July saw a continuation of foreign actors’ active engagement in German online political discourse through state-backed media and diplomatic accounts. As in previous months, Russian actors put a particular emphasis on disseminating anti-vaccination n [...]
Russia Last week, Russian state media and diplomats focused heavily on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s campaign to seize control of the country. Alongside coverage of the unfolding chaos and humanitarian crisis, Russian accoun [...]
Disinformation, especially coming from Russia, is a growing problem. The goal: destabilize democracy. Explore the German Election Dashboard. [...]
Lindsay Gorman details China’s data ambitions with a particular eye to how they relate to emerging technology goals associated with AI. She then discusses how these efforts complicate democratic values in cyberspace and analyzes options for how demo [...]
Russia Last week, Russian state media and diplomats continued to focus heavily on the Tokyo Olympics, celebrating Russian successes and amplifying President Putin’s claim that the ban of Russia’s name, flag, and anthem for violating anti-doping rule [...]
Why It Matters After 16 years of government under Chancellor Angela Merkel and 8 years in a so-called “grand coalition” between the CDU/CSU and the SPD, it is all but certain that the federal elections in September will bring a change in government [...]
Russia As with most international media outlets, Russian state media outlets focused heavily on coverage of the Tokyo Olympics last week, a topic discussed in more detail in a recently published ASD blog post. They also continued to stoke vaccine sk [...]
Authoritarians have long used international sporting competitions as a platform for advancing political and geopolitical agendas, from using the successes of their athletes to boost national pride to opportunistically leveraging the global spotlight [...]
Russia The announcement of a U.S.-Germany deal on Nord Stream 2 last week provoked some criticism from Russian diplomats, who objected to the agreement’s “hostile” stance toward Russia. RIA Novosti also ran at least a couple of articles highlighting [...]
ASD's Nad’a Kovalčíková and Globsec's Dominika Hajdu and Miroslava Sawiris present the Alliance for Healthy Infosphere's Ten Transatlantic Principles for a Healthy Online Information Space. The U.S. Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, fueled by dis [...]
Germany’s upcoming federal election in September is not only important for the German people but can be an alluring target for foreign and domestic actors seeking to influence the future trajectory of the country or seeking to undermine democratic p [...]
Russia In coverage of the anti-government protests in Cuba, Russian state media amplified calls to end the U.S. embargo on the country and Cuban officials’ accusations that U.S.-funded mercenaries are fomenting the protests. The Russian Foreign Mini [...]
What We’re Seeing on the 2021 German Elections Dashboard In June, as in previous months, foreign state-backed media and diplomatic accounts actively engaged in online German political discourses, at times manipulating information. Russian actors con [...]
What becomes of a Kremlin troll farm when its fake accounts are repeatedly taken down? It sheds its skin and morphs into something new, all while continuing its efforts to bend public opinion towards a Putinesque view of the world. Since its much-pu [...]
Russian state media and diplomats extensively covered the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last week, with Afghanistan ranking as the third most mentioned country and “Taliban” as one of the top 10 key phrases by monitored accounts. Notable narrativ [...]
Since Washington launched the Wuhan lab leak investigation, Beijing has been pushing bizarre narratives. When the Biden administration announced it would reexamine the theory that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab, Beijing’s response was deny an [...]
Russian diplomatic accounts and state media widely promoted an article (English translation, Kommersant link) by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, pulling out various excerpts from the piece, including claims that the West is “imposing” its va [...]
What We're Seeing on the 2021 German Elections Dashboard Russia Covid-19 Following April’s trend, Russian state-backed actors continued their extensive coverage of coronavirus-related topics. Six of the seven most watched YouTube videos from RT Deu [...]
Russian state media last week predictably decried the U.S. takedown of websites linked to Iranian propaganda, including Press TV, as an attack on free speech and evidence that the United States is selective about its commitment to safeguarding a fre [...]
Covid-19 vaccines and “mask diplomacy” have been the centerpieces of many countries’ soft power strategies over the past year. Early in the pandemic, countries like Russia and China sought to use shipments of personal protective equipment (PPE) and [...]
