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Ayael Alqarni is a master’s candidate at the Elliott School of George Washington University, where she is pursuing a degree in Security Policy Studies and serves on the executive board committee of the Elliott Graduate Student Forum. She is currently a research assistant with the MEI Cyber Program.
Public diplomacy and influence campaigns in the Middle East
Despite the empowering and liberating potential of new communications technologies, the growing power and influence of autocrats is undermining pressure for human rights and good governance. Authoritarian regimes have embraced new technologies and influence campaigns have become one of the many ways in which they seek to reassert their control over the media and civilians. During the third panel of the MEI Cyber Program’s inaugural June conference, experts examined the development of online manipulation campaigns and discussed how governments conduct these operations, as well as the campaigns’ dangers, limits, and the best policies to encourage free speech online in the Middle East.
