington College - From Tweets to Trucks: Vaccine Disinformation and AntiGovernment Protest During the 2022 Canadian “Freedom” Convoy Carmen Celestini, University of Waterloo & Amarnath Amarsingam, Queen’s University - Impact of weaponized digital disinformation on domestic politics. - Christian Nationalism and the Rise of North American Populism

Meet the speakers

	Bessma Momani Bessma Momani is Full Professor in the Department of Political Science and Assistant Vice-President of Research and International at the University of Waterloo. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States’ Institute in Washington, DC, and a Fulbright Scholar. She is a Governor on the board of the International Development Research Centre and an Executive member of the board of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. She was interim Associate Vice-President, Interdisciplinary and Sponsored Research 2021-2022, Assistant Vice-President, International Relations at the University of Waterloo in 2020, Assistant Vice-President, Research and International in the Office of Research in 2021, non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, and was a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Mortara Center. Bessma is a Fellow of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary and sits on the Advisory Council to the Middle East Institute’s program on Economics and Energy. She also sits on the Editorial Board of the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal. She has worked as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, both in the communications office and the Independent Evaluation Office. She has also consulted for Global Affairs Canada (GAC) as a 2021 Visiting Scholar in its International Assistance Research and Knowledge Division by looking at economic security and digital transformations in the Middle East with a particular focus on women and youth, helping GAC devise its new Middle East strategy. From 2018- 2022 she served as member of the National Security Transparency Advisory Group at Public Safety Canada.
	Marcus Kolga Marcus Kolga is an international award winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, digital communications strategist, and a leading Canadian expert on Russian and Central and Eastern European issues. Marcus has a focus on communications and media strategies as tools of foreign policy and defence, and continues to write commentary for national and international media including the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. He is the co-founder and publisher of UpNorth.eu, an online magazine that features analysis and political and cultural news from the Nordic and Baltic region. He frequently comments on Russian, Eastern and Central European issues on North American radio and television and at foreign policy conferences. Marcus is involved with international human rights organizations and national political organizations. In 2008 he spearheaded an effort to make August 23rd, the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a Canadian national day of remembrance for the European victims of Nazism and communism - Black Ribbon Day - by drafting a parliamentary resolution that was introduced and passed by Hon. Bob Rae. In 2015, Marcus was awarded the Estonian Order of the White Star by President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
	Jonathan Fugelsang Since 2005, Jonathan has been a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo and am currently the Associate Chair of Graduate Studies for our department. Prior to that, he received his undergraduate degree in Psychology at Lakehead University and then completed a PhD at the University of Saskatchewan. After obtaining his PhD he spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Jonathan's research spans several topics in psychology, with a primary focus is on higher level cognition. Recently, his lab’s research has predominantly focused on the interplay between intuitive and analytic processes supporting complex Reasoning and Decision Making. These decisions may involve analogical, deductive, or probabilistic information. The lab has also extended our lines of inquiry to look at the role of intuitive and analytic processes in real world domains, such as creativity, moral judgments and values and one’s susceptibility to misinformation.
	Irene P. Poetranto Irene is a Senior Researcher for the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. She is also a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her research investigates the varieties of Internet controls worldwide. She obtained her Master’s degree in Political Science and Asia Pacific Studies from the University of Toronto and her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.
	Scott DeJong Scott DeJong (He/Him) is a doctoral candidate and researcher in Concordia’s Department of Communication Studies. He holds a Bachelor of Education, a Bachelor of Arts in cultural studies and an Master of Arts in media studies from Nipissing University, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Concordia, respectively. Scott studies disinformation, educational game design and serious play. His dissertation work blends research creation practice with traditional research methods to study the disconnect between disinformation sharing practices and current media literacy endeavours. His work has led to the publication of an educational board game exploring conspiracy theories in social media. Beyond his research, Scott is an active member of various research collectives, including Concordia’s Technoculture, Arts and Games lab and the Applied AI Institute. In his free time, Scott co-produces a podcast featuring scholars and practitioners discussing how humour and games relate and runs an annual game design summer camp. His research is sponsored by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture.
