Seven tips for spotting disinformation related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Shelby Grossman shares what she and her team watch for when analyzing social media posts and other online reports related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Appeared first in Stanford News)
Social media is a well-established source for first-hand accounts of breaking news, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been no exception: As the conflict continues, Ukrainian citizens are using platforms like Twitter, Facebook and TikTok to show the world what is unfolding on the ground.
Amidst the deluge of authentic reports have been a spate of misleading news and disinformation – narratives intended to discredit or cause harm – related to the conflict, says Shelby Grossman, a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), an interdisciplinary program run under the auspices of the Cyber Policy Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies (FSI).
“We are seeing the unintentional spread of falsehoods, along with covert influence operations around the conflict in Ukraine,” said Grossman.
Grossman and her team are closely monitoring the narratives emerging on social media related to the crisis, including online propaganda from the Kremlin. A report of their initial findings published just two days before Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine...
