IRAQ Introduction The state has historically dominated the public information landscape within Iraq. Despite attempts to foster a more pluralistic media landscape after the 2003 Iraq war and the fall of the Ba’athist regime, an increase in sectarian conflict in 2005 led to further limitations on media freedoms (Al-Kaisy, 2019). Media outlets supporting the dominant Shi’a narratives were banned from Sunni areas, while Shi’a districts banned Sunni outlets (Al-Kaisy, 2019). Iraqi citizens thus had limited access to varied information sources. Today, the online information landscape in Iraq continues to be shaped by its fragile, sectarian political system. Issues of corruption, polarisation and a lack of trust in governing institutions have led to a rapid growth in politically charged domestic computational propaganda campaigns. Freedom House (2020) reports Iraq as “not free”, despite holding regular competitive elections, frequent security threats and pervasive corruption undermine these democratic efforts. Recently, between October and December 2019, widespread anti-government protests took place in Baghdad. In response to these protests, Iraqi military killed 500 protestors and injured 19,000 (Freedom House, 2020). Amidst the protests, Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf, who was previously Minister of Information in 2003, stated that live bullets and tear gas were not used by security forces (Crisp & al-Salhy, 2020). These claims amounted to disinformation, as they were contrary to extensive video evidence, which showed the military killing and wounding demonstrators with tear gas and live bullets (Crisp & al-Salhy, 2020). Following the protests, Adel Abdul Mahdi resigned from the post of Prime Minister, along with his cabinet. There was a subsequent struggle to form a new government, resulting in the appointment of Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, former director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, to the post of Prime Minister (Alshamary, 2020). Throughout these shifts in power, however, there has remained the pervasive presence of socalled “electronic armies” to conduct computational propaganda campaigns (Niqash, 2017). These armies are mostly controlled by competing political groups within Iraq, and are used to fabricate news stories to defame their political opponents (Niqash, 2017). An Overview of Cyber Troop Activity in Iraq Organizational Form Iraq’s cyber troops operate primarily through Facebook pages (Niqash, 2018b). The lack of reliable, accessible news sources mean that these Facebook pages have become a key information source for Iraqi citizens (Crisp & al-Salhy, 2020). These pages have large audiences, with followings ranging from 100,000 to 400,000 (Kholoud Al-Amry, 2019). Traditional media will often publish information from these Facebook pages, enabling cyber troop content to reach a broad audience (Mawazin News, 2019). Many of these Facebook pages are run by professional bloggers using common Iraqi names as pseudonyms (2019 ,‫)خلود العامري‬. These bloggers often create these pages, acquire large followings, then rent these pages to politicians or political parties (Niqash, 2018b). The Iraq Independent High Electoral Commission acknowledged that while some media organisations engage in cyber troop activity, the vast majority of cyber troops are funded by political parties . Politicians can either rent entire Facebook pages or pay per post (Niqash, 2018b). If the pages 204