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The Terror Times: The Depth and Breadth of the Islamic State Alternative News Outlet Ecosystem Online

Moustafa Ayad, Nadeem Khan, Aymenn Al-Tamimi

London et al.: Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) (2022), 21 pp.

"This report highlights the networks, supporters, and the platforms of Islamic State disinformation disseminators, focusing on popular social media platforms as well as encrypted messaging applications. These disinformation networks are creating self-branded media outlets with followers in the tens ... more

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Addressing COVID-19 Rumors and Behaviors Using Theory in Guyana: A Program Case Study

Bolanle Olapeju, Camille Adams, Joann Simpson, Lyndsey Mitchum, Sean Wilson

Global Health: Science and Practice, volume 10, issue 4 (2022), 11 pp.

"To manage the rapid rise of misleading information on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during the pandemic, the Breakthrough ACTION project developed a theory-based rumortracking system to inform Guyana’s COVID-19 communication campaign. The rumor-tracking project used the extended parallel pro ... more

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Protecting the truth: Peace operations and disinformation

Monika Benkler, Annika S. Hansen, Lilian Reichert

Berlin: Center for International Peace Operations (2022), 18 pp.

"This study discusses how and to what extent peace operations are affected by digital disinformation and how international organisations (UN, EU, OSCE and NATO) as mandating bodies for peace operations have responded to limit the effect of disinformation or even prevent it. Based on this assessment ... more

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Policy responses to false and misleading digital content: A snapshot of children’s media literacy

Jordan Hill

Paris: OECD (2022), 81 pp.

"This paper has four parts. First, it outlines current research and definitions relating to false and misleading digital content and looks at children's behaviour in the digital environment. Second, the concepts of media literacy, digital literacy and other relevant competencies are discussed. Third ... more

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The Kremlin's Troll Network Never Sleeps: Inauthentic Pro-Kremlin Online Behavior on Facebook in Germany, Italy, Romania and Hungary

Lóránt Gyori, Csaba Molnár, Péter Krekó, Patrik Szicherle et al.

Budapest: Political Capital Institute (2022), 36 pp.

"The research – based on programmatic text-mining supported analyses of several millions of war-related comments scraped by Sentione and further examined with CrowdTangle - found traces of inauthentic, repetitive pro-Kremlin activity on Facebook in all countries under review, which can be consider ... ed attempts to influence public opinion in the affected states and, in some cases, beyond them. Our main conclusions are: Crises help the Kremlin. Even if public opinion in the EU is currently unfavorable to the Kremlin, the onset of high, permanent inflation, soaring energy prices and the looming danger of an EU-wide recession could create a more favorable environment for the Kremlin’s propaganda efforts. Most (covertly) Kremlin-friendly forces will adopt a rhetoric blasting sanctions for harming Europe more than Russia. Importing disinformation narratives. Three out of the four narratives found in Hungary were imported into the country from abroad. One doubting Ukraine’s existence as a country started from an organization connected to Ukrainian pro-Putin oligarch Viktor Medvechuk, taken over by the so-called “news agency” of separatists. Another narrative detailing a new, dictatorial world order based on, among others, COVID-19 restrictions, and led by NATO was aimed at developing countries where Russia can hope to hold more sway. The third essentially took over a trend in the Russian media space: users tried to discredit anti-war voices by asking them “where they were in the past eight years” when Ukraine committed atrocities against minorities. Strategies in Germany: Divide and Rule. The six relevant narratives we found in Germany employed three different strategies. The first was anti-Westernism, where the US and NATO are to blame for Russia’s attack. The second aimed clearly at generating debates by spreading a Kremlin-critical narrative. Some profiles involved in this were caught disseminating both pro-Kremlin and anti-Kremlin narratives, which indicates it is not intended to counter the Kremlin’s information operation but to be a part of it. The third strategy was about exploiting contemporary events - such as heightened discussions on sanctions and rising inflation." (Executive summary) more

