How did President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan prevail in the face of a terrible economy, his government’s disastrous handling of the February earthquake, numerous corruption scandals, and a unified opposition? Turkey’s election was partly free, but deeply [...]
What happened in the first round? In Turkey’s first round election held on May 14, tens of millions of voters turned out for both sides. There was intense competition on a playing field that the incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan skewed heavi [...]
Elections in Turkey had high turn-out, meaningful results, and little violence, but that doesn’t mean they were free from autocratic manipulation on the part of the regime. On Sunday, Turkish voters went to the polls in a mostly free but highly unf [...]
In Erdoğan’s Turkey, anti-government trolls get arrested, while pro-government trolls get paychecks. Social media has become a major source of information for Turkish people, thanks in large part to the Turkish government’s strict control of tradit [...]
Executive Summary The greatest threats facing the two most consequential elections in and around Europe in 2023—Turkey in May and Poland in the fall—come from autocratic corruption within these two backsliding democracies. Both these countries are [...]
Earlier today, a court in Turkey sentenced the sitting mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, to two years and seven months in prison for calling members of the Supreme Election Council “idiots” in 2019 after they vacated his first election to the offic [...]
This report highlights and analyzes key trends and takeaways from data collected by the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard during the previous month. Unlike ASD’s weekly Hamilton reports, which analyze the main topics and themes promoted by monitored Russian an [...]
This report highlights and analyzes key trends and takeaways from data collected on the Hamilton 2.0 Dashboard during the previous month. Unlike ASD at GMF’s weekly Hamilton reports, which analyze the main topics and themes promoted by monitored Rus [...]
Prominent British pundits David Miller and Chris Williamson have parlayed accusations of antisemitism into media careers on Tehran’s top English-language propaganda channel. “In this episode of Palestine Declassified, we’ll trace the national origin [...]
This report highlights and analyzes key trends and takeaways from data collected by the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard during the previous month. Unlike ASD’s weekly Hamilton reports, which analyze the main topics and themes promoted by monitored Russian an [...]
In this episode, Rasheed Griffith talks to Bryce Barros, Nathan Kohlenberg, and Etienne Soula about their report about China’s influence over the digital information environment outside of its borders. Related Reading: China and the Digital Informat [...]
Earlier this month, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman announced while on a tour of the Pacific Island states that U.S. President Joe Biden “is looking forward to welcoming” Pacific Leaders in September 2022. Although the exact date of thi [...]
This report highlights and analyzes key trends and takeaways from data collected by the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard during the previous month. Unlike ASD’s weekly Hamilton reports, which analyze the main topics and themes promoted by monitored Russian an [...]
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation, the world’s most powerful authoritarian states, both routinely target dissidents outside their borders because the brittleness of autocracy makes dissident citizens living freely abroa [...]
Top Takeaways The downward spiral of Russian state media on Twitter and Facebook continued in June. Monitored Russian accounts on Twitter saw a 17 percent decline in retweets and an 18 percent decline in likes compared to May, while state media Page [...]
This report highlights and analyzes key trends and takeaways from data collected by the Hamilton 2.0 Dashboard during the previous month. Unlike ASD’s weekly Hamilton reports, which analyze the main topics and themes promoted by monitored Russian an [...]
Introduction The 21st Century started with the promise of how technologies can be used to bolster, not undermine, democracies, activism, and human rights. However, the maddening pace at which digital technologies have evolved in recent years means [...]
For years, the United States has sought to use sanctions to achieve several aims related to Russia, including preventing, deterring, and punishing 1) the strategic corruption that President Vladimir Putin uses to advance Russian foreign policy, 2) h [...]
Introduction States have wielded energy access as a strategic tool since at least the industrial revolution, when the adoption of coal power made energy a resource to be extracted and exported (or not), just like other strategic resources, including [...]
Russia Last week, Kremlin-affiliated messengers pushed combative messaging around the conflict in Ukraine. Russian officials and state media continued to blame the “'collective West’ under the leadership of the USA” for tensions along the Ukrainian [...]
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded outlets continued their media push around the Belarusian-manufactured migrant crisis playing out on the Polish border, resulting in both “border” and “migrant” appearing among the top five most fr [...]
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state media put forward a massive amount of commentary on the migrant crisis taking place on the Belarusian-Polish border. Six of the top ten most frequently used phrases by Russian accounts tracked on Hamilto [...]
Russia Russian officials and state media continued their messaging push around the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference, making the meeting’s abbreviation, COP26, the most used hashtag last week by Moscow-linked accounts monitored on Hamilton 2 [...]
Gulf states engaged in cyber-espionage, hacking, and harassment must not be given carte blanche to poison the cyber-realm simply because they are U.S. security partners. The Justice Department recently announced that three former U.S. intelligence [...]
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded media provided updates on the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Rome. Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend the meeting but delivered a video address that criticized unnamed G20 members for al [...]
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded media disparaged NATO to justify the Kremlin’s move to suspend its permanent mission to the alliance. Moscow’s decision followed NATO’s expulsion of eight members of the Russian mission for allege [...]
Russia Last week, Russian officials and state-funded media continued to push back on accusations that the Kremlin abused its dominance in the European energy market to cause the continent’s gas shortage. Moscow-linked outlets amplified President Vla [...]
Russia Last week, Russian officials and state media focused on the surging gas prices in Europe, which some EU politicians have said stems from Russia manipulating the gas market to speed up the launch of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. State-backed out [...]
The AUKUS agreement between the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom represents an important step towards further integrating Australia into a concerted Pacific defense strategy, while providing U.S. allies with access to technology and [...]
Russia Last week, Russian officials and state media were outraged by YouTube’s decision to take down RT’s German-language channels for violating the platform’s coronavirus misinformation policy. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called YouTube [...]
Russia Last week, Russian officials and state media focused heavily on the UN General Assembly (UNGA), making it the most frequently used phrase on the Moscow-linked Twitter dashboard. Much of the coverage attempted to highlight Russia’s diplomatic [...]
Russia Last week, Russian government officials and state-funded outlets focused heavily on Russia’s parliamentary elections, which were held from Friday to Sunday and resulted in President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party maintaining its majorit [...]
Russia Continuing a weeks-long trend, Afghanistan dominated the outputs of Russian state media last week, with the country registering as the second or third most-mentioned country in videos, tweets, and articles posted by state media accounts and o [...]
Russia Last week, Russian state media and diplomats continued to focus on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s takeover of the country; although, the amount of coverage declined slightly from previous weeks. Kremlin-linked Twitter [...]
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state media continued to provide extensive coverage of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the associated fallout. Russian Twitter accounts monitored on Hamilton 2.0 mentioned Afghanistan more than any ot [...]
Russia Last week, Russian state media and diplomats continued to focus on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, highlighting chaotic scenes on the ground, criticizing the Biden administration’s efforts, and amplifying confusion and tension between t [...]
Russia Last week, Russian state media and diplomats focused heavily on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s campaign to seize control of the country. Alongside coverage of the unfolding chaos and humanitarian crisis, Russian accoun [...]
Russia Last week, Russian state media and diplomats continued to focus heavily on the Tokyo Olympics, celebrating Russian successes and amplifying President Putin’s claim that the ban of Russia’s name, flag, and anthem for violating anti-doping rule [...]
Russia As with most international media outlets, Russian state media outlets focused heavily on coverage of the Tokyo Olympics last week, a topic discussed in more detail in a recently published ASD blog post. They also continued to stoke vaccine sk [...]
Authoritarians have long used international sporting competitions as a platform for advancing political and geopolitical agendas, from using the successes of their athletes to boost national pride to opportunistically leveraging the global spotlight [...]