Ross William David Burley
British open-source investigator, former civil servant and co-founder of the Centre for Information Resilience, an intelligence contractor
Ross William David Burley (born November 1983) is a British open-source investigator, former civil servant and co-founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), a non-profit specialising in documenting human rights abuses and countering disinformation.
Early life and education
Ross William David Burley holds a BA (Hons) and an MSc in Anthropology from the University of Oxford, where he specialised in visual representations of violence in Northern Ireland.[1]
Career
Ross William David Burley has over 20 years of experience in international relations, human rights and media. As a British civil servant he served in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (formerly FCO) in London, Washington, D.C. and Tel Aviv, where he was press officer at the British embassy (2012–2014). He also advised a former UK Deputy Prime Minister on international human rights issues.[1]
He held senior roles at Zinc Network, a UK government and intelligence contractor involved in counter-disinformation and public-relations operations, and since March 2017 has been a "Civilian Deployable Expert" in the UK government's Stabilisation Unit. Between 2017 and 2020 he designed and led several major UK government counter-disinformation programmes, including the Open Information Partnership.[1]
An experienced open-source investigator, Ross William David Burley has led investigations into Kremlin influence operations and has been published in the Washington Post, The Telegraph, Politico, Euronews and Vice News.[1]
Centre for Information Resilience
In June 2020 Ross William David Burley co-founded the Centre for Information Resilience with Adam Robert Rutland. As Executive Director he has overseen major programmes in Myanmar, Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan and the Israel–Gaza conflict, collecting and verifying evidence of human rights violations for accountability purposes. CIR has received over £23 million from the FCDO since 2021.[2]
Interactions with The Grayzone
In August 2022, at the Arvamusfestival panel organised by the Estonian Foreign Ministry, Ross William David Burley publicly described The Grayzone as a "Russian propaganda outfit" and called on YouTube and other platforms to ban the outlet and its contributors, including Aaron Maté (referencing a Russell Brand interview) and journalists Patrick Lancaster and Graham Phillips.[3] The Grayzone reported this as part of a British government-linked campaign targeting independent media critical of UK foreign policy.
Personal life
Little public information is available on Ross William David Burley's family background.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Ross Burley.
- ↑ Centre for Information Resilience company records and FCDO spending data.
- ↑ British intelligence is moving to shut down The Grayzone.