Alberto Fittarelli is a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab specializing in disinformation research. He has over 15 years of experience investigating digital threats in the private sector, working at leading tech firms including Meta, PayPal, and Uber. He uses open source intelligence (OSINT) to discover, analyze, and attribute online influence operations, with a focus on protecting civil society. He trains organizations, investigative reporters, and analysts on how to do the same. His first non-fiction book, Il Legionario, digs into a historical investigation on a shady and pivotal figure in Cold War Italy to demonstrate how OSINT techniques can be used to investigate events that occurred decades ago.
Connect
Publications
BlackCore’s Influence Operations for Hire
In this research note, we examine the digital infrastructure of BlackCore, an Israeli influence-for-hire company. We describe how we identified a BlackCore campaign consisting of a training program provided to government employees in Angola, including the launch of a supervised influence operation.
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.
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.
