Cross platform disinformation campaigns: lessons learned and next steps

ImplicationsThis paper examines online discourse about the White Helmets, a volunteer rescue group that operates in rebel (anti-regime) areas of Syria. The White Helmet’s humanitarian activities, their efforts to document the targeting of civilians through video evidence, and their non-sectarian nature (that disrupted regimepreferred narratives of rebels as Islamic terrorists) put the group at odds with the Syrian government and their allies, including Russia (Levinger, 2018). Consequently, they became a target of a persistent effort to undermine them.Disinformation can be defined as information that is deliberately false or misleading (Jack, 2017). Its purpose is not always to convince, but to create doubt (Pomerantsev & Weiss, 2014). Bittman (1985) describes one tactic of disinformation as “public relations… in reverse” meant to damage an adversary’s image and undermine their objectives. We argue (Starbird et al., 2019) that disinformation is best understood as a campaign—an assemblage of information actions—employed to mislead for a strategic, political purpose. Prior research (Levinger, 2018; Starbird et al., 2018) and investigative reporting (Solon, 2017; di Giovanni, 2018) have characterized the campaign against the White Helmets as disinformation, due to its connection to Russia’s influence apparatus, its use of false and misleading narratives to delegitimize the group, and its function to create doubt about their evidence documenting atrocities perpetrated by the Syrian regime and their Russian allies. This research examines “both sides” of the White Helmets discourse—exploring how the White Helmets promote their work and foster …