David Leask: Why people on both sides of the constitutional divide are in danger of being duped

Mr McDonald, the SNP’s defence spokesman at Westminster, has long been the victim of internet conspiracism. So, frankly, is anyone who stands up to propaganda operations, especially, but not exclusively, those run by authoritarian or kleptocratic regimes.

Spy. Deep state stooge. Infiltrator. Traitor. Asset. There is a whole vocabulary of abuse for those who challenge deliberately misleading “fake news”.

Disinformation report makes uncomfortable reading for Scottish Government

Such terms – bandied about routinely on Twitter – are also evidence of just how vulnerable to disinformation some political activists in Scotland are, how credulous they can be.

Our story “certainly sparked a reaction”, Mr McDonald tweeted after its publication. “Some wild conspiracy theories flying around: funded by big pharma, MI5, CIA or Stonewall (?!). All, of course, helpfully making my point for me. I really should thank them.”

Sometimes politicians are told they are being ‘brave’, usually euphemistically. Well, the Glasgow South MP really is showing courage. And not just because there is often brutal pushback, including from well-funded state actors, to counter-disinformation efforts.

It also takes political guts to tell people on your own side of Scotland’s constitutional divide that they are in danger of being duped, or worse, themselves amplifying falsehoods.

And Mr McDonald has done that. But the awkward reality that there are obvious vulnerabilities to disinformation across our politics, mostly because of just how polarized it is.

Mr McDonald’s report makes uncomfortable reading for everybody in Scottish public life. But, in truth, the solutions he is floating do not have to be politically difficult or even particularly expensive. He wants a national disinformation commissioner, a counter-propaganda tsar, if you like, and he suggests an audit of our information space.

Above all, Mr McDonald proposes more education, more training. That means raising awareness of what propaganda narratives are and who is pushing them. Which is easier said than done, especially for complex overseas actors whose cultures, languages and politics we Scots – let’s be blunt – just don’t know.

Mr McDonald is suggesting journalists – a trade whose members tend to be good at spotting what we not very politely refer to as BS – go in to schools to help young people develop critical thinking.

There will be debate about exactly how counter-disinformation should be delivered. There should be concerns about any direct state involvement. Governments in less democratic societies, after all, have used fighting disinformation as a pretext for delivering their own propaganda.

In the west some governments have funded specialist arm's-length third-sector responses to challenge propaganda. It is not clear how effective this is.

The McDonald proposals borrow heavily from the Nordic and Baltic world. He is not being very prescriptive about his plans but there is a common theme: that we can use our trusted professions to expose lies and misdirection; teachers, journalists, academics, medical experts, librarians.

Of course, such professions will also need to use their own bodies and training structures to keep their members up to date with what is an evolving threat.

Take journalists. Yes, we pride ourselves on being able to see through spin, even if our skills, if we are self-aware, can be variable. But we too have our vulnerabilities to disinformation.

Malign actors know how to find your sweet spot. For political or religious zealots this is usually a story that distills all their prejudices, sparking outrage or glee. For journalists, it is a scoop.

Much of the new technology of disinformation has been developed in Russia, where propagandists have specialized in baiting reporters with “hack and leak” operations.

That is when real information – usually partial and misrepresented and therefore misleading – is stolen by government cyberwarriors and them disseminated by state media or social media trolls, bots and sockpuppets.

This kind of thing happens. Are Scottish and UK publishers and reporters trained to handle such a case? What about a deep fake video? Would we be able to spot one of those? I am not sure I would be.

Are the PR professionals – many former journalists – working for local, Scottish and UK governments prepped for a disinformation attack on a public services, what it might look like and where it might come from?

Until recently all of the most serious propaganda tools, the hackers, the propaganda TV stations, the troll armies, were only really available to major authoritarian states, such as Russia, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. That is changing.

We might be about to enter the world of the freelance disinformation actor, hired propaganda guns. We may already be there. Social media and alternative journalism are full of people prepared to spread disinformation for dictators. These are transferrable skills.

Lying and misleading is getting cheaper and easier. Are political parties, pressure groups, campaigners clear on what the difference between spin and disinformation is? Are our politicians – and this is the crux – ethical enough to know the end does not justify the means when it comes to disinformation? Mostly, yes, I think. But mostly is not good enough.

Mr McDonald suggests training for political parties, campaigns, faith groups. His paper did get a warm response from some politicians, and not just in his own party. Andrew Bowie, the Tory MP, tweeted his suppose, saying “we all have a role in stopping disinformation”. Cue, as always, social media abuse.

Some politicians need counter-disinformation training more than most. Two parties ran in the last election with lead candidates who had TV shows on Vladimir Putin’s main international outlet, RT. All4Unity had George Galloway and Alba had Alex Salmond. Both parties did very badly. Neither appear to have asked themselves, in public at least, why they put up RT candidates and what effect this had on both their own fortunes and Scotland’s information resilience.

Why are some Scots so weird about foreign reporting of our country?

With Kremlin outlet Sputnik quitting Scotland and anti-vax messages failing to make headway, there is reason to be positive about our battle with disinformation. But we cannot afford to be complacent.

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