• QAnon’s Growing Threat to the November Election and to Democratic Processes Worldwide

    Russian government-affiliated organizations are playing an increasing role amplifying and disseminating conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon, raising concerns not only of interference in the coming November U.S. election. There were no signs Russia had a hand in the early days of the QAnon movement, but the growth of the movement’s following have persuaded Russia’s disinformation and propaganda specialists that spreading QAnon’s conspiracies further would help Russia achieve its goal of weakening America by sowing division and acrimony; deepening polarization; discrediting democracy; and undermining trust in the government; judiciary; courts; and the media.

  • “A Small Group of Manipulators, Operating in the Shadows, Pull the Planet’s Strings”

    “You know that a clash between good and evil cannot be avoided, and you yearn for the Great Awakening that is coming. And so you must be on guard at all times. You must shield your ears from the scorn of the ignorant. You must find those who are like you. And you must be prepared to fight. You know all this because you believe in Q”: Adrienne LaFrance,“The Prophecies of Q.”

  • QAnon Conspiracies on Facebook Could Prompt Real-World Violence

    As Facebook continues to grapple with hate speech and violent extremism across the platform, QAnon conspiracy theorists are using public and private Facebook pages and groups to spread disinformation, racism, and thinly veiled incitement to violence. This conspiracy is estimated to have a Facebook audience of millions of users.

  • QAnon Believers Will Likely Outlast and Outsmart Twitter’s Ban

    Twitter has announced it’s taking sweeping action to limit the reach of content associated with QAnon. Believers of this fringe far-right conspiracy theory claim there is a “deep state” plot against U.S. president Donald Trump led by Satan-worshipping, child-sex trafficking elites from within government, business, and media. The platform also said it would stop circulating QAnon-related content, including material appearing in trending topics, recommendation lists and the search feature. It will also reportedly block web links associated with QAnon activity. History suggests the threat of online conspiracists is a difficult one to tackle.

  • Insider Threat at Twitter Is a Risk to Everyone

    Elected officials currently announce policies and spar with one another on Twitter. An unauthorized individual appearing to tweet from a world leader’s account could crash markets, spark conflicts, or create other catastrophic global consequences. Hacking the accounts of media companies could create similarly far-reaching effects. A well-respected news outlet tweeting out “breaking news” of impending war, or a local journalist warning of an active shooter on the loose could generate chaos.

  • COVID-19–Related Infodemic Has Consequences for Public Health

    Infodemic is “an overabundance of information—some accurate and some not—that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.” A new study of COVID-19-related infodemic on social media analyzed thousands of COVID-19-related postings, finding that 82 percent of them were false.  

  • China Embraces Bigger Internet with Virtually Unlimited IP Addresses

    China is pushing for the adoption of a new worldwide Internet Protocol that could make the internet bigger and faster, but also potentially less anonymous. The technology, called IPv6, is an upgrade of the internet’s architecture that would allow trillions more electronic devices to have unique addresses online.

  • A Bible Burning, a Russian News Agency and a Story Too Good to Check Out

    With Election Day drawing closer, the Russian efforts to influence the vote appear to be well underway. One example: A video cooked by a Kremlin-backed video news agency, purportedly showing dozens of BLM protesters in Portland , Oregon, burning a stack of bibles, was seized upon by Trump supporters as evidence, in Donald Trump Jr’s words, that antifa had moved to “the book burning phase.” Matthew Rosenberg and Julian E. Barnes write that “the truth was far more mundane. A few protesters among the many thousands appear to have burned a single Bible — and possibly a second — for kindling to start a bigger fire. None of the other protesters seemed to notice or care.” They add: “The Portland video represents the Russian disinformation strategy at its most successful. Take a small but potentially inflammatory incident, blow it out of proportion and let others on the political fringes in the United States or Canada or Europe spread it.”

  • A Ban on WeChat and TikTok, a Disconnected World and Two Internets

    President Trump’s new executive orders banning Chinese social media apps TikTok and WeChat marked a significant escalation in the ongoing technology tensions between the U.S. and China. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, predicted in 2018 that within the next decade, there would be two distinct Internets: one led by the U.S. and the other one led by China. Only two years after his comments, that prediction seems to have become a reality.

  • U.S. Accuses Russia of Complex Online Disinformation, Propaganda Operation

    The United States has accused Russia of developing a sophisticated “ecosystem” to spread disinformation and propaganda about the coronavirus and other issues. In a new report published on August 5, the State Department said Russia’s online operations use “five main pillars” to amplify false narratives and conspiracy theories in a bid to sow confusion and fear.

  • Hateful and Conspiratorial Groups on Facebook

    Despite public announcements of efforts to curb hateful speech and misinformation across its platform, Facebook still hosts many spaces in which this content propagates and thrives. While some of these problematic activities occur in small groups, a number of problematic Facebook groups have grown to a significant membership size, yet are still allowed to exist by Facebook. This is not by accident. Facebook has a history of overlooking this kind of behavior, arguing that some hateful content does not go against their Community Standards.

  • New Algorithms Could Reduce Polarization Engendered by Information Overload

    As the volume of available information expands, the fraction a person is able to absorb shrinks. They end up retreating into a narrow slice of thought, becoming more vulnerable to misinformation, and polarizing into isolated enclaves of competing opinions. To break this cycle, computer scientists say we need new algorithms that prioritize a broader view over fulfilling consumer biases.

  • TruNews Using Facebook to Disseminate, Amplify Anti-Semitism, Conspiracies

    TruNews, the fundamentalist Christian video streaming site which disseminates anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and Islamophobic propaganda, also posts and livestreams extremist content on social media platforms. Rick Wiles, the site’s founder, and his fellow hosts often combine their hate speech with extreme conspiracy theories. Among the conspiracy theories: the U.S. government spread the Ebola virus on U.S. soil; the U.S. and Israel created ISIS; and that Jews were responsibility for COVID-19 nd the impeachment of President Trump.

  • “Ghostwriter” Influence Campaign: Fabricated Content Pushes Narratives Aligned With Russian Security Interests

    FireEye says that Mandiant Threat Intelligence has tied together several information operations which FireEye assess with moderate confidence to comprise part of a broader influence campaign—ongoing since at least March 2017—aligned with Russian security interests. FireEye has dubbed this campaign “Ghostwriter.”

  • New Partnership Aims to Detect, Mitigate Attempts to Subvert, Delegitimize November Election

    Four of the U.S. leading institutions focused on analysis of mis- and disinformation in the social media landscape have created a new partnership — the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) – which aims to detect and mitigate the impact of attempts to prevent or deter people from voting or to delegitimize election results.