Dear Colleagues, I hope you are keeping well. It's been quite a month for badly-thought through plans aimed at defeating 'disinformation'. Almost immediately after I published my article <https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2022/04/28/how-russia-benefits-from-ill-informed-social-media-policies/>on how social media companies' efforts to tackle falsehood on Ukraine were being gamed by Russia, the US Department of Homeland Security announced its ill-fated new Disinformation Governance Board. It backfired predictably, and lasted just three weeks, shut down by right-wing lies and trolling. I commented <https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-counter-disinformation-executive-resigns-after-few-weeks-job-2022-05-18/> for Reuters saying "this was a major strategic error of the administration," and that it was "utterly abhorrent" that Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation scholar who headed up the agency "had been turned into a punching bag". This whole episode though has coincided with another bad idea - the release of a conspiracy themed recruitment video by the US Army, which highlights its intent to use deception in the information war. I write about this and the issues this raises, for the military and indeed us all, here: 'How a new US Army video recruiting for deception risks fuelling conspiracy theories <https://www.patreon.com/posts/66831621>' I hope you will find it an important read - do share the link with anyone you think will be interested in the subject. We badly need thoughtful expertise behind the response to this information war - otherwise doing something unhelpful can often be worse than doing nothing at all. Best wishes, Emma -- Dr Emma L Briant Owner: Maven of Persuasion LLC Fellow at Central European University's Center for Media, Data and Society Associate at University of Cambridge, Center for Financial Reporting & Accountability Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emmalbriant Website: www.emma-briant.co.uk Author of: *Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global Change *from Manchester University Press Co-Author of: *Bad News for Refugees* with Prof. Greg Philo and Dr. Pauline Donald from Pluto Press. Sign up for my Newsletter <http://emma-briant.co.uk/sign-up-for-important-updates/>! Follow me on Twitter @emmalbriant