Russia’s Disinformation Success?
April 20, 2023
Russian efforts to sway Americans—using social media to spread disinformation about such things as vaccines and the war in Ukraine—may have been more successful than previously known, according to reports on classified US documents leaked via an online chatroom. In an early examination of such emerging information battlegrounds, Braden R. Allenby describes in Issues the “diverse kit of tools and techniques” that US adversaries can use to create “weaponized narratives.” Critically, the nation’s boom of advanced information technologies amplifies the threat, with social media and other digital operations capable of spreading untruths faster and more widely than ever.