	Valérie Kindarji Valérie is a PhD candidate interested in international security. She at the University of Toronto, where she also work as a research project manager, and teaching assistant. Valérie completed her BA at Concordia University, and MSc. at Université de Montréal. Her previous work included civil conflict, military intervention, and terrorism. Valérie's current work is focused on foreign disinformation and democracy. More specifically, using a combination of experiments and interviews, Valérie seeks to understand how disinformation impacts democratic institutions, and how democracies respond to these growing threats. Her research discusses faith in democratic institutions, platform governance, and digital literacy initiatives. Valérie is currently a researcher at the Governance of Emerging Technologies (GET) Group, a joint initiative between scholars at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia. Our research focuses on governance and technology such as AI, exposure notification apps, and digital platforms.Her previous work on Canadian foreign policy and military intervention has been featured at WIIS Canada as part of the Emerging Thought Leaders programme. This research has also yielded a fellowship at the Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict & Justice.
	Karmvir Padda Karmvir Padda is currently a Ph.D. student in the Sociology and Legal Studies department at the University of Waterloo. She completed her MA in Criminology from Simon Fraser University. Her research mainly focuses on radicalization, extremists' use of the internet, right-wing extremism, online foreign interference (disinformation/misinformation), hate crime, research methods and methodology, and computational methods. Her research is generously supported by the Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship (SSHRC CGS-D).
	Sarah-May Strange Sarah-May Strange holds an MA in criminology from Simon Fraser University. Her research includes topics of online disinformation, propaganda, foreign interference and influence, marginalised identities and hatred against them (e.g. Islamophobia, homophobia, and transphobia), sex workers' rights, cybercrime, Christian nationalism, and the Canadian and global far-right. Her work uses methods such as content analysis, network analysis, and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). She applies a critical lens, and lived experience as a member of the LGBTQ2S+ and disabled communities. She is a gleeful history nerd, and passionate about the value of understanding the social, political, and historical context of modern events. Her hobbies include gardening, trying to build things, editing Wikipedia, the vague concept of "crafts", and befriending feral cats.
	Dr. Barry Cartwright Barry Cartwright holds a BA and MA in Sociology and a PhD in Criminology. He was a Senior Lecturer in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University for many years, and continues to serve as Associate Director of the International CyberCrime Research Centre at SFU. He worked for six years for the Solicitor General of Canada, and although not a lawyer, was a managing partner of an immigration law firm for much of his career. He has taught numerous university courses on cybercrime and cyberlaw, and has published extensively in the areas of cybercrime, cyberlaw, cyberbullying and online disinformation.
	Richard Frank Richard Frank is Associate Professor in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Canada and Director of the International CyberCrime Research Centre (ICCRC). Richard completed a PhD in Computing Science (2010) and another PhD in Criminology (2013) at SFU. His main research interest is Cybercrime. Specifically, he's interested in researching hackers and security issues, the dark web, online terrorism and warfare, eLaundering and cryptocurrencies, and online child exploitation. He is the creator of The Dark Crawler, a tool for collecting and analyzing data from the open Internet, dark web, and online discussion forums. Through this tool the ICCRC has collected ~150 million posts from various right-wing, left-wing, gender-based and religiously-motivated extremist communities, leading to a number of projects and publications. Dr. Frank has publications in top-level data mining outlets, such as in Knowledge Discovery in Databases, and security conferences such as Intelligence and Security Informatics (ISI). His research can also be found in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, to name a few.
	Veronica Kitchen Veronica Kitchen is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs, co-Director of the Canadian Network for Scholarship on Terrorism, Security, and Society (TSAS), and co-lead of the North America research group of the Defence & Security Foresight Group. She teaches and supervises broadly in the fields of security and global politics, often at their intersection with gender and/or popular culture. She studies critical security studies, with a focus on Canadian national security. Her recent publications include The Twitter Conference as a New Medium of Scholarly Communication (and How to Host One) (with Tanya Bandula-Irwin; PS: Political Science & Politics, 2022), Using Games and Simulations to Scaffold Experiential Learning in Global Politics (Journal of Political Science Education, 2021), Heroism and Global Politics (Routledge, 2018; edited with Jenny Mathers), and Veterans and Military Masculinity in Popular Romance Fiction (Journal of Critical Military Studies, 2018). She has also published extensively on security co-operation, mega-event security, Canadian-American security relations, and transatlantic security relations.
