A Cross-Discipline Approach to Countering 4th Generation Espionage

In 2018 the UK government introduced the term '4th generation espionage' to define the hybrid threats exemplified in fake news. As events occur, even seemingly benign events, the rush to report and take charge of the narrative can result in the facts being diminished, or in some cases obscured. The need to quickly and accurately assess the content suggests a role for Al/ML solutions. Before Al/ML can be applied, proper rules for training data must be considered and those rules require inputs from non-technical as well as technical disciplines. The researchers examined the rules of rhetoric, propaganda, and linguistics, then mapped these rules to the behavioural sciences first, and, the technical counterparts associated with computational linguistics and mathematics providing the framework for news story labelling. The examination of the various disciplines is discussed and how they each feed the fake news process.