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Key Findings from the New Hamilton 2.0 Dashboard
Since 2019, the Alliance for Securing Democracy at GMF has operated the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard, an online tool to track messaging originating from Chinese, Iranian, and Russian state media and government officials. In its time, the dashboard collected several million data points, mostly but not exclusively from Twitter (now X). However, in July 2023, X removed access to its API for the Alliance for Securing Democracy as part of its policy change to end free API access for academics and other researchers. This decision, coupled with an increasingly fragmented social media landscape, forced a rethink and a redesign of the dashboard. Today, we are releasing the latest iteration of Hamilton 2
The Alliance for Securing Democracy Expands Hamilton 2.0 Dashboard to Include Iran
THE ALLIANCE FOR SECURING DEMOCRACY EXPANDS HAMILTON 2.0 DASHBOARD TO INCLUDE IRAN Interactive tool tracks official Iranian messaging and information manipulation on topics like COVID-19 and U.S. protests Contact: Rachael Dean Wilson or Kayla Goodson, Alliance for Securing Democracy, press@securingdemocracy.org Washington, D.C. – The Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States today expanded the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard to include the tracking of Iranian government-backed messaging and narratives promoted on social media and state-sponsored websites. The interactive, publicly accessible dashboard captures content from more than 200 Iranian diplomatic
Hamilton 2.0 Findings Featured in CBS News
In recent months, China has significantly expanded its official presence on western social media platforms and moved toward a "Russian style" of spreading disinformation. CBS News' Olivia Gazis looked at some of ASD's preliminary findings from the expanded Hamilton 2.0 dashboard.
The Alliance for Securing Democracy Expands Hamilton 2.0 Dashboard to Include China
THE ALLIANCE FOR SECURING DEMOCRACY EXPANDS HAMILTON 2.0 DASHBOARD TO INCLUDE CHINA Interactive tool tracks official Chinese messaging and information manipulation on topics like COVID-19 Contact: Rachael Dean-Wilson or Kayla Goodson, press@securingdemocracy.org Washington, D.C. – The Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States today expanded the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard to include the tracking of Chinese government-backed information operations on social media, state-sponsored information websites, YouTube, and via official diplomatic channels. The interactive, publicly accessible dashboard captures content from more than 150 Chinese diplomatic and
Hamilton 2.0 – Analysis 3 – Why the Jeffrey Epstein saga was the Russian government-funded media’s top story of 2019
Overview In a year featuring a presidential impeachment, Brexit, mass protests in Hong Kong, and widespread geopolitical turmoil, few topics dominated the Russian government-funded media landscape quite like the arrest and subsequent suicide of billionaire financier and serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In its year-end review, RT named the Epstein saga “2019’s major scandal,” and RT UK media personality George Galloway listed it as his number one “truth bomb” of the year (ahead of all the aforementioned events). Given the lack of any notable connection between Epstein and Russian interests, the focus on Epstein highlights the Kremlin’s clear prioritization of content mean
Hamilton 2.0 – Analysis 2 – Syrian Victory Lap
Overview On October 6, President Trump announced a U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria, leading to a week-long Turkish offensive against the Syrian Kurds. Since the announcement, Russian media and diplomats have doubled-down on their Syria coverage, hammering the United States for being an unreliable ally and, later, for “state banditry” in seizing Syrian oilfields. At the same time, Russian messengers celebrated the U.S. decision, framing it as the end of the United States’ “colonial occupation” in the Middle East and a clear victory for Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation. By the Numbers Between October 6 and November 11, Russian diplomatic and media Twitter acco
Hamilton 2.0 – Analysis 1 – Revisionist History
Overview The Russian government under Vladimir Putin has engaged in a prolonged effort to create a version of Russian history free “from internal contradictions and ambiguities.” But attempts to airbrush Russian history have recently become a messaging priority for Russia’s diplomatic and government messengers abroad as well, as evidenced by a recent Twitter campaign targeting #WWII historical narratives. The campaign – now in its 6th week – highlights the Russian government’s weaponization of historical memory in its ongoing information war with the West. What We're Seeing on Hamilton 2.0 Over the past month, diplomatic accounts monitored on the dashboard have engaged
Hamilton 2.0 Methodology & FAQs
How to Interpret Hamilton 2.0 Hamilton 2.0 displays outputs from sources that we can directly attribute to the Russian, Chinese, or Iranian governments or their various news and information channels. These channels and accounts often engage with topics, hashtags, URLs, and people that are in no way affiliated with the Russian, Chinese, or Iranian government. It would therefore be INCORRECT to, without further analysis, label anyone or anything that appears on the dashboard as being connected to state-backed propaganda. Note – The dashboard uses natural language processing and other machine learning and auto-translation tools to extract key information from the data. Although highly a
FACT SHEET: Hamilton 68 Dashboard (2017-2018)
The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) began hosting the Hamilton 68 dashboard in August 2017 to track Russian influence operations on Twitter. By analyzing a dynamic list of more than 600 Twitter accounts linked, wittingly or unwittingly, to Russian influence activities online, the dashboard provided a window into Russian propaganda and disinformation efforts online. A little over a year later, in December 2018, ASD discontinued the dashboard as it shifted its approach to analyze the overt information space by tracking official and state-backed social media accounts from Russia, China and Iran. Recent reporting on Hamilton disregards the dashboard’s published methodology, Hamilton 6
Hamilton Toplines: Jan 11–17, 2023
Hamilton 2.0 is an interactive tool that monitors the outputs of Chinese and Russian state media and government officials across a range of social media platforms. The weekly report provides a summary analysis of the most salient topics and narratives promoted by state-backed actors during the specified date range. Russia Monitored Russian accounts tweeted 16,051 times from January 11 to January 17, generating 112,703 retweets and 390,259 likes. War in Ukraine Kremlin-linked media shared a range of theories about a helicopter crash near Kyiv that killed more than a dozen people, including Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs. The crash happened outside of the timeframe for this rep