	Pierre Joliocoeur Pierre Jolicoeur is Full Professor at the Department of Political Science at Royal Military College of Canada. Specialist of the former Soviet Union and South Eastern Europe, his research focuses on secessionist movements, foreign policy, federalism and cybersecurity. At RMCC, he teaches international relations and comparative politics. Through NATO programs, he also taught in Moldova and in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Author or co-author of 2 books, 10 articles in Peer review journals, 23 chapters in university press, his publications, both in French and English, appeared in Études internationales, Journal of Borderland Studies, Canadian Journal of Foreign Policy, and Connections. He also contributed to the public debate, notably by publishing 29 articles in the Point de mire series, which he edited between 2000 and 2006, 20 op-eds (Le Devoir, La Presse, Whig Standard) or numerous interviews. He is the RMCC representative to the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences since 2011.
	Anthony Seaboyer Anthony teaches Political Science, Political Philosophy and Political Geography at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) and the weaponization of information for IO, PSYOP, MILDEC and adversarial information exploitation at the Peace Support Training Centre (PSTC). Research: National Security, AI, Ethics of AI, IW, Social Influence, Psychological Warfare, Social Media Exploitation, Information Warfare of Russia/China/Iran/North Korea/ANSAs; effects of weaponization of information on democracies.
	Thiora Meegammana Thiroa is a McGill University graduate with a bachelors degree in Political Science and a double-minor in English Literature and Psychology. She describes herself as passionate, hard-working with a penchant for creative writing and the politics of tech policy governance.
	Benjamin Fung Dr. Benjamin Fung is a Canada Research Chair in Data Mining for Cybersecurity, a Full Professor of the School of Information Studies (SIS) at McGill University, and an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Data and Engineering (TKDE) and Elsevier Sustainable Cities and Society (SCS). He received a Ph.D. degree in computing science from Simon Fraser University in 2007. Collaborating closely with the national defence, law enforcement, transportation, and healthcare sectors, he has published over 150 refereed articles that span across the research forums of data mining, machine learning, privacy protection, and cybersecurity with over 14,000 citations. His data mining works in crime investigation and authorship analysis have been reported by media, including New York Times, BBC, CBC, etc. Dr. Fung is a licensed professional engineer in software engineering. See his research website http://dmas.lab.mcgill.ca/fung for more information.
	Samantha Bradshaw Dr. Samantha Bradshaw is an Assistant Professor in New Technology & Security at American University’s School of International Service. She is also a North America Fellow with the International Strategy Forum (ISF) and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation. Dr. Bradshaw completed her D.Phil. in Information, Communication, and the Social Sciences at Oxford University in 2020 as well as a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford University between 2020-2022. Dr. Bradshaw’s research on disinformation, social media, and democracy has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including New Media & Society, Political Communication, the International Journal of Communication, and Policy & Internet, among others. Her work has also been featured by global media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, the Financial Times, and Reuters. Samantha’s research is policy-oriented and public facing. She has published more than 15 policy papers for think tanks and civil society organizations, has participated on expert-panels at over 30 different venues around the world, including international organizations such as UNESCO and NATO, and has been involved in public policy discussions in the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore, and the United States, briefing staff and providing expert-witness testimony to several ongoing political processes.
	Shelly Ghai Bajaj Shelly Ghai Bajaj (Ph.D., University of Toronto, 2022) is a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Bessma Momani on projects relating to identity, democracy, disinformation, and social media. She studies comparative politics of both developing and advanced industrial democracies and is interested in the politics of identity and ethnonationalist mobilization, political parties and party strategy, the use of social media by political actors, and South Asian politics. She is also interested in qualitative research methodologies, content analysis, and comparative historical analysis. Her work on Hindu nationalism and electoral politics has been published in Asian Survey (2017) and in an edited volume on Politics and the Religious Imagination (Routledge, 2010).
