Helped Keep the Women’s March Out of Lock Step,” New York Times, September 18, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/18/us/womens-march-russia-trump.html; for coverage of online impersonation strategies targeting Black women, see Morgan Jerkins, “Black or Bot? The Long, Sordid History of Co-opting Blackness Online,” Mother Jones, September-October 2022, https://www.motherjones.com/media/2022/09/disinformation-russia-trolls-bots-black-culture-blackness-ukraine-twitter.

49 Renée DiResta et al., “The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet Research Agency,” U.S. Senate Documents, October 2019, https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/senatedocs/2.

50 Ben Popken, “Russian Trolls Duped Global Media and Nearly 40 Celebrities,” NBC News, November 3, 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/trump-other-politicians-celebs-shared-boosted-russian-troll-tweets-n817036.

51 Digital Forensic Research lab investigation into the troll account @TEN_GOP: Ben Nimmo, “How a Russian Troll Fooled America,” Medium, November 14, 2017, https://medium.com/dfrlab/how-a-russian-troll-fooled-america-80452a4806d1.

52 DiResta et al., “The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet Research Agency.”

53 Ibid.

54 Punctuation is presented as in the original content; it is not mistyped.

55 Chris Joyner, “Watchdog: Russian Trolls Meddled at Stone Mountain Protests,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 15, 2018, https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/watchdog-russian-trolls-meddled-stone-mountain-protests/SQMhxrKgxVbsQ2ISIbyukN.

56 Todd J. Gillman, “Russian Trolls Orchestrated 2016 Clash at Houston Islamic Center, New Senate Intel Report Recalls,” Dallas Morning News, October 8, 2019, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2019/10/08/russian-trolls-orchestrated-2016-clash-houston-islamic-center-senate-intel-report-says.

57 Renée DiResta, Shelby Grossman, and Alexandra Siegel, “In-House vs. Outsourced Trolls: How Digital Mercenaries Shape State Influence Strategies,” Political Communication 39, no. 2 (2022): 222–253, https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2021.1994065.

58 “Heart of Texas” Facebook page post from February 2, 2016. It received 822 likes, 242 shares, and 509 comments.

59 DiResta and Goldstein, “Full-Spectrum Propaganda in the Social Media Era”; S. Bradshaw and P. Howard, “Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation,” Working Paper no. 2017.12, Computational Propaganda Research Project, 2017, https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cef7e8d9-27bf-4ea5-9fd6-855209b3e1f6.

60 Catherine Bennette, “The Pro-Russian Propaganda Hiding in Your TikTok Feed,” The Observers, January 10, 2021, https://observers.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20211001-the-pro-russian-propaganda-hiding-in-your-tiktok-feed.

61 Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts, “How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, Not Engaged Argument,” American Political Science Review 111, no. 3 (2017): 484–501, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055417000144.

62 Ben Nimmo, “How MH17 Gave Birth to the Modern Russian Spin Machine,” Foreign Policy, September 29, 2016, https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/29/how-mh17-gave-birth-to-the-modern-russian-spin-machine-putin-ukraine.

63 Joel Gunter and Olga Robinson, “Sergei Skripal and the Russian Disinformation Game,” BBC, September 9, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45454142; Joby Warrick and Anton Troianovski, “How a Powerful Russian Propaganda Machine Chips Away at Western Notions of Truth,” Washington Post, December 10, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/national-security/russian-propaganda-skripal-salisbury.

64 Shelby Grossman et al., “Blame It on Iran, Qatar, and Turkey: An Analysis of a Twitter and Facebook Operation Linked to Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia,” Stanford Internet Observatory, April 2, 2020, https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/20200402_blame_it_on_iran_qatar_and_turkey_v2_0.pdf.

65 Hadeel Al Sayegh, “Saudi’s Kingdom Holding Company to Maintain Twitter Stake,” Reuters, October 28, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/saudis-kingdom-holding-company-maintain-twitter-stake-2022-10-28.

66 Katie Benner et al., “Saudis’ Image Makers: A Troll Army and a Twitter Insider,” New York Times, October 20, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/politics/saudi-image-campaign-twitter.html; Kevin Collier, “Former Twitter Employee Sentenced to More Than Three Years in Prison for Spying for Saudi Arabia,” NBC News, December 14, 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/former-twitter-employee-sentenced-three-years-prison-spying-saudi-arab-rcna61384.

