Defining Measures of Effect for Disinformation Attacks

This study proposes three measures for assessing the survival of beliefs in a population subjected to a disinformation attack. The intent of these three measures was to simplify the task of assessing damage effects arising from disinformation attacks, and provide a means for comparing the relative effectiveness of alternate defensive or damage mitigation strategies. To define these measures and to bound the measures problem, disinformation attacks are characterised, disinformation effects and propagation behaviours are surveyed and summarised. Nine attributes are identified spanning scalability relative to a population and disinformation attack, propagation media independence, target attributes, media propagation attributes, effects of uncertainty, use of established models, probabilistic measures, and measurement methods. The three proposed measures were critically assessed against these nine desirable attributes. The three proposed measures are capable of capturing the aggregated effects of a disinformation attack, exposure effects produced by propagation through channels such as digital media, and the direct effects against the individuals or population being subjected to an attack. The separation of exposure and cognitive effects makes these measures suitable for use in defensive or damage mitigation strategies that include measures against disinformation propagation, and measures to increase individual or population resistance to disinformation.