	Esli Chan Esli Chan is a Political Science PhD Student at McGill University. Her research focuses on gender and identity, technology and online platform governance, and emerging far-right and extremist movements. Her work has been published in Violence Against Women and Harvard Women's Policy Journal and featured by the Research Network on Women, Peace, and Security, and at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Esli holds a Masters of Science in Risk Analysis from King's College London and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from McGill University.
	Anatoliy Gruzd Anatoliy Gruzd is a Professor of Information Technology Management and holds the Canada Research Chair in Privacy-Preserving Digital Technologies at the Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan University. He is also the Director of Research of the Social Media Lab at the university and a Member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. His research as a computational social scientist focuses on studying the impact of social media platforms on communication, collaboration, information dissemination, and the formation of communities online, and how these changes affect society.
	Benjamin Toettoe Benjamin Toettoe is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Montreal and a Research Fellow at CEIAS. Previously, he completed a B.A. in Quantitative Economics and Politics at New York University and an M.A. in Comparative Economics and Policy at UCL. His research lies in the field of International Relations and focuses on the effects of economic flows from China on foreign policy orientations in recipient states. Some of his recent research projects, which were published in journals such as the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, have specifically examined the effects of projects funded through the Belt and Road Initiative on local public opinion, and the sources of domestic actors' foreign policy preferences on questions related to China.
	Marie Lamensch Marie Lamensch is the Project Coordinator at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. Marie has a BA in History (specialization in Genocide studies) from Concordia University and a Master’s degree in Conflict, Security and Development from King’s College London Department of War Studies, where is specialized in complex emergencies and women’s roles in conflicts. Marie started working at MIGS in 2012 as Assistant to the Director and is Project Coordinator since 2016. She co-manages all of MIGS' projects and is in charge of the institute's communications. Marie provides training courses and consultancies to diplomats, journalists, NGO workers, and students. She also gives conferences and media interviews in English and French. Marie’s research and policy interests are international security and mass atrocity prevention; gendered disinformation ; digital authoritarianism, emerging technologies, and human rights. Marie writes for Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and is affiliated to the Observatoire de géopolitique & Observatoire des conflits multidimensionnels at the Chaire Raoul Dandurand.
	Akshay Singh Akshay Singh has close to a decade’s practical experience in national security and intelligence-related policy matters and research. He has a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Simon Fraser University, where he focused on international security, trade, and Canadian policy issues. Akshay wrote his final M.A. research project on the topic of formulating a pragmatic China policy for Canada, and continues to research and write on this topic today. Akshay also researches the implications of the shift of international power to the Indo-Pacific, with a specific focus on the opportunities and challenges this shift provides Canada. His work has been featured by Policy Options, the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, the Centre for International Governance Innovation and The Globe and Mail. Akshay has also been consulted as an expert by several media outlets; he has commented on matters relating to foreign policy, espionage, foreign interference and economic security, among others. In addition to the above, Akshay continues to play an active role in the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies as a member of the Board of Directors.
	Gautam Kamath Gautam Kamath is an Assistant Professor at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, and a Faculty Member at the Vector Institute. He has a B.S. in Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is interested in reliable and trustworthy statistics and machine learning, including considerations such as data privacy and robustness. He was a Microsoft Research Fellow, as a part of the Simons-Berkeley Research Fellowship Program at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing
	Aaron Shull Aaron Shull is the managing director and general counsel at CIGI. He is a senior legal executive and is recognized as a leading expert on complex issues at the intersection of public policy, emerging technology, cybersecurity, privacy and data protection. Aaron has authored several reports, essays and policy briefs examining digital transformation and the evolution of policy and practice in cyberspace, where he has argued for more robust international norms. As a legal and national security analyst, Aaron has written for and conducted media interviews with international media outlets. Aaron has spoken on various expert panels and delivered keynote lectures around the world, including at the International Bar Association, RightsCon, the Data Conference, and the Annual Meeting of Federal/Provincial/Territorial Information and Privacy Commissioners. He has also provided expert-witness testimony before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Prior to joining CIGI, Aaron practised law for a number of organizations, providing strategic legal advice and trial and appellate advocacy in regulatory, quasi-criminal and white-collar crime. He has taught courses at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law and Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. Aaron graduated as a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar upon receiving his LL.M. from Columbia Law School. He graduated cum laude with first-class honours when he obtained his LL.B. from the University of Ottawa and graduated with distinction when he received his M.A. in international affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.