67 For example, the Russian newspaper RIA FAN, owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, for quite some time was publishing articles that quoted fake people—troll accounts offering “man-on-the-street” commentary—run by other entities tied to Prigozhin. This embedding of inauthentic accounts became something of a lead-generation tool for the discovery of new networks of troll accounts. Renée DiResta et al., “In Bed with Embeds: How a Network Tied to IRA Operations Created Fake ‘Man on the Street’ Content Embedded in News Articles,” Stanford Internet Observatory Cyber Policy Center, December 2, 2021, https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/publication/bed-embeds.

68 This is the title of Pomerantzev’s 2014 memoir about his time in Russia: Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (New York: Public Affairs, 2014).

69 Ryan Ho Kilpatrick, “‘An Eye For an Eye’: Hong Kong Protests Get Figurehead in Woman Injured by Police,” The Guardian, August 16, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/an-eye-for-an-eye-hong-kong-protests-get-figurehead-in-woman-injured-by-police.

70 Renée DiResta et al., “Telling China’s Story: The Chinese Communist Party’s Campaign to Shape Global Narratives,” Stanford Internet Observatory, July 20, 2020, https://fsi.stanford.edu/publication/telling-chinas-story.

71 Jessica Brandt and Bret Schafer, “How China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomats Use and Abuse Twitter,” Brookings, October 28, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomats-use-and-abuse-twitter.

72 Erika Kinetz, “Army of Fake Fans Boosts China’s Wolf Warriors on Social Media,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 13, 2021, https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/army-of-fake-fans-boosts-china-s-wolf-warriors-on-social-media-20210513-p57rfo.html.

73 A passage in the book LikeWar summarizes the phenomenon of dubious followers on Chinese state media accounts: “In 2016, internet users had a collective chuckle when People’s Daily, the main Chinese propaganda outlet, launched a Facebook page that swiftly attracted 18 million ‘likes,’ despite Facebook being banned in China. This included more than a million ‘fans’ in Myanmar (out of the then 7 million Facebook users in that country), who instantly decided to ‘like’ China.” A high follower count is perceived as a way to establish credibility by signaling to potential readers that the content has many other existing readers, which is required for making a dent in the crowded social media ecosystem. P. W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (Boston: Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), 139.

74 Renée DiResta, Josh A. Goldstein, and Shelby Grossman, “Middle East Influence Operations: Observations Across Social Media Takedowns,” Project on Middle East Political Science, August 2021, https://pomeps.org/middle-east-influence-operations-observations-across-social-media-takedowns.

75 Nicolas Six, “TikTok Used to Promote Russian Mercenary Group Wagner,” Le Monde, December 1, 2022, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2022/12/01/tiktok-used-to-promote-russian-mercenary-group-wagner_6006282_13.html.

76 Morgan Meaker, “How Ukraine Is Winning the Propaganda War,” Wired, May 13, 2022, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ukraine-propaganda-war.

77 Valerie Hopkins, “In Video a Defiant Zelensky Says, ‘We Are Here,’” New York Times, February 25, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/world/europe/zelensky-speech-video.html.

78 Steve Inskeep and Odette Yousef, “Russia Claims U.S. Labs Across Ukraine Are Secretly Developing Biological Weapons,” NPR, March 22, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/03/22/1087991730/russia-claims-u-s-labs-across-ukraine-are-secretly-developing-biological-weapons.

79 Feng Qingyin, “US Owes World an Explanation on Bio-Labs,” Global Times, March 10, 2022, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1254588.shtml.

80 Hua Chunying (@SpokespersonCHN), “US’ Bio-Web,” Twitter, March 17, 2022, 3:25 a.m., https://twitter.com/SpokespersonCHN/status/1504358120461635587?s=20.

81 Deng Zijun, “What Is the US Hiding in the Biolabs Discovered in Ukraine?,” Global Times, March 17, 2022, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1255164.shtml.

82 Linda Qiu, “Theory About U.S.-Funded Bioweapons Labs in Ukraine Is Unfounded,” New York Times, March 11, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/us/politics/us-bioweapons-ukraine-misinformation.html.

83 Mara Hvistendahl and Alexey Kovalev, “Hacked Russian Files Reveal Propaganda Agreement with China,” The Intercept, December 30, 2022, https://theintercept.com/2022/12/30/russia-china-news-media-agreement.

84 Zeba Siddiqui and Christopher Bing, “Latin American Election Influence Operation Linked to Miami Marketing Firm,” Reuters, May 4, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/latin-american-election-influence-operation-linked-miami-marketing-firm-2023-05-04.

85 News Wires, “Israeli Firm ‘Boasted’ of Meddling in More