Disinformation
Bringing clarity to the mechanisms, motivations, and actors behind online disinformation campaigns, and examining policy responses from governments and tech companies.
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The online ecosystem is increasingly shaped by disinformation. We have seen the impact of disinformation on democratic discourse, public health, and political activism. A market of private companies, including “dark” PR firms, has developed the capacity to run sophisticated disinformation campaigns. Generative AI creates new opportunities to automate and expand the scope of disinformation. Social media companies have not kept pace with the proliferation of disinformation on their platforms.
Civil society groups, including journalists and human rights defenders, are particularly vulnerable to disinformation. Disinformation can distort narratives for political purposes, and can be used to harass and intimidate members of civil society groups.
We conduct empirical, evidence-based research to uncover the practices of disinformation and the actors who conduct these campaigns, identify impacts of civil society groups, and examine policy responses from platforms and governments.
LATEST RESEARCH
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We Say You Want a Revolution
PRISONBREAK – An AI-Enabled Influence Operation Aimed at Overthrowing the Iranian Regime
The control and strategic manipulation of information has long played a role in the geopolitical and ideological competition between the Islamic Republic of Iran and its political adversaries, including Israel. Prior Citizen Lab research has uncovered Iranian disinformation efforts, however, in this investigation we focus on the “other side” of the geopolitical competition. We analyzed an influence operation we assess as most likely undertaken by an entity of the Israeli government or a private subcontractor working closely with it.
October 14, 2025
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JUICYJAM
How Thai Authorities Use Online Doxxing to Suppress Dissent
A sustained, coordinated social media harassment and doxxing campaign – which we codenamed JUICYJAM – targeting the pro-democracy movement in Thailand has run uninterrupted, and unchallenged, since at least August 2020. Through our analysis of public social media posts we determined that the campaign was not only inauthentic, but the information revealed could not have been reasonably sourced from a private individual.
April 16, 2025
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PAPERWALL
Chinese Websites Posing as Local News Outlets Target Global Audiences with Pro-Beijing Content
A network of at least 123 websites operated from within the People’s Republic of China while posing as local news outlets in 30 countries across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, disseminates pro-Beijing disinformation and ad hominem attacks within much larger volumes of commercial press releases. We name this campaign PAPERWALL. We attribute the PAPERWALL campaign to Shenzhen Haimaiyunxiang Media Co., Ltd., aka Haimai, a PR firm in China based on digital infrastructure linkages between the firm’s official website and the network. These findings confirm the increasingly important role private firms play in the realm of digital influence operations and the propensity of the Chinese government to make use of them.
February 7, 2024
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OUR EXPERTS IN DISINFORMATION
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Maia Scott
Senior Researcher
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Alberto Fittarelli
Senior Researcher