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Counter Digital Revolution, Disinformation, and Journalistic Constraints in Arab Media

Sahar Khamis, Khalid Al-Jaber

Journalism Research, volume 5, issue 3 (2022), pp. 234-252

"The spread of social media platforms ushered the beginning of an unprecedented communication era, which is borderless, immediate, widespread, and defies restrictions and censorship. Digital technology aided the spread of democracy and freedom of expression and helped to overthrow some Arab regimes ... more

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Scientific Disinformation in Times of Epistemic Crisis: Circulation of Conspiracy Theories on Social Media Platforms

Thaiane Oliveira

Online Media and Global Communication, volume 1, issue 1 (2022), pp. 164-186

"The spread of disinformation about science in social media has been a major concern worldwide, especially at a time of crisis in which all institutions that produce knowledge and truth, including science, are delegitimized or discredited by society. Given this, the purpose of this research is to ma ... more

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Brazil's Electoral Justice Permanent Program on Countering Disinformation: Strategic Plan Elections 2022

Aline Rezende Peres Osorio, Frederico Franco Alvim, Giselly Siqueira et al.

Brasilia: Brazil Superior Electoral Court; Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE) (2022), 61 pp.

"The actions to be developed are distributed in three axes: (i) Inform, aimed at the dissemination of official, reliable and quality information; (ii) Empower, aimed at media literacy and training the whole of society to understand the phenomenon of disinformation and the functioning of the electora ... l process; and (iii) Respond, related to the identification of cases of disinformation and the adoption of strategies, both preventive and repressive, to contain its negative effects. For the 2022 electoral cycle, the first axis has five projects with their own purposes and goals. They are: (i) mass dissemination network of truthful and official information about elections and the Electoral Justice; (ii) chatbot – electoral queries on WhatsApp; (iii) access, dissemination and enhancement of the scope of fact checking on the electoral process; (iv) deepening electoral transparency; (v) development and improvement of other technological tools and digital channels to disseminate true and quality information. In this strategic point, the Court’s action is guided by the preferential position of freedom of expression, in the legal system, by encouraging plurality of information. Likewise, information actions meet the recommendations for “prophylactic” prebunking actions (that is, strategies to reduce citizens’ susceptibility to disinformation by exposing examples of how disinformation operates). The second axis, in turn, includes seven initiatives: (i) training for internal and external audiences on disinformation, on the integrity of Brazilian elections and on the fundamentality of the Electoral Justice as an institution that guarantees democracy; (ii) prevention of the mental health of members, agents and collaborators of the Electoral Justice who deal directly with actions to contain disinformation; (iii) training the internal and external public on the electoral process, including the functions performed by it in the context of the democratic rule of Law; (iv) awareness campaigns on disinformation and media and information education actions for the external public; (v) cooperation and actions to enhance reaching partners’ media and information literacy initiatives; (vi) dialog with political parties and party federations to make them aware of their responsibility in the context of fighting against disinformation; (vii) support to other public institutions to implement actions to confronting disinformation. Finally, the response axis encompasses eight projects: (i) permanent coalition for verification; (ii) engagement of digital platforms and their technological resources in confronting structured networks of disinformation and inauthentic behavior; (iii) reporting channel for mass shooting of content in partnership with WhatsApp; (iv) creating a network to monitor disinformation practices against the electoral process; (v) containment of disinformation on Telegram; (vi) partnership and dialog with the Federal Police and the Electoral Prosecutor Office; (vii) Strategic Cyberintelligence Committee and (viii) review and elaboration of norms that acts against the practice of disinformation in the Electoral Justice, as a way of preventing the phenomenon in question. Concerning to this point, the planning met the parameters of timely response, appreciation of fact checking, importance of engagement and transparency of platforms, as well as the expansion and improvement of channels for complaints." (Presentation, page 5-6) more

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The Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation 2022
Key Guides

European Commission (2022), 40 pp.

