Marcus Michaelsen is a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. His work centres on digital transnational repression and the ways authoritarian regimes use digital technologies to extend political control and repression across borders. From 2019 to 2022, he was a senior post-doctoral researcher with the research group Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel where he investigated digital surveillance and transnational repression against exiled activists from the Middle East, funded by a Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship of the European Union (DIGIACT). Previously, he was a Senior Information Controls Fellow with the Open Technology Fund. From 2014 until 2018, he worked as a lecturer and postdoc researcher in the Political Science Department of the University of Amsterdam, primarily in the research project “Authoritarianism in a Global Age”.
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Publications
Tall Tales
How Chinese Actors Use Impersonation and Stolen Narratives to Perpetuate Digital Transnational Repression
In collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), we identified two distinct actors aligned with the People’s Republic of China that have been targeting and impersonating journalists and civil society. Our findings provide insight into the Chinese government’s practice of digital transnational repression and its shift to a system of state-sponsored attacks carried out by private contractors.
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.
Weaponized Words
Uyghur Language Software Hijacked to Deliver Malware
Our investigation of a spearphishing campaign that targeted senior members of the World Uyghur Congress in March 2025 reveals a highly-customized attack delivery method. The ruse used by attackers replicates a pattern in which threat actors weaponize software and websites aimed at preserving and supporting marginalized and repressed cultures to target those same communities.
