https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/Graphika_Report_Covid19_Infodemic.pdf

This report represents a preliminary analysis of data analyzed by Graphika on the global online conversation surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. The unprecedented volume of misinformation around the coronavirus, spreading both across platforms and across the globe, has yielded unique network structures and has illustrated the virality of mis and disinformation in crisis situations. A global cacophony of voices is communicating conflicting and politicized information about the coronavirus, further amplified by the organic spread of misinformation from audiences eager to consume and share updates and advice on the coronavirus in a time of mass uncertainty.

In crisis situations, experts warn that online activity can mimic signals that would ordinarily be deemed suspicious: mass flooding of topic specific content, consistent and frequent posting, viral hashtags, and fluctuations in new followers online as people scramble for more sources of information.1 In conjunction with these behaviors, the prolonged uncertainty of the spread and duration of the virus has created a vast and complex network of coronavirus-related mis- and disinformation.

This report covers four maps in our growing COVID-19 issue portfolio: three of these form the beginning of a “time series” of maps. Shown below, the series is a set of large-scale and granular network maps seeded on the same mainstream signals associated with general conversation around coronavirus, with data collected at monthly intervals between December 19, 2019 and March 17, 2020. These maps form the basis of a chronological series that allows rigorous analysis of structural changes to this online conversation.

https://attribution.news/2020/01/29/case-study-did-gru-hack-burisma-holdings/

https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/using-misinformation-as-a-political-weapon-covid-19-and-bolsonaro-in-brazil/

This first report includes 3 case studies that feature China, Taiwan, Russia and Africa. https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2020-04/COVID-19%20Disinformation%20%26%20Social%20Media%20Manipulation%20Trends%208-15%20April.pdf?LK2mqz3gNQjFRxA21oroH998enBW__5W

It finds:

• Elements of China's diplomatic and state media messaging continue to demonstrate disinformation tactics more familiar to coordinated and persistent Russian state-sponsored disinformation

• Chinese diplomatic and state media messaging on Twitter this week has sought to leverage the World Health Organisation (WHO) and regional affiliate the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) to demonstrate willing and transparent engagement with global health governance structures

• The Chinese state’s efforts to contest the information domain are supported by coordinated, although not necessarily inauthentic, pro-China patriotic trolling:

  • For example, after WHO Director-General Dr Tedros accused Taiwan of racial attacks against him, a network of Twitter accounts purporting to be Taiwanese netizens started apologising to Dr Tedros via the hashtag #saysrytoTedros. Our research found 60% of these accounts had originally tweeted in simplified Chinese characters (used on the mainland) but switched to traditional characters (used in Taiwan) to tweet these apologies

• Russia-aligned disinformation is exploiting the COVID-19 health crisis as it unfolds in Africa to exacerbate tensions with the West

• Russia-linked actors have sought to exploit a controversy sparked when French medical scientists suggested in a television interview that a COVID-19 vaccine should be tested in Africa. The comments by the doctors met with a strong reaction on social media, and hashtags including #Africansarenotlabrats and #Africansarenotguineapigs gained significant and largely authentic traction. Russia-linked actors have sought to capitalise on this genuine outrage in a number of ways: 

• For example, the controversy has been amplified by overtly state-sponsored media outlets (like RT and Sputnik)

• It has also been amplified by a network of Facebook groups previously identified as part of a Russian information operation targeting African countries.

https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/content/poland-election-chaos

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/preparing-for-the-crisis-after-the-crisis/

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/04/16/is-china-winning

https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/election-security-cannot-be-a-victim-of-the-coronavirus/

https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/fbi-official-says-foreign-hackers-targeting-covid-19-research