A Counter Disinformation Network Report
(PDF)
Editors
Lea Frühwirth, CeMAS (Center for Monitoring, Analysis & Strategy)
Saman Nazari, Alliance4Europe
Authors
Charles Terroille, Science Feedback
Max Lesser, FDD (Foundation for Defense of Democracies)
Ivana Stradner, FDD (Foundation for Defense of Democracies)
Claudia de Sessa, Alliance4Europe
Lorenzo DiStasi, freelance journalist
Kateryna Savranska, Demagog
Dominik Uhlig, BIQdata.pl / Gazeta Wyborcza
Aleksy Szymkiewicz, Demagog
Oleksandr Siedin, Detector Media
Oleksii Pivtorak, Detector Media
Florian Roussel, independent researcher
Paul Bouchaud, AI Forensics
Contributors
E. Rosalie Li, InfoEpi Lab
Ned Mendez, Clash Digital
Yuliia Zhaha
Rikard Friberg von Sydow, Södertörn University Stockholm
Executive Summary
From June 4th to 28th 2024 1.366 accounts published 1.366 pro-Russian posts on X (formally Twitter), which were then amplified by many additional accounts in replies to third-party content.
The pattern was found in German, French, English, Italian, Polish and Ukrainian. According to X data, the combined views of these posts reached over 4.66 Million by the end of June. Authentic-appearing replies to some of these original posts suggest a breakout to level 2.
The posts discredited Western governments, criticized Ukraine and Western support for Ukraine, exploited polarizing issues and targeted Western alliances across all observed languages.
The observed activity bears multiple markers of previously attributed Doppelganger activity, including narratives, technical infrastructure and posting behaviours.
On July 15, 2024, the activity, then encompassing 1.236 posts, was flagged to X, with 623 posts still online. By August 23rd, only one of the 623 accounts that prior to our flagging to X had been online was suspended.
Additionally, 98 Facebook ads with pro-Russian content were found targeting France, Germany, Poland, and Italy within the same month.
Civil society and the European Commission have alerted Meta and X about the tactics and techniques of Doppelganger. At the time of writing, the threat is ongoing on the platforms.
At the time of writing, X has not responded to us alerting them about posts. There was no need to alert Meta about the Facebook ads as the associated pages that posted the ads were taken down, or are no longer in use.
Full Report
The full report contains:
– Language-specific chapters exploring the narratives Doppelganger employed while targeting Germany, France, the U.S., Poland, Italy, and Ukraine on X.
– Analysis of the tactics and techniques employed by Doppelganger.
– Analysis of the overall dataset covering Doppelganger activities on X,
– Analysis of Doppelganger’s use of Meta ads to spread their operational content.
– Recommendations.
The Counter Disinformation Network
This report was made possible through the Counter Disinformation Network.
The Counter Disinformation Network (CDN) is a collaborative platform that gathers more than 130 disinformation-countering practitioners from 40 civil society organizations, universities, news organizations, fact-checking organizations and independents mostly from Europe and North America. The network was initially convened by Alliance4Europe with the aim of supporting a whole of society approach to countering disinformation by bringing together the different parts of our community of defenders and finding ways to work together. All members of the network can propose projects, using the network as a force amplifier to enable research that would not be possible individually. We believe in not reinventing the wheel. Therefore, CDN aims to feed and support existing initiatives, such as the FIMI ISAC and the DAD-CDM project. The network seeks to help mobilize resources with different experts and from different countries to write comprehensive reports, highlighting systemic issues and foreign information manipulation and interference, and working together to promote it across a wide range of countries and stakeholders.