"The Code of Practice on Disinformation is a first-of-its kind tool through which relevant players in the industry agreed - for the first time in 2018 - on self-regulatory standards to fight disinformation. Its revision process was launched in June 2021 and, after the signature and presentation of t ... more

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Russian Disinformation Efforts on Social Media

Elina Treyger, Joe Cheravitch, Raphael S. Cohen

Santa Monica: RAND Corporation (2022), xviii, 202 pp.

"We sought to better understand Russia's disinformation on social media and generate recommendations to better meet and counter this evolving threat. We relied on an analysis of Russian military literature, investigative efforts, official reports, academic and policy literature, media reporting, and ... more

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Russian Media in the Balkans. Case Study: How Moscow‘s Propaganda Influences Serbia

Thomas Brey

Potsdam: Friedrich Naumann Foundation (2022), 27 pp.

"The influence of Russian state-run foreign media (RT, Sputnik et al.) on public opinion in Western democracies is now common knowledge - regardless of its political qualification. Well-documented analyses are available, e.g., from the USA, France and Germany. The German government has also repeated ... more

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Topic and Sentiment Analysis of Responses to Muslim Clerics’ Misinformation Correction About COVID-19 Vaccine: Comparison of Three Machine Learning Models

Md Enamul Kabir

Online Media and Global Communication, volume 1, issue 3 (2022), pp. 497-523

"This study employed three machine learning algorithms, Naïve Bayes, SVM, and a Balanced Random Forest to build a sentiment model that can detect Muslim sentiment about Muslim clerics’ anti-misinformation campaign on YouTube. Overall, 9701 comments were collected. An LDA-based topic model was als ... more

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Mapping the Website and Mobile App Audiences of Russia’s Foreign Communication Outlets, RT and Sputnik, Across 21 Countries

Julia Kling, Neil Thurman, Florian Toepel, Richard Flechter

Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, volume 3, issue 6 (2022), 17 pp.

"Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, policymakers worldwide have taken measures to curb the reach of Russia’s foreign communication outlets, RT and Sputnik. Mapping the audiences of these outlets in 21 countries, we show that in the quarter before the invasion, at least via their official we ... more

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Owning the Conversation: Assessing Responses to Russian and Chinese Information Operations Around COVID-19

Vera Zakem, Edward Lucas, James Lamond

Washington, DC: Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) (2022), 32 pp.

"Russia and China have created and amplified disinformation and propaganda about COVID-19 worldwide to sow distrust and confusion and to reduce social cohesion among targeted audiences. The United States government, the European Union, and multinational organizations have developed a series of inter ... ventions in response. These include exposing disinformation, providing credible and authoritative public health information, imposing sanctions, investing in democratic resilience measures, setting up COVID-19 disinformation task forces, addressing disinformation through regulatory measures, countering emerging threat narratives from Russia and China, and addressing the vulnerabilities in the information and media environment. Digital platforms, including Twitter, Meta, YouTube, and TikTok, have stepped up to counter COVID-19 disinformation and misinformation via policy procedures, takedowns of inauthentic content, addition of new product features, and partner with civil society and multinational organizations to provide credible and reliable information to global audiences. In addition, digital platforms are addressing COVID-19-related disinformation and misinformation stemming from a variety of state and non-state actors, including China and Russia. Several of these initiatives have proven to be effective, including cross-sectoral collaboration to facilitate identification of the threat; enforcement actions between civil society, governments, and digital platforms; and investment in resilience mechanisms, including media literacy and online games to address disinformation. Despite some meaningful progress, gaps in countering COVID-19 disinformation and propaganda stemming from Russia and China and unintentional misinformation spread by everyday citizens still exist. Closing these gaps will require gaining a deeper understanding of how adversaries think; aligning and refining transatlantic regulatory approaches; building coordination and whole-of- society information-sharing mechanisms; expanding the use of sanctions to counter disinformation; localizing and contextualizing programs and technological solutions; strengthening societal resilience through media, digital literacy, and by addressing digital authoritarianism; and building and rebuilding trust in democratic institutions." (Executive summary) more

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Turning Social Listening Data Into Action: Barriers and Recommendations Observed Through a COVID-19 Rumor Response

Alejandro Posada, Rocio Lopez Iñigo, Jamie Sport

Internews (2022), 23 pp.

