2019 GLOBAL INVENTORY OF ORGANISED SOCIAL MEDIA MANIPULATION Organisational Form Cyber troop activity takes on many organizational forms and diverse actors are leveraging social media to shape public opinion, set political agendas, and propagate ideas. conversations around what are appropriate, democratic and acceptable uses of these tools by state actors. In addition to government or military-led initiatives, we also looked at political parties. In 45 out of the 70 countries we analysed, we found evidence of political parties or politicians running for office who have used the tools and techniques of computational propaganda during elections. Here, we counted instances of politicians amassing fake followers, such as Mitt Romney in the United States (Carroll 2012), Tony Abbott in Australia (Rolfe 2013), or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands (Blood 2017). We also counted instances of parties using advertising to target voters with manipulated media, such as in India (Gleicher 2019), or instances of illegal micro-targeting such as the use of the firm Cambridge Analytica in the UK Brexit While many countries have seen an increase in computational referendum by Vote Leave (Cadwalladr 2017). Finally, we further propaganda on social media, attribution back to a particular counted instances of political parties purposively spreading actor remains difficult. or amplifying disinformation on social networks, such as the WhatsApp campaigns in Brazil (Rio 2018), India (Dwoskin and In this report, we focus specifically on cyber troops – Gowen 2018), and Nigeria (Hitchen et al. 2019). or government or political party use of social media to manipulate public opinion. In 44 countries, we found evidence One important feature of the organization of manipulation of a government agency using computational propaganda campaigns is that cyber troops often work in conjunction with to shape public attitudes. This category of actors includes private industry, civil society organizations, Internet subcultures, communication or digital ministries or military-led campaigns. youth groups, hacker collectives, fringe movements, social In countries considered ‘not free' according to Freedom media influencers, and volunteers who ideologically support House, we found evidence of a government ministry or ruling their cause. The distinction between these groups can often party using computational propaganda to shape attitudes be difficult to draw, especially since activities can be implicitly domestically. In a small number of democracies, we found and explicitly sanctioned by the state. In this report, we look for evidence of government or military-led initiatives. For this evidence of formal coordination or activities that are officially report, we counted the activities of the Joint Threat Research sanctioned by the state, rather than campaigns that might be Intelligence Group (JTRIG) in the United Kingdom, who set implicitly sanctioned because of factors such as overlapping up Facebook groups and created YouTube videos containing ideologies or goals. In 25 out of the 70 countries we found persuasive communications designed to “discredit, promote evidence of state actors working with private companies distrust, dissuade, deter, delay [and] disrupt” (Greenwald or strategic communication firms who offer computational 2015). We also counted activities in the United States, such propaganda as a service. In 30 out of the 70 countries, we as the United States Agency for International Development found evidence of formal coordination between governments (USAID) programme that created a fake social network in Cuba and citizens or civil society organizations. In some cases, like (Greenwald 2014). As computational propaganda becomes an in Azerbaijan, Israel, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, student increasingly ubiquitous tool for politics, national security, and or youth groups are hired by government agencies to use intelligence operations, we hope these examples drive further computational propaganda. [ 9 ]