2019 GLOBAL INVENTORY OF ORGANISED SOCIAL MEDIA MANIPULATION Organisational Budgets, Behaviours, and Capacity Although there is limited public information about the size and operations of cyber troop teams, we can begin to assemble a picture of how much money they budget, how they cooperate, and the kinds of organizational capacities and behaviours they assume. Team Size and Permanency The size and permanency of teams vary from country to country. In some countries, teams appear temporarily around elections or to shape public attitudes around other important political events. In others, cyber troops are integrated into the media and communication landscape with full-time staff working to control, censor, and shape conversations and information online. Some teams are comprised of a handful of people who manage hundreds of fake accounts. In other countries – like China, Vietnam or Venezuela – large teams of people are hired by the state to actively shape public opinions and police speech through online channels Budgets and Expenditures Computational propaganda remains big business. We found large amounts of money being spent on ‘PR’ or strategic communication firms to work on campaigns in countries such as the Philippines (Mahtani and Cabato 2019), Guatemala (Currier and Mackey 2018), and Syria (York 2011). These contracts can range in size from smaller spends with boutique national or regional firms, to multi-million-dollar contracts with global companies like Cambridge Analytica (see, for example, Kazeem 2018). The rise of the troll industry is a growing area of public and academic interest, and an area to watch for future research and journalistic inquiry. Skills and Knowledge Diffusion There is also evidence of formal and informal knowledge diffusion happening across geographic lines. For example, during the investigations into cyber troop activity in Myanmar, evidence emerged that military officials were trained by Russian operatives on how to use social media (Mozur 2018). Similarly, cyber troops in Sri Lanka received formal training in India (Expert consultation 2019). Leaked emails also showed evidence of the Information Network Agency in Ethiopia sending staff members to receive formal training in China (Nunu 2018). While there are many gaps in how knowledge and skills in computational propaganda are diffusing globally, this is also an important area to watch for future research and journalistic inquiry. . [ 17 ]