SSP Wednesday Seminar with speaker William Akoto, Fordham University

Governments accused of state-sponsored cyber attacks face a vexing dilemma. They can admit the attack and face painful retaliatory consequences or deny involvement and risk diminishing their cyber capabilities. As yet we know very little about how accused states handle this dilemma. Prof. Akoto will examine how Russia - one of the most frequently accused countries - addresses this dilemma. Drawing on newly available data from Twitter, and leveraging topic modeling, semantic, cluster and rhetorical analyses, Prof. Akoto’s research investigates a sophisticated and highly nuanced effort by Russian proxies to refute allegations of cyber interference. The results have important implications for academic and policy debates about how best to combat state-sponsored cyber attacks and the appropriate role of social media platforms in countering online misinformation and disinformation.