Authoritarian regimes and their proxies use social media, other online information platforms, and traditional media to attempt to shape global and domestic narratives; to sow chaos and confusion in democracies; and to undermine democratic processes. Find ASD’s work on the many ways malign actors manipulate information to interfere in democracies, including by spreading disinformation, on this page.
Cross-Border Communication: How Russian State Media Sends Mixed Signals on Trump’s Border Policies in English and Spanish
Since his first day returning to office, US President Donald Trump has pushed forward on campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration and secure the southern US border. Trump’s tough stance on immigration has been undoubtedly contentious a [...]
Who’s Reusing Russian State Media’s Images?
Introduction Threat actors increasingly operate across national boundaries, but information-operation detection rarely extends beyond single-language analysis, leaving blind spots in multilingual and visual domains. This focus on textual narratives [...]
Caught in the Spider’s Web: Military Bloggers Revealed Gaps in Russia’s Military and Information Defense
Ukraine’s recent operation, named “Spider’s Web”, took the Kremlin by surprise and sent shockwaves from targeted military airfields to destinations far away from the frontline. Even though the final number of destroyed and damaged military planes de [...]
Catch Me If EU Can: How RT and Sputnik Evade EU Content Bans
That Russian state media outlets have developed varied ways to circumvent EU sanctions to continue reaching audiences in Europe is well documented. The methods often include the use of mirror sites, or identical copies of Russian state media website [...]
Taming the Rising Lion: Alignment of Iranian, Russian, and Chinese Narratives on the Israel-Iran Conflict
Dubbing it “Operation Rising Lion”, Israel has launched widespread airstrikes across Iran, hitting key nuclear facilities and killing several military commanders and intensifying decades of hostilities between Tehran and Tel Aviv. Given Iran’s long- [...]
Russia’s Messages in English and Spanish Differ on Los Angeles Protests, Krystyna Sikora and Peter Benzoni Tell Factchequeado (in Spanish)
ASD researchers Krystyna Sikora and Peter Benzoni told Factchequeado how Russian messaging differed depending on whether the Kremlin wrote in English or Spanish in response to protests in Los Angeles, California about US President Donald Trump's imm [...]
Europe’s Moment of Truth: A Democracy Shield for Today and Tomorrow
Executive Summary Democracy in Europe is under growing pressure. Authoritarian regimes like Russia and the People’s Republic of China are conducting increasingly sophisticated foreign interference campaigns that blend information manipulation, cyb [...]
Foreign Information Operations Targeting California and Other States
In this expert-led webinar, Bret Schafer of the Alliance for Securing Democracy joined Dr. Robert English, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, to explore how foreign influence operations are evolv [...]
Digital Threats and Propaganda: How North Carolina and Other States are Targeted by Foreign Actors
The World Affairs Council of Charlotte held an exclusive lunch event on Thursday, May 29 featuring ASD experts who unpacked how countries like Russia, China, and Iran are actively shaping public discourse and influencing communities in North Carolin [...]
New Proxy, Same as the Old Proxy: Key Sites of Russia’s Covert Influence in Poland
Poland was one of the first countries to take steps to curb Russian propaganda in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Days after the invasion, Poland’s broadcasting regulator banned five Russian outlets—including RT and Sputnik—on c [...]
Venezuela Through the Sino-Russian Media Playbook
Russia and China’s information operations in Venezuela have been extensively discussed and documented. Their media strategy has involved forming partnerships with ideologically aligned national and regional outlets such as TeleSUR, promoting revisio [...]
The Invisible Battlefield
The EU must make information warfare a core defense priority. With high-level summits, new initiatives, and massive spending commitments dominating headlines, the EU appears poised for a collective Zeitenwende in defense. Its exact contours remain u [...]