	M.J. Masoodi Joe (he/him) has been conducting research and policy analysis on the intersections of surveillance, digital technologies, security and human rights for over six years. He has conducted research at the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University and the Canadian Forces College. He holds an MA in war studies from the Royal Military College of Canada, an MA in sociology from Queen’s University, and has studied sociology as a PhD candidate from Queen’s University, specializing in digital media, information and surveillance.
	Nicole Jackson Nicole Jackson is Associate Professor of International Studies at SFU. Previously, she was Assistant Professor in the Department of Political and International Studies at The University of Warwick, UK. Her research interests lie at the intersection of foreign policy, domestic politics, and security studies. Her regional focus is the former Soviet space, primarily Russia. She has been conducting research in Russia and in post-Soviet Central Asia since 1994. For over 20 years, Jackson’s research has primarily addressed the evolution of Russian foreign policy, including the role of ideas and elite perceptions and the processes and results of foreign and security policy making. Most recently, she has written on Canadian and Western government perceptions and policy responses to Russia. Her aim is to contribute to academic debates and contextualized empirical studies, as well as to the practical consideration of existing and alternative policy options for a more secure and peaceful world. Jackson’s research includes three major lines of inquiry. These address, in various ways, state securitization and the relationship between foreign policy ideas and perceptions, policy output and actions (diplomatic and military). First, she has a longstanding interest in analysing Russia’s state discourse and its military and hybrid (non-military) actions in civil and separatist wars in the former Soviet space. Second, she contributes to academic debates on securitization by examining states and organizations’ rhetorical and practical securitization of various challenges. This work has focused mostly on Russian and other actors in the post-Soviet Central Asian region and contributes to the empirical and theoretical assessment of post-Soviet Central Asian regional security challenges. Third, Jackson adds to intellectual debates about the ‘changing nature of warfare’ through research on Canadian and NATO rhetoric and policies towards Russia (and other) hybrid challenges, including disinformation.
	Michael W. Habegger Mike Habegger earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science & International Relations at the University of Delaware. His research lies at the intersection of democracy and the internet, broadly, and social media practices and the concepts of subjectivity and the public sphere, specifically. His work is influenced by the democratic political theory, internet politics, political communication, and social movements literatures. He has been pushing theoretical arguments--that everyday people form thin collectivities founded on the common practice of information sharing--into the subfields of international relations and global security studies. In doing so, he employs computational methods to analyze big text data from social media networks to provide empirical depth to canonical concepts in these fields. Mike has published work on Russian disinformation campaigns, digital diplomacy and international organizations, and the English School of International Relations. He has researched the transnational far-right, the social media behavior of political parties in Germany, and is currently working on a book project attempting to conceptualize digital crisis diplomacy by analyzing the social media responses to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. He has also authored a textbook on the political psychology of voting behavior. Mike currently serves as an adjunct instructor for the English Language Institute at the University of Delaware, and is an Academic Advisor for the University’s Honors College.
	Tobias Lemke Tobias is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science & International Relations at Washington College in Maryland. Born and raised in Germany, Tobias calls the U.S. his home away from home since attending the University of Minnesota as an undergraduate in 2006. After working in juvenile corrections post-graduation, he moved to the east coast to start his career as a life-long student, teacher, and scholar. Tobias defended his dissertation at the University of Delaware in 2021, focusing on the rise of nationalist movements in 19th century European politics and their implications for understanding international politics and order today. Tobias is broadly trained in international relations and comparative politics with a regional focus on Western and Central Europe. He has also developed experience teaching and researching US American politics. Broadly, my research examines the intersection of elite and mass politics. Tobias is specifically interested in understanding how political leaders use the language of national identity to gain and maintain state power. Most importantly.
