2019 GLOBAL INVENTORY OF ORGANISED SOCIAL MEDIA MANIPULATION Cyber Troop Capacity election cycle. Low capacity teams tend to experiment with only By looking comparatively across the behaviours, expenditures, tools, and resources cyber troop employ, we can begin to build a larger comparative picture of the global organization of social media manipulation. National contexts are always important to consider. However, we suggest it is also worth generalizing about the experience of organized disinformation campaigns a few strategies, such as using bots to amplify disinformation. These teams operate domestically, with no operations abroad. Low capacity teams include: Austria, Colombia, Czech Republic, Eritrea, Germany, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Macedonia, Moldova, Nigeria, North Korea, Poland, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Zimbabwe. across regime types to develop a broad and comparative (3) Medium cyber troop capacity involves teams that have understanding of this phenomenon. We have begun to develop a much more consistent form and strategy, involving full- a simplistic measure to comparatively assess the capacity time staff members who are employed year-round to control of cyber troop teams in relation to one another, taking into the information space. These medium-capacity teams often consideration the number of government actors involved, the coordinate with multiple actor types, and experiment with a wide sophistication of tools, the number of campaigns, the size and variety of tools and strategies for social media manipulation. permanency of teams, and budgets or expenditures made. We Some medium-capacity teams conduct influence operations describe cyber troop capacity on a four-point scale: abroad. Medium-capacity teams include: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, (1) Minimal cyber troop teams are newly formed or teams that were previously active but whose present activities are uncertain. Newly formed teams have minimal resources and only apply a few tools of computational propaganda to a small Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, Cuba, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guatemala, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Uzbekistan. number of platforms. Minimal cyber troop activity also includes (4) High cyber troop capacity involves large numbers of staff, states where we have seen only one or two politicians who and large budgetary expenditure on psychological operations experiment with computational propaganda tools. These teams or information warfare. There might also be significant funds operate domestically, with no operations abroad. Minimal spent on research and development, as well as evidence of a teams include: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Croatia, multitude of techniques being used. These teams do not only Ecuador, Greece, Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan operate during elections but involve full-time staff dedicated and Tunisia. to shaping the information space. High-capacity cyber troop (2) Low cyber troop capacity involves small teams that may be active during elections or referenda but stop activity until the next teams focus on foreign and domestic operations. High-capacity teams include: China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Myanmar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Vietnam, and the United States. TABLE 5 - CYBER TROOP CAPACITY HIGH CAPACITY Country Status Notes on Team Size, Training and Spending China Permanent Team size estimates of 300,000-2,000,000 people working in local and regional offices Egypt Permanent – Iran Permanent 6,000 USD spent on FB advertisements Israel Permanent Team size estimates of 400 people. Evidence of Formal Training. Multiple contracts valued at 778K USD and 100M USD. Myanmar Permanent Evidence of Formal Training in Russia Russia Permanent – Saudi Arabia Permanent Estimated costs of 150 Pounds for Twitter Hashtag Trends Syria Permanent Multiple Contracts valued at 4,000 USD United Arab Emirates Permanent Multiple Expenditures valued at over 10M USD United States Permanent & Temporary – Venezuela Permanent Team size estimates of multiple brigades of 500 people. Evidence of Formal Training Vietnam Permanent & Temporary Team size estimates of 10,000 people [ 18 ]