2019 GLOBAL INVENTORY OF ORGANIZED SOCIAL MEDIA MANIPULATION Messaging and Valence Cyber troops use a variety of messaging and valence strategies when communicating with users online. Valence describes the attractiveness (goodness) or averseness (badness) of a message, event, or thing. For our 2020 report, we have classified the valence and messaging strategies used by cyber troops into four categories. The first is pro-government or pro-party propaganda, which involves using computational propaganda to artificially amplify supportive messages about the state or political party. An example of pro-government narratives from 2019-2020 includes the use of automated bot accounts in Lebanon which were used to artificially amplify hashtags supportive of Hezbollah’s secretary general (Atallah, 2019). The second type of messaging and valence strategy involves attacking the opposition or mounting smear campaigns. One example includes China-backed cyber troops who continue to use social media platforms to launch smear campaigns against Hong Kong Protestors (Shao, 2019). The third type of messaging and valence strategy includes suppressing participation through trolling or harassment. Cyber troops are increasingly adopting the vocabulary of harassment to silence political dissent and freedom of the press. One example from 2019-2020 includes the Guatemalan “net centers” which use fake accounts that label individuals as “terrorists or foreign invaders” and target journalists with vocabulary associated with war, such as “enemies of the country” (IACHR, 2020). Fourth, we are increasingly seeing populist political parties use social media narratives that drive division and polarize citizens. A recent example includes troll farms in Nigeria, with suspected connections to the Internet Research Agency in Russia. These troll farms are spreading disinformation and conspiracies around social issues in order to polarize online discourse, within Nigeria and as part of Russia’s foreign influence operations targeting the United States and the United Kingdom (Hern & Harding, 2020). [ 13 ] 90% of study countries have misinformation campaigns that involve pro-government and pro-party propaganda 94% of study countries have misinformation campaigns that attack the opposition and mount smear campaigns 73% of study countries have misinformation campaigns that suppress participation through trolling or harassment 48% of study countries have misinformation campaigns that drive division and polarize citizens