What you need to know about influence operations

False information spreads farther, faster, and more broadly than the truth. As observed across several election cycles and a pandemic, fabrications, inaccuracies and distortions muddy public discourse, sowing confusion in times when trustworthy information is scarce.

But the problem of disinformation is not limited to false claims produced by individual sources. In recent years, dubious actors have increasingly taken advantage of digital platforms to employ a range of tactics and organized campaigns to distribute not just false information, but also truthful but twisted narratives.   

These are commonly referred to as “influence operations,” which include the proliferation of disinformation and false narratives using covert influencers or public personalities, but they can also involve the spread of controversy around truths. 

Philstar.com defines influence operations according to the criteria agreed upon by a shared network of media organizations dedicated to identifying, analyzing and investigating influence operations. 

Influence operations refer to orchestrated efforts involving the spread of information by various actors, whether they're connected to governments, private groups or foreign interests. These efforts are driven by financial, political, cultural, ideological, or policy interests and often aim to disrupt the flow of accurate information, targeting important aspects of democratic values, social well-being, safety and peace. 

It involves the use of disinformation, propaganda and other harmful content (such as harassment and attacks), delivered in different formats, in a manner that coerces or manipulates behavior and polarizes society. 

Some forms of information operations use inauthentic, deceptive and/or concealed procedures. It is implemented in a coordinated manner through traditional media, social media, and other digital mechanisms such as messaging applications and over-the-top (OTTs) media service, privately or publicly distributed.

It also includes techniques that disrupt the distribution of and undermine reliable information such as distributed denial of service attacks, hacking and other forms of technical interference.  

We consider an