• CHINA WATCHHow a Fellow of Germany’s Humboldt Foundation Joined China's Military Commission

    By Sandra Petersmann, Esther Felden, Naomi Conrad

    Germany’s Humboldt Research Fellowships are very popular with visiting Chinese scientists. Back in China, some of them go on to do research for the Chinese military. According to the Max Planck Society, “around one-third” of all scientific management positions in China today are held by people who were trained in Germany.

  • CHINA WATCHEuropean Academics Helping China's Military

    By Naomi Conrad, Esther Felden, and Sandra Petersmann

    European researchers have cooperated with China’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT). The NUDT’s purpose is to “Strengthen the Armed Forces and the Nation.” An investigation by 10 European news outlets has found nearly 3,000 scientific publications by researchers affiliated with European universities and their counterparts at military-linked institutions in China — most notably the NUDT.

  • THE RUSSIA CONNECTIONAnother Russian Tycoon Dies Under Suspicious Circumstances

    A former top manager of LUKoil has died under strange circumstances, the latest in a series of mysterious deaths of Russian businessmen since Moscow launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

  • CYBERSECURITYUndetected and Dormant: Managing Australia’s Software Security Threat

    By Sarah Sloan

    At the same time as software has become integral to our prosperity and national security, attacks on software supply chains are on the rise. Software supply chain attacks are popular, can have a big impact and are used to great effect by a range of cyber adversaries.

  • CHINA WATCHCornell University Profs Call for School to Halt, Reverse Its Growing Academic, Business Ties with China

    By Wen Hao

    An event at Cornell University, organized by three professors, which called for the university to halt, and then reverse, its growing academic and business ties with China, reflected a broader trend of calls for colleges and universities to cut ties with and divest from Chinese groups linked to human rights abuses.

  • WAR IN UKRAINEResearch Exposes Long-Term Failure of Russian Propaganda in Ukraine's Donbas Region

    A study of the propaganda that flooded Donbas for years reveals a failure to build pro-Russian “in-group” identities in the region, despite Putin’s claims of support.

  • DISINFORMATIONWhat Research Reveals About Disinformation and How to Address It

    Stanford scholars from across the social sciences are studying the threats disinformation poses to democracy. Here is some of their research.

  • PERSPECTIVE: THE RUSSIA CONNECTIONTrump Appointee Twice Delayed Report on Russian Election Interference, Federal Watchdog Says

    A just-published DHS IG report says that a senior Trump appointee twice delayed the release of a report detailing Russia’s interference in the 2020 election, interference aimed to help the Trump campaign. Moreover, in order to dilute the significance of the information about Russia’s interference, other DHS officials added a so-called “tone box” describing efforts by Chinese and Iranian influence actors to promote unsubstantiated narratives questioning the mental health of then-President Donald Trump. With the exception of the added tone box itself, China and Iran are not mentioned in the report.

  • WAR IN UKRAINERussia’s Hybrid War in Ukraine

    By Tom Burt

    Microsoft last week released a report which details a broad cyberattacks campaign by Russia in Ukraine, a campaign conducted in concert with kinetic military action. At least six Russian Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors and other unattributed threats, have conducted destructive attacks, espionage operations, or both, while Russian military forces attack the country by land, air, and sea.

  • TRUTH DECAYWhy Public Trust in Elections Is Being Undermined by Global Disinformation Campaigns

    By Christoph Bluth

    Public trust in elections is being targeted around the world by a series of disinformation campaigns from a range of international players. There are often similar campaigns run by domestic political players, as has been the case, for example, in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico. These campaigns are giving rise to an increasing lack of trust in how votes are counted. The overall purpose is to create mistrust of the core institutions of liberal democracy, including parliaments, mainstream media, elections, and the judiciary.

  • ELECTION SECURITYRussian Trolls Tried to Distract American Voters with Entertainment

    In a finding that has implications for the 2022 midterm elections, Cornell researchers found Russia tried to distract liberal voters during the 2016 presidential campaign with a seemingly innocent weapon – tweets about music and videos – taking a page from its domestic disinformation playbook.

  • TRUTH DECAYTrue or False: Work Practices of Professional Fact-Checkers

    Online misinformation is a critical societal threat . While fact-checking plays a role in combating the exponential rise of misinformation, little empirical research has been done on the work practices of professional fact-checkers and fact-checking organizations.

  • TRUTH DECAYUnmasking “Clandestine,” the Figure Behind the Viral “Ukrainian Biolab” Conspiracy Theory

    “Clandestine,” the man behind the viral biolab conspiracy theory, has been identified as Jacob Creech, a self-described former restaurant manager and Army National Guard veteran living in rural Virginia. The discovery highlights how a fringe QAnon figure, harnessing the power of social media, sparked a viral conspiracy theory which, in just a few weeks, made its way from QAnon to the world stage, amplified by Tucker Carlson, extreme far-right activists, the Proud Boys, Steve Bannon – and even the Kremlin.

  • TRUTH DECAY‘Ukraine Biolabs’: How Attempts to Debunk a Conspiracy Theory Only Helped It Spread

    By Daniel Whelan-Shamy and Timothy Graham

    As Russian forces moved into Ukraine on 24 February, stories of U.S.-funded biolabs and bioweapon research in Ukraine began to spread on social media. The false claims spread from right-wing circles but became more wide-spread, and were soon picked up by Fox News host Tucker Carlson. It wasn’t long until the Russian government, which had spread tales of Ukrainian biolabs in the past, adopted the narrative as a belated justification for the invasion. But, ironically, the very effort to debunk the Russian propaganda promoted by Carlson and Russia only gave to story more oxygen.

  • TRUTH DECAYFacebook Fails to Appropriately Label 80% of Bioweapon Conspiracy Articles n Its Platform

    Facebook failed to label 80 percent of articles on its service which promote conspiracy theories about U.S. labs in Ukraine and Ukraine’s supposed intent to use CBW against Russia.