Atlantic Council: Operation Carthage: How a Tunisian company conducted influence operations in African presidential elections. “A Tunisia-based company operated a sophisticated digital campaign involving multiple social media platforms and websites in an attempt to influence the country’s 2019 presidential election, as well as other recent elections in Africa. In an exclusive investigation that began in September 2019, the DFRLab uncovered dozens of online assets with connections to Tunisian digital communications firm UReputation.”
propaganda
Wired: How to Spot Phony Images and Online Propaganda
Wired: How to Spot Phony Images and Online Propaganda. “Now anyone with a halfway decent smartphone can alter an image or a video well enough that it would fool most at first glance, and propaganda works more by innuendo and analogy than patriotic morality plays. No wonder well-intentioned people are so easily misled.”
Twitter Blog: Disclosing networks of state-linked information operations we’ve removed
Twitter Blog: Disclosing networks of state-linked information operations we’ve removed. “Today we are disclosing 32,242 accounts to our archive of state-linked information operations — the only one of its kind in the industry. The account sets we’re publishing to the archive today include three distinct operations that we have attributed to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Russia, and Turkey respectively. Every account and piece of content associated with these operations has been permanently removed from the service.”
The Politic: Internet Bots are Taking Over Politics—and Social Media Companies Can’t Stop Them
The Politic: Internet Bots are Taking Over Politics—and Social Media Companies Can’t Stop Them. “A recent Carnegie Mellon report found that almost half of all the tweets using this #ReopenAmerica came from bots, leading me to wonder how these bots continue to infiltrate our social media in such an unstoppable manner. So, I decided to make my own.”
Reuters: Facebook takes down white nationalist and fake antifa accounts
Reuters: Facebook takes down white nationalist and fake antifa accounts. “Facebook Inc (FB.O) said Tuesday it has suspended accounts associated with white nationalist groups after some advocated bringing weapons to the current wave of anti-racist protests. Company officials also said they removed accounts falsely claiming allegiance to antifa in order to bring discredit to the anti-fascist movement.”
New York Times: Misinformation About George Floyd Protests Surges on Social Media
New York Times: Misinformation About George Floyd Protests Surges on Social Media. “Untruths, conspiracy theories and other false information are running rampant online as the furor over Mr. Floyd, an African-American man who was killed last week in police custody in Minneapolis, has built. The misinformation has surged as the protests have dominated conversation, far outpacing the volume of online posts and media mentions about last year’s protests in Hong Kong and Yellow Vest movement in France, according to the media insights company Zignal Labs.”
The Washington Post: You are probably spreading misinformation. Here’s how to stop.
The Washington Post: You are probably spreading misinformation. Here’s how to stop.. “First came the pandemic. Now we’re facing an infodemic. Misinformation from so-called trolls, bots and other online agitators is spiking about the death of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests, following a tsunami of falsehoods about the coronavirus. And the people who care most intensely about those issues may be inadvertently spreading it further — a hard-learned lesson from social media meddling in the 2016 and 2018 elections. To avoid being taken advantage of, we need to learn their ways — and learn some new techniques of our own to challenge what we see on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Reddit and Nextdoor. Whether you’re 16 or 60, spending a few seconds to do the things I list below can help keep you from becoming a tool in someone else’s information war.”
BBC: Facebook removes ‘inauthentic’ George Floyd groups
BBC: Facebook removes ‘inauthentic’ George Floyd groups. “BBC News had highlighted some suspicious groups had switched their focus to call for justice for the black man killed in police custody. Some, run by accounts seemingly based in Vietnam or Bangladesh, had posted misleading images. And others had previously focused on coronavirus, 5G conspiracies and support for US President Donald Trump. A Facebook spokesman said it had ‘removed the vast majority of them, for violating our policies’.”
Motherboard: Local News Stations Run Propaganda Segment Scripted and Produced by Amazon
Motherboard: Local News Stations Run Propaganda Segment Scripted and Produced by Amazon. “Local news stations across the U.S. aired a segment produced and scripted by Amazon which touts the company’s role in delivering essential groceries and cleaning products during the COVID-19 pandemic, and its ability to do so while ‘keeping its employees safe and healthy.'”
NBC: China launches new Twitter accounts, 90,000 tweets in COVID-19 info war
NBC News: China launches new Twitter accounts, 90,000 tweets in COVID-19 info war. “China has launched a Twitter offensive in the COVID-19 information war, more than doubling its number of official government tweets since January and in recent days using the platform to spread a conspiracy theory that the virus came from a U.S. government lab.”
BloombergQuint: China’s Disinformation Campaign Targets Virus, Researcher Says
BloombergQuint: China’s Disinformation Campaign Targets Virus, Researcher Says. “An army of bot accounts linked to an alleged Chinese government-backed propaganda campaign is spreading disinformation on social media about coronavirus and other topics, including an exiled businessman, according to a London-based researcher. The accounts have been used to promote content attacking critics of the Chinese government and to spread conspiracy theories blaming the U.S. for the origins of virus, according to Benjamin Strick, who specializes in analyzing information operations on social media websites.”
New York Times: Chinese Agents Helped Spread Messages That Sowed Virus Panic in U.S., Officials Say
New York Times: Chinese Agents Helped Spread Messages That Sowed Virus Panic in U.S., Officials Say. “The officials interviewed for this article work in six different agencies. They included both career civil servants and political appointees, and some have spent many years analyzing China. Their broader warnings about China’s spread of disinformation are supported by recent findings from outside bipartisan research groups, including the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the Center for a New American Security, which is expected to release a report on the topic next month.”
State report: Russian, Chinese and Iranian disinformation narratives echo one another (Politico)
Politico: State report: Russian, Chinese and Iranian disinformation narratives echo one another. “China, Iran and Russia are using the coronavirus crisis to launch a propaganda and disinformation onslaught against the United States, the State Department warns in a new report. The three governments are pushing a host of matching messages: that the novel coronavirus is an American bioweapon, that the U.S. is scoring political points off the crisis, that the virus didn’t come from China, that U.S. troops spread it, that America’s sanctions are killing Iranians, that China’s response was great while the U.S.’ was negligent, that all three governments are managing the crisis well, and that the U.S. economy can’t bear the toll of the virus.”
Meet ‘Sara’, ‘Sharon’ and ‘Mel’: why people spreading coronavirus anxiety on Twitter might actually be bots (The Conversation)
The Conversation:
EurekAlert: Russian trolls on Twitter polarized vaccination during 2016 election cycle
EurekAlert: Russian trolls on Twitter polarized vaccination during 2016 election cycle. “During the 2016 election cycle, politically polarizing tweets by Russian trolls about vaccination included pro- and anti-vaccination messages targeted at people with specific political inclinations through an assortment of fake persona types, according to a new analysis published this month.”
