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Ukraine has long been a harbinger of advanced disinformation and propaganda: Its citizens have faced systematic social-media influence operations for the better part of the twenty-first century. These efforts are difficult to track and involve a seemingly endless informational back-and-forth between new and traditional communication channels—a tireless and tiring feedback loop of conspiracy theories and befuddlement from social-media platforms to broadcast media including radio and television. Ukraine is a constant target for hybrid, computational, and networked propaganda efforts that increasingly employ innovative technologies and strategies.1
Russia is inarguably the instigator of much of the spin in Ukraine. Numerous studies have shown how the Kremlin, under the shrewd direction of President Vladimir Putin and his battery of propagandists, has waged an all-out informational offensive against Russia's southwestern neighbor, with devastating real-life consequences:2 Ukraine has seen a rise in violent extremism and the metastasizing of Russian separatism, especially in the country's Donbas border region.3 In response, Ukraine has developed numerous innovative efforts to fact-check, debunk, and otherwise defang online falsehoods. Putin's invasion of the country brought these trends to a head. On the one hand, social media and attendant technologies are central to antagonistic cross-border disinformation campaigns. On the other hand, these innovations are crucial for communication and organization among Ukrainians working to repel those who have invaded their country. Ukrainians have made marked use of encrypted messaging apps including Viber, Telegram, Signal, and WhatsApp to more effectively, privately, and safely share critical news and information. They have also harnessed more-public digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to disseminate stories, videos, and images of Russian atrocities to audiences both foreign and domestic in order to build support for the resistance.
The war in Ukraine has inevitably and tragically led to tremendous losses of human life and a cascade of human-rights violations. It has also engendered renewed scrutiny of the related dangers of politicized digital falsehoods. Of course, such worries have been a major part of the global Zeitgeist since well before the Cambridge Analytica and Russia scandals from the 2016 U.S. election. Indeed, the ever-growing barrage of online influence operations began circulating on social-media platforms as early as 2004.4 And many authoritarian regimes have been honing their unique brands of...