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.
Hamilton Toplines: November 22–28, 2021
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 [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 15–21, 2021
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 [...]
Divide and Discredit: Russian State-Backed Messaging on Belarusian Migrant Crisis
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has used state resources to traffic migrants from the Middle East and North Africa to the Polish border—manufacturing a humanitarian crisis on the European Union’s eastern edge. It’s a move designed to retali [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 8–14, 2021
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 [...]
Interest Alignment: The Appeal of RT Deutsch with Supporters of the Alternative for Deutschland
The alignment of interests between the German right-wing party, Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), and Russia’s flagship German-language media outlet, RT Deutsch, is both well-documented and unsurprising, given the Kremlin’s penchant for supporting [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 1–November 7, 2021
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 [...]
With Friends Like These
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 [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 25–31, 2021
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 [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 18–24, 2021
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 [...]
The German Elections Dashboard in September 2021: Foreign Election Coverage and RT Deutsch’s YouTube Ban
September was an important month for German politics with the federal elections taking place on September 26. Our pre-election analysis demonstrated the reach of and bias in Russian coverage ahead of the elections. Both before and after the election [...]
Bret Schafer on NPR: How China Spreads Misinformation Around the World
Early last year when U.S. health experts looked into the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China — either accidentally or on purpose — Chinese propaganda-makers responded. They amplified rumors that the virus came from the United States [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 11–17, 2021
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 [...]