A prominent topic for the Russian state media ecosystem last week was the June 16 Biden-Putin summit in Geneva, Switzerland. Russian state media and diplomatic accounts on Twitter put out Page Six-style, celebrity event coverage of the meeting venue [...]
Overview Throughout President Biden’s first overseas trip as president—one that saw him attend the 47th G7 Summit in the United Kingdom, the 2021 NATO Brussels Summit and EU-U.S. Summit in Belgium, and a tête-à-tête with Russia President Vladimir Pu [...]
Cybersecurity Fellow Maurice Turner led a conversation on making cyberspace safe for democracy at the German Marshall Fund's Brussels Forum. He was joined Mieke Eoyang, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy at the U.S. Departmen [...]
A notable narrative in Russian state media coverage of (and limited diplomatic reactions to) the G7 summit and related meetings was that the G7 is outdated, pointless, hypocritical, or exclusive, especially for not including China. State media also [...]
Head of Policy and Research Jessica Brandt led a conversation on democratic competition with autocracies at GMF's Brussels Forum. She was joined by U.S. Senator Ben Cardin; National Institute for Civil Discourse Executive Director Carolyn J. Lukensm [...]
Program Manager and Fellow Nad’a Kovalčíková led a discussion on how and why NATO member states can build up their democratic, societal, and economic resilience at NATO 2030 at Brussels Forum with U.S. Representative Gerald Connolly; Tania Latici, a [...]
President Biden’s trip to demonstrate “America’s renewed commitment to our allies and partners” and showcase “the capacity of democracies to both meet the challenges and deter the threats” culminates with a one-on-one meeting between Biden and Russi [...]
Last week, Russian state media provided substantial coverage of controversies surrounding the release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails and renewed U.S. interest in investigating the origins of the coronavirus. State media amplified domestic criticisms [...]
For years, Alexander Lukashenko has been a problem frequently discussed but easily forgotten. When Belarus forced Ryanair flight FR4978 to land in Minsk and arrested Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega, it took away the freedom and security not only [...]
After Belarusian authorities forced a Ryanair plane to land in Minsk on May 23 and arrested opposition journalist Roman Protasevich, who was a passenger on the flight, Russian state media and diplomats strongly criticized Western responses to the in [...]
A suspicious agency offered European influencers money to spread negative publicity about the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. Research Assistant Etienne Soula spoke to L'Express about the similarities between this information manipulation attempt and Ru [...]
March and April Monitoring: Russian State-Backed Media ASD and GMF analyzed data from the German Elections Dashboard to understand the narratives that state-backed actors are pushing ahead of the German federal elections in September. In March and [...]
Last week, Russian state media continued to highlight incidents of police brutality during the protests in Colombia and related human rights concerns, though the volume of such content continued to taper off from its peak the first week of May. (On [...]
Senior Fellow Kristine Berzina spoke to German outlet RND about our new German Election Dashboard and Russia's information manipulation operations in Germany around the election and the coronavirus. Please click the link below to read the full artic [...]
Overview Over the past ten days, renewed violence in Israel and the Palestinian Territories has become a major story in the global news cycle. Russia, China, and Iran have each devoted significant coverage to the situation, but Chinese diplomats and [...]
Alexander KAFFKA, editor-in-chief of Caucasian Journal: Dear Laura, it is always a pleasure to meet you – virtually for the time being, but maybe also in person before long: I know that you are planning to be back to Georgia soon. You have worked i [...]
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a major story for Russian state media last week, with #Palestine the most frequently used topical hashtag by Russia’s Twitter accounts tracked on Hamilton, and Israel tied with Russia for the most-mentioned count [...]
Media and Digital Disinformation Fellow Bret Schafer joined "The Inoculation" to discuss Russia's disinformation and mal-information campaign around Western Covid-19 vaccines. Bret, the hosts, and other guests take a look at how the Russian governm [...]
In this episode of the Election Cybersecurity Initiative Podcast, host Adam Clayton Powell III speaks with Maurice Turner, Cybersecurity Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy. They discuss the latest developments in cybersecurity such as Ar [...]
Russian state media predictably used the Facebook Oversight Board’s ruling to uphold the company’s previous decision to ban former President Trump from the platform to advance its usual Big Tech censorship narrative and amplify Trump’s anti-Big Tech [...]