Organizational Capacity and Resources At present it appears that influence or disinformation campaigns instigated by domestic political actors are only active to a significant degree during elections, or in connection with other specific, politically sensitive topics and events (Klingová, 2019), though some occasional claims are made outside of politically sensitive times as well. During elections, however, Czechs encounter a deluge of disinformation and fake news, much of which is assumed to be spread with support from Russia (Heijmans, 2017; Sybera, 2019). Such foreign influence operations, particularly by Russia, seem to have a much more permanent nature. Not surprisingly, Russia also maintains its own outlets such as Sputnik with local language coverage in the Czech Republic (Brokes, 2020). Table 3: Cyber Troop Capacity in Czech Republic Team Size Resources Spent Activity Levels (USD) Temporary Coordination Capacity Measure Decentralised Source: Authors’ evaluations based on data collected. Blank spaces indicate no evidence was found. To counter these efforts, members of Czech civil society are increasingly organising themselves to form alliances against the spread of disinformation. Several consultancies have launched, which help cut off websites and suspect outlets from online ads, oftentimes depriving them of their main source of income (Brokes, 2020; Malcolm, 2020). In 2018 the Facebook page Czech Elves launched, which is a group of volunteers fighting internet trolls, primarily combatting foreign influencers in Czech cyberspace (most Russians) (Zamecnik, 2020). In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, some articles are suggesting that foreign influence originating from China could start appearing on Czech cyberspace, as China is attempting to minimize the damage the virus has done to their image (DigiComNet, 2020; Karásková & Šebok, 2020). Moreover, several Czech hospitals experienced cyberattacks that are believed to be the work of Russian hackers (“Russian Hackers May Be behind Cyber Attacks on Czech Hospitals, Says ESET,” 2020). References Brokes, F. (2020, June 10). Czech civil society fights back against fake news | DW | 10.06.2020. Deutsche Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/czech-civil-society-fights-backagainst-fake-news/a-53758412 DigiComNet. (2020, May 30). Chinese propaganda on COVID-19: Eldorado in the Czech Cyber-Space. Medium. https://medium.com/@DigiComNet/chinese-propaganda-oncovid-19-eldorado-in-the-czech-cyber-space-6a95c0c97fb1 Euractive, & AFP. (2019, June 17). Czechs alarmed as populist leaders take aim at public media. Www.Euractiv.Com. https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/czechsalarmed-as-populist-leaders-take-aim-at-public-media/ Freedom House (2018). Freedom House | Czech Republic. (Freedom House. https://freedomhouse.org/country/czech-republic/freedom-world/2018 Freedom House (2019). Freedom House | Czech Republic. Freedom House. https://freedomhouse.org/country/czech-republic/freedom-world/2019 GLOBSEC. (2020). Voices of Central and Easthern Europe: Perceptions of democracy & governance in 10 EU countries (pp. 1–57). GLOBSEC. https://www.globsec.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/06/Voices-of-Central-and-Eastern-Europe-read-version.pdf 114