🚨354 automated AI accounts generated 4.5 billion views on TikTok through more than 43,000 AI-made posts.
Our investigation finds Agentic AI Accounts spreading harmful content. Yet TikTok labels around 1.38% of these posts. ⚠️
Full report: tinyurl.com/4kkfm4nn
Posts by Guillaume Kuster
Cover of our research "Decoding Secrets With Medals: How Military Insignia Revealed Russia’s Hidden SIGINT Network"
Today, we are proud to publish our latest investigation into the FSB’s 16th Center, publicly accused of operating some of Russia's most sophisticated cyber-espionage groups.
🔗 checkfirst.network/decoding-se...
📊 Operation Overload on Telegram:
• 673 channels analysed
• 7M+ messages
• 2M+ media collisions (39% of 5.5M total)
• 550+ channels share admins
• 70% of Overload-linked emails point to Telegram
• 10 verified channels drive core narratives
Today, we're proud to launch RADAR (Regulatory Assessment for Digital Service Act Risks), an open framework that introduces standardised tags for Digital Service Act (DSA) infringements: radar.checkfirst.network/
Today, in collaboration with @dfrlab.bsky.social, we pull back the curtain with the #Pravda Dashboard, a live, hour‑by‑hour tracker of #Russia’s Portal Kombat network. Follow each article’s journey, trace domain footprints, spot language‑shifts and watch targeting patterns unfold!
portal-kombat.com
NEW 🚨 The #Pravdanetwork—a Russia-linked disinformation operation—has infiltrated #Wikipedia, AI chatbots, and #X, spreading pro-Kremlin narratives globally.
@vchatelet.bsky.social & @checkfirst.network
reveal the scale of this content pollution: bit.ly/3R6XW9l
🚨 NEW REPORT
🔎 The Russian propaganda and disinformation “Pravda” network extended its coverage and aims (and succeeds) at polluting large language models (LLMs) and Wikipedia.
🗒️ X’s Community notes are unable to aptly address the spread of “Pravda” content on the platform.
🚨 New report! In collaboration with @dfrlab.bsky.social , we reveal the global expansion of #Russia’s so-called "Portal Kombat" network—an influence operation laundering pro-Kremlin content across Europe, Africa, and Asia. First exposed by @viginum.bsky.social a year ago.
À troll, troll et demi.
We're pleased to announce the launch of our new Community Notes Dashboard – a state-of-the-art, interactive platform that delivers deep insights into the evolution and distribution of Community Notes on #X
New: We've uncovered over 100 websites set up by a group known as Storm-1516. After the US elections the Russian influence operation has set its sights on Germany's federal elections. Some of these sites have already been used to attack German politicians. correctiv.org/faktencheck/...
This Friday seems to be an SDA day. The G7 Rapid Response Mechanism just posted a statement about the Kremlin funded Social Design Agency we just released a report about. Have a good week end. www.state.gov/office-of-th...
Despite international sanctions, #Meta is accepting payments from Russian propagandists. Our latest report with @aiforensics.org & Reset underscore how Meta has failed to moderate over 8,000 political ads from the Kremlin-linked Social Design Agency (SDA). #SDALeak
Kudos to @safety.bsky.app for moderating Operation Overload posts even before they can be shared. The latest email targeting fact-checkers associated with #Overload contained only Bluesky links, none of which linked to content at the time the email was received. Different story on X…
Deepfakes are crazy good these days.
I just saw a video of Zuckerberg claiming:
- he's "getting rid of fact-checkers" because they "censor" debate
- he's "restoring free speech" on Facebook/Instagram
- that "Europe is institutionalising censorship"
Oh, wait...
Great comments on platform regulation during electoral periods by @vincentcouronne.bsky.social reflecting on the unprecedented Romanian case and the situation outside of the EU, especially in #Africa overcast.fm/+AAycBXDNAFQ (in French)
Excellent opinion piece by @marietjeschaake.bsky.social in the @financialtimes.com about the role of platforms in election manipulation. She captures the hopes and fears surrounding the #DSA 's enforcement amid what may be its most significant raison d'être yet. #Romania www.ft.com/content/2855...
If you're short on time to read @checkfirst.network 's research note on Meta's failures to moderate political ads during the Romanian Presidential campaign, here's an excellent wrap-up by @dzuidijk.bsky.social on @bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Moderation? What moderation?
Data access for researchers (DSA art 40): It’s coming, probably next spring (and also for NGOs). In the meantime here’s a very helpful paper by @jaalbrt.bsky.social to ease your impatience. dsa-observatory.eu/2024/11/29/r...
Operation #Overload update: Evidence of link to Russia, new targets identified, increased email activity and a shift of narratives towards the U.S. election. Read the latest in our new activity update report: checkfirst.network/operation-ov...
@alexjubelin.bsky.social Épisode s’annonçant comme passionnant sur l’incursion ukrainienne à Koursk mais la piètre qualité audio de Vincent Tourret m’a découragé d’aller au bout. Life hack: podcast.adobe.com/enhance
A great piece by Euronews's The Cube on our and @faktabaari.bsky.social latest report: www.euronews.com/video/2024/0...
Talking more about pro-Russian misinformation operations (Overloads, ads on Meta) in yesterday's @franceculture.bsky.social lunch newscast (in French): www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
Join our next Thursday as we plunge into #OperationOverload, a campaign targeting fact-checkers and researchers worldwide, urging them to verify dubious claims, depleting their resources.
🗓️ 20 June
🕝 14:30 CEST
🦸 @g.checkfirst.network, @checkfirst.network
🔗 us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Depuis la fin 2023, VIGINUM observe et documente une campagne malveillante susceptible d’affecter le débat public numérique francophone. Ce mode opératoire, connu en sources ouvertes sous le nom de Matriochka, est actif depuis au moins sept 2023.
www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications...
#Dinsinformation
A man with a toddler at the voting booth in the Netherlands
A man giving his ID card to a woman at the voting booths in the Netherlands
A woman giving the voting card to a young woman during the early voting in Portugal
A woman voting in Ireland
Our Union should never be taken for granted.
Defend it, shape it.
🗳️ Voting booths across the European Union are ready: it is time to #UseYourVote.