Ten months after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Club de Periodistas de México (The Club of Journalists of Mexico) bestowed awards upon three journalists from RT, a Russian state-owned media outlet, for their international coverage [...]
Though Russian news media celebrated an "upcoming victory" after the US-Russian summit in Anchorage, Alaska, state-backed media and Russian officials laid the informational groundwork to shift blame to Ukraine and Europe if negotiations stall, go in [...]
Since his first day returning to office, US President Donald Trump has pushed forward on campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration and secure the southern US border. Trump’s tough stance on immigration has been contentious among America [...]
Introduction Threat actors increasingly operate across national boundaries, but information-operation detection rarely extends beyond single-language analysis, leaving blind spots in multilingual and visual domains. This focus on textual narratives [...]
Ukraine’s recent “Spider’s Web” operation surprised the Kremlin and sent shockwaves from targeted military airfields to destinations far away from the frontline. Even though the final number of destroyed and damaged military planes decreased by half [...]
That Russian state media outlets have developed varied ways to circumvent EU sanctions to continue reaching audiences in Europe is well documented. The methods often include the use of mirror sites, or identical copies of Russian state media website [...]
Dubbing it “Operation Rising Lion”, Israel has launched widespread airstrikes across Iran, hitting key nuclear facilities and killing several military commanders and intensifying decades of hostilities between Tehran and Tel Aviv. Given Iran’s long- [...]
ASD researchers Krystyna Sikora and Peter Benzoni told Factchequeado how Russian messaging differed depending on whether the Kremlin wrote in English or Spanish in response to protests in Los Angeles, California about US President Donald Trump's imm [...]
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 [...]
In this expert-led webinar, Bret Schafer of the Alliance for Securing Democracy joined Dr. Robert English, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, to explore how foreign influence operations are evolv [...]
The World Affairs Council of Charlotte held an exclusive lunch event on Thursday, May 29 featuring ASD experts who unpacked how countries like Russia, China, and Iran are actively shaping public discourse and influencing communities in North Carolin [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Just before their 2024 presidential election, 58% of American voters said that the US political system needs a major overhaul. Another survey revealed that only 4% described the system as working “very well” or “extremely well”, and fewer than a qua [...]
Last week, devastating wildfires ignited across Los Angeles County in what is one of the most destructive natural disasters in US history. But as firefighters continue to battle the flames, false and misleading information about the disaster has spr [...]
Senior Fellow Bret Schafer joined NBC News to react to Meta's decision to change its fact-checking policy in the United States. watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the author alone. [...]
The US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) detailed charges against Iranian operatives involved in the plot to assassinate Donald Trump during the recent presidential campaign should dispel any skepticism about US national security threats emanating from [...]
This year’s US election cycle was marked by increasingly brazen attempts by foreign actors to interfere and influence voters. Iran orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump and successfully accessed documents fr [...]
The Kremlin is known for testing disinformation strategies in its “backyard” before applying them globally. Last week in Moldova, the presidential election and constitutional referendum on EU membership presented Russia with such an opportunity. Rus [...]
Senior Fellow Bret Schafer joined CNN to discuss the evolving information space around the 2024 US election, including false, manipulated videos of alleged election irregularities which have been traced back to Russian threat actors. watch here [...]
In May, ASD, along with our partners at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the University of Amsterdam (UvA), published a report documenting roughly 400 domains that had published identical or nearly identical copies of articles original [...]
Two years on from the 2022 US midterm elections, TikTok continues to serve as a platform candidates use to try to reach voters. According to a new report from the Technology Program and the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund [...]
Influencers and content creators play a critical role in today’s information environment as opinion makers and trusted voices. As a result, influencers and their online communities have become targets for malign actors seeking to undermine confidenc [...]
In the polarized political landscape of the United States, few words carry as much weight or evoke as much passion as “democracy”. As the cornerstone of American political identity, democracy is both revered and contested by citizens across the ideo [...]
The decentralized nature of election administration in the United States means that every state—and even election jurisdiction—has its own rules for voting and ballot counting. In 2020, variances in election procedures were misconstrued, and in some [...]
Generative AI programs can be used to churn out content parroting false narratives within seconds and produce sophisticated fake images, videos, and audio that are increasingly indistinguishable from authentic material. The widespread accessibility [...]
The complexities of the information space are eroding trust in election processes. The information space, where Americans work, learn, engage, and entertain themselves online, is increasingly opaque and fragmented. The major social media platforms h [...]
Investigative Data and Research Analyst Peter Benzoni spoke to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty about a recent Russian online information campaign in the Balkans. read more here The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views [...]
Co-Managing Director Rachael Dean Wilson spoke at a panel discussion at the McCain Institute about the release of a report entitled "Defending American Democracy in the Digital Age". watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and comment [...]
Senior Fellow Bret Schafer discussed the US Department of Justice's recent indictment of two RT employees for funneling millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based media company. watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are [...]
In May 2024, ASD, along with our partners at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the University of Amsterdam, published a report documenting roughly 400 domains—ranging from mirror sites and content aggregators to faux local news outlets and si [...]
Senior Fellow Bret Schafer joined CNN to discuss the DOJ's recent indictment of two RT employees for financing Russian disinformation in the United States. watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the au [...]
Senior Fellow Bret Schafer joined FOX 8 Live to discuss the impact of AI-generated disinformation on elections and how local and state election officials can best prepare for it. read more here The views expressed in GMF publications and comment [...]