Covid-19 Disinformation and Social Media Manipulation: Covid-19 and the Reach of Pro-Kremlin Messaging   [open pdf - 0B]

From the Introduction: "This research investigation examines Russia's efforts to manipulate the information environment during the coronavirus crisis. It leverages data from the European External Action Service's East StratCom [Strategic Communications] Task Force, which, through its EUvsDisinfo [EU vs. Disinformation] project, tracks pro-Kremlin messages spreading in the EU and Eastern Partnership countries. The taskforce monitors media in those countries to identify and expose Russian disinformation, maintaining a regularly updated database of samples. [...] Using this open-source repository of pro-Kremlin disinformation in combination with OSINT [open-source intelligence] investigative techniques that track links between online entities, we analyse the narratives being seeded about coronavirus and map the social media accounts spreading those messages."