Trends in Online Foreign Influence Efforts

This web page contains a database of online foreign influence efforts (FIEs). FIE are defined as: (i) coordinated campaigns by one state to impact one or more specific aspects of politics in another state, (ii) through media channels, including social media; by (iii) producing content designed to appear indigenous to the target state. To be included in the data an FIE must meet all three criteria. In contrast to traditional information operations, in which state-supported media outlets promote specific narratives, FIEs disguise the origin of the content (though many FIEs appear to be coordinated with such traditional propaganda efforts).

The database was built in three steps:

1. Develop a coding schema. Our database structure and features are intended to reflect strategic decisions by the influencer as well as operational choices which must be made in managing multiple distinct influence campaigns over time. We elicited feedback on our schema from scholars and technologists working on disinformation challenges in government and private industry. The database contains the following: basic identifying information about the attacker and target as well as the timing of the attacks, types of actors employed, platforms used, strategy, approach, tactics, and topics.
2. Identify candidate influence efforts. Once the coding scheme was developed we examined 463 stories about influence efforts from 41 countries across a range of sources. We first reviewed material from the news outlets. We then searched for additional information on media websites and expert blogs including. Finally, we reviewed all working papers and articles by the Computational Propaganda Project of Oxford University and the Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) Lab of New York University. DFRLab’s excellent reporting was also extremely useful.
3. Code values for all FIEs. We identified 53 FIEs across the sources above. Each FIE was reviewed and evaluated by one of the authors as well as two student research assistants - one who did the original coding and a second student who had not previously worked on the case. The final 53 cases were reviewed by at least three people.

We also released a database of news articles and an annotated bibliography of the more than 300 research papers studying this phenomenon, many of which contain more granular analysis of Russian tactics.

Comments or suggestions should be sent to fie@princeton.edu