	Carmen Celestini Carmen Celestini, PhD is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the School of Religion, Queen's University and a Lecturer at the University of Waterloo in the Religious Studies and Arts First Departments. Previously a Fellow with the Disinformation Project at Simon Fraser University, and the Centre on Hate, Bias, and Extremism, her research includes the intersections of religion, conspiracy theories, extremism, and politics.
	Amarnath Amarasingam Amarnath Amarasingam is an Assistant Professor in the School of Religion, and is cross-appointed to the Department of Political Studies, at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. His research interests are in terrorism, radicalization and extremism, conspiracy theories, online communities, diaspora politics, post-war reconstruction, and the sociology of religion. He is the author of Pain, Pride, and Politics: Sri Lankan Tamil Activism in Canada (2015), and the co-editor of Stress Tested: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Canadian National Security (2021) and Sri Lanka: The Struggle for Peace in the Aftermath of War (2016). He has also published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, has presented papers at over 100 national and international conferences, and has written for The New York Times, The Monkey Case, The Washington Post, CNN, Politico, The Atlantic, and Foreign Affairs. He has been interviewed on CNN, PBS Newshour, CBC, BBC, and a variety of other media outlets. He tweets at @AmarAmarasingam Dr. Amarasingam is an experienced field researcher, having conducted hundreds of interviews for his PhD dissertation on social movement activism, organizational dynamics, and youth identity in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. He also conducted over 50 interviews with former fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) throughout the former war zones of Sri Lanka in 2013 and 2014. He has also conducted field research in Syria, Iraq, Morocco, Somalia, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine. He co-directed a study on foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, based at the University of Waterloo, for six years during which he conducted numerous social media and in-person interviews with current and former foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, as well as parents and close friends of those who travelled to fight. He has also conducted several interviews with former extremists on the far-right and conspiratorial movements.
	Ahmed Al-Rawi Dr. Al-Rawi is the Associate Professor of News, Social Media, and Public Communication at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. He is also the founder of the Disinformation Project. His research interests are related to news, global communication, and social media with emphasis on Canada and the Middle East. Al-Rawi is also a founding member of the Media & Digital Literacy Academy in Beirut. His new research project which is funded by a SSHRC Insight grant investigates the issues of racism and democracy from the perspective of racialized Canadian journalists, the online public, and news content, partly to understand whether racism negatively influences democracy.
	Sam Andrey Sam Andrey is the Director of Policy and Research at Toronto Metropolitan University's Leadership Lab, a think tank developing new policy ideas and leaders to pressing challenges facing Canadian democracy. Sam has led applied research and public policy development for the past decade, including the design, execution and knowledge mobilization of surveys, focus groups, interviews, randomized controlled trials and cross-sectional observational studies. He also teaches about public policy at Toronto Metropolitan University and George Brown College, and is leading several projects working to advance the responsible governance of technology in Canada. He serves on the board of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada and chairs its research and professional practices committee.
	Shelly Bruce Shelly Bruce was appointed to the position of Chief (Deputy Minister), CSE in June 2018 and retired in September 2022, after 33 years in Canada’s national cryptologic agency. Shelly joined CSE in 1989 as a signals intelligence (SIGINT) analyst and Russian linguist, and spent time in various SIGINT operational, policy and planning roles, as well as in CSE’s IT security branch (now the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security). In 2007, she was seconded to the Security and Intelligence Secretariat at the Privy Council Office as Director Operations. From 2009 until her appointment as the Chief of CSE, Shelly was responsible for Canada’s national SIGINT program. Shelly has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian studies from Dalhousie University and a Masters in Slavic languages and literature from the University of Toronto.