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.
Information Manipulation
Thinning the ICE: Russian and Chinese Messaging on the Los Angeles Protests
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
Following the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles this year, Russian state media leveraged the disaster to sow division and undermine trust in relief efforts. While it may be easy to dismiss foreign interference as a federal concern, foreign advers [...]
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 [...]
Digital Threats and Propaganda: How North Carolina and Other States are Targeted by Foreign Actors
Join the World Affairs Council of Charlotte for an exclusive lunch event on Thursday, May 29, featuring experts from the Alliance for Securing Democracy, as they unpack how countries like Russia, China, and Iran are actively shaping public discourse [...]
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 [...]
Vassilis Ntousas Moderates GMF Discussion on EU Responses to Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference
Foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) is a growing threat to democracies worldwide, with social media platforms as prime battlegrounds. In Europe, domestic and foreign malign actors engage in information operations aimed at underm [...]
Searching for Geopolitical Direction: The Sources Russian and Romanian Speakers Encountered on Search Engines Prior to Moldova’s 2024 Votes
Since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Moldova has oscillated between East and West, or between closer ties with Russia or the EU. Last fall, the country faced this existential question once again. Moldovans went to the polls to selec [...]
Media Vassalage: How Venezuela’s TeleSUR Acts as Russia and China’s Information-Laundering Front
After a contested July presidential election in which Nicolás Maduro claimed victory with 51% of the vote—amid allegations of irregularities, limited oversight, and too few international observers—Venezuela was thrown into turmoil. The Carter Center [...]
No Bahn on RT: How RT Deutsch Stays on Track Despite Content Bans
This is part two of a two-part series on how RT Deutsch content is evading domain bans and sanctions published in partnership with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Find part one here. Germans head to the polls on Sunday not only to decide who [...]
The State(s) of Foreign Information Operations: A State-by-State Look at Foreign Information Manipulation in the United States
Introduction It is easy to dismiss foreign information operations as playing out at the national level, designed to influence federal policymakers and Beltway insiders. But these threats transcend the “Beltway Bubble”. Increasingly, foreign nation [...]
What is TV BRICS? The Sanctions-Linked, Russia-Backed Influence Broker
TV BRICS, a Russian-registered media outlet dedicated to covering the founding BRICS+ countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), as well as BRICS+ candidate states, has largely flown under the radar of Russian media analysts. TV BRI [...]