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.
Linking Values and Strategy: How Democracies Can Offset Autocratic Advances
In mid-2020, the Alliance for Securing Democracy convened a task force of 30 leading American national security and foreign policy experts to devise a national strategy for the United States to offset autocratic advances in non-military domains of [...]
Zack Cooper in Real Clear World: How to Respond to China’s Information Warfare
Co-Director Zack Cooper and AEI Researcher Aine Tyrrell argue that reciprocity plays into the Chinese Communist Party’s hands in three key ways. Last week, the State Department designated six media entities operating in the United States as foreign [...]
Bret Schafer Discusses Online Election Disinformation on WLVT
Media and Digital Disinformation Fellow Bret Schafer spoke to WLVT's about disinformation on social media ahead of the 2020 election. Last month, the FBI posted a warning on its website, stating that cybercriminals and foreign actors will use soci [...]
Jessica Brandt and Bret Schafer for Brookings: How China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomats Use and Abuse Twitter
A little more than a year ago, China had almost no diplomatic presence on Twitter. A handful of accounts, many representing far-flung diplomatic outposts, operated without apparent coordination or direction from Beijing. Today, the work of Chinese d [...]
Clint Watts Discusses Foreign Interference in 2020 Election on ‘Intelligence Matters’
In this episode of Intelligence Matters, host Michael Morell interviews former FBI Special Agent Clint Watts, current Distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Non-Resident Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democra [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 17-23, 2020
The final U.S. presidential debate provided significant fodder for Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media to criticize the current state of U.S. democracy. Russian state media provided the most extensive coverage of the debate, with the majority [...]
Bret Schafer Discusses Foreign Disinformation Efforts Ahead of the Election on Florida’s WPTV
Media and Digital Disinformation Fellow Bret Schafer spoke to WPTV about malign foreign actors' attempts to use local news outlets to spread disinformation ahead of elections. Schafer told Contact 5 one technique foreign actors use is to tag legit [...]
Laura Rosenberger and Lindsay Gorman in Lawfare: Foreign Interference is a Strategy, Not a Tactic
Geopolitics over the next several decades will be defined by competition between democracies and autocracies. This contest is already playing out across the military, economic and diplomatic domains—and in the information arena as well. As former Pr [...]
Laura Rosenberger in Foreign Affairs: The Real Threat of Foreign Interference Comes After Election Day
With just days to go before the U.S. presidential election, Americans are once again scrolling through news feeds full of stories about foreign operations that seek to undermine their country’s electoral process. Some of the reports raise questions [...]
Ariane Tabatabai in the Washington Post: Iran’s goal is to undermine democracy. Americans shouldn’t take the bait.
On Wednesday night, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe called a news conference to warn Americans that foreign adversaries were actively interfering in the U.S. elections. Ratcliffe noted that two countries, Russia and Iran, have launc [...]
Rachael Dean Wilson on Foreign Interference in the Election with Spectrum News
Head of External Affairs Rachael Dean Wilson spoke to Spectrum News after the DNI announced Iran and Russia are attempting to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election. “It’s very easy to get sucked into this trap of which country is trying to support whi [...]
Bret Schafer Talks Platforms’ Response to Unverified Information on Newsy
Social media's attempt to stop false information around a New York Post story on Joe Biden and his son has left them open to censorship allegations. "Content moderation didn't work here, even if if you look at it as the only go goal is to stop the s [...]