"[...] seven key informant interviews were conducted with humanitarian organizations that have been at the forefront of social listening projects throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Although we anchored the research in the COVID-19 response, our findings suggest that the uses and impacts of social lis ... tening are applicable across all elements of humanitarian response besides COVID-19 and even beyond health. The paper is structured around three components: (1) the differences between what organizations are hoping for (expected results) and what they have observed so far (observed results) in relation to the impacts of social listening, (2) the major barriers affecting the utilization of findings derived from social listening, (3) a preliminary brainstorm around recommendations that could mitigate the effects ofthe barriers identified and contribute to a realization of the expected results. Interviewees expressed expectations for long-term and structural benefits from the ongoing use of social listening findings. The most common expected results include contributions to improved infodemic management that is receptive to community concerns, stronger community engagement, more responsive programming and policy design, and more collaboration between humanitarian and health actors. Our findings suggest that, although some of these structural promises have not yet been realized, significant foundations have been laid. Organizations have observed that social listening findings are already contributing to improvements in RCCE, internal adaptations of program design, growth and acceptance of social listening throughout organizations, and a growing influence on public health policy. Despite these important results, there are still major challenges preventing the realization of social listening as a transformational tool for humanitarian response. Thirteen major barriers were identified, which exist at every stage of the traditional social listening project workflow. For data collection and analysis, the study found that the qualitative nature of the data, the predominance of a social media-only listening approach without an offline component, a reliance on traditional engagement statistics, limited qualified human resources, and issues around collaboration all hamper the effective use of social listening findings." (Conclusion) more

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Guide de la lutte contre la désinformation: Références, pratiques et outils

Rabat: Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle (HACA) (2022), 54 pp.

"[...] le "Guide" est une modeste contribution pour lutter contre les fausses informations. Qu'est-ce qu'une fake news? Que cache une manipulation de l'information ? Comment la détecter et avec quels outils ? Ce sont -là quelques-unes des questions auxquelles répond ce guide, qui invite le lecteu ... more

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Putin's Disinformation & Misinformation Campaign

Jakub Ferencík

EUROPEUM (2022), 12 pp.

"Disinformation and misinformation have been amplified in the digital age. In order to combat their increasing presence in our everyday lives, we have to first educate ourselves on what disinformation is. In this post, Jakub Ferencik looks at this question in some detail, primarily by analyzing Vlad ... more

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Moderación privada de contenidos en Internet y su impacto en el periodismo

Ana Laura Pérez Bertrán, Carolina Martínez Elebi

Montevideo: Observacom (2022), 43 pp.

"El presente documento aborda la problemática de la moderación de contenidos en las plataformas haciendo hincapié en su impacto fundamental en el periodismo y teniendo como eje los derechos a la libertad de prensa y la libertad de expresión." (Introducción, página 5)

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Patient Zero: A Study on the Philippine Information Ecosystem

Rappler Research Team

Internews (2022), 115 pp.

"To illustrate the dynamics of the digital information ecosystem and how disinformation is seeded within this environment, Rappler explored cascades around the following themes: war on drugs, attacks against the press, and messaging around Martial Law and authoritarian rule. The themes were selected ... more

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Social Media and the Information War in the Balkans

Brussels: Balkan Free Media Initiative (BFMI) (2022), 52 pp.

"This report examines the destabilizing effects of social media in two key places in the Balkans: Serbia and Republika Srpska, the majority Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The leaders of both – President Aleksandar Vucic in Serbia and President Milorad Dodik in Republika Srpska – ar ... more

The Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation 2022 Key Guides

The Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation 2022
Key Guides