2021 KGRI Working Papers
Joint Proposal: “Toward a Healthy Platform for Public Discourse—Digital Diet Declaration ver. 1.0”
We consider fake news (disinformation) and infodemics (the flood of information surrounding infectious diseases) to be serious social pathologies that threaten people's lives. The background to this is the information “gluttony” and “unbalanced diet” brought about by the development of the internet, and we have reached a common understanding that “information health”—being conscious of a proper balance of information both as individuals and as a society—is becoming extremely important. This joint declaration summarizes the results of interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral studies on what initiatives various stakeholders, including digital platform operators, should promote to achieve information health.
These proposals are a provisional version (version 1.0), and we intend to update their content in the future while soliciting opinions from researchers and stakeholders in various fields.
Society-Centric Cyber Conflict: Trends and Possibilities in East Asia
This working paper argues that with the recent increase in cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure, it is imperative to better understand these attacks and their effects. By establishing an analytical framework, we measure the impact of such attacks and argue that attacks with societal consequences are giving rise to a new form of cyber conflict, which we call Societally-Centric Cyber Conflict (S3C). In S3C, understanding the societal dimension of cyber conflict requires an understanding of three things: a) the societal impact of cyberattacks, b) society’s reaction to the impact of such attacks, and c) how society’s reaction affects the dynamics of cyber conflict. These elements are particularly important for understanding the potential and trajectory of cyber conflict escalation.
Given the lack of data on societal impacts and reactions, we present a methodological approach for collecting the necessary data and argue for the need for further research on S3C. We believe that in the Asia-Pacific region, in particular, the potential impact of S3C is significant and will affect regional cybersecurity dynamics and, more broadly, security relations.