Spot It, Frame It, Resist It: A Tactical Guide to Modern Propaganda

You can’t fact-check what you don’t recognize. 🧵 How to spot propaganda, reframe its tactics, and resist its effects — without losing your voice or your clarity.

#CognitiveSecurity #NarrativeWarfare #Disinformation

Lies, Gaslighting, and Propaganda: The Architecture of Manipulation

Propaganda isn’t old news.

It’s modern infrastructure. 🧵 This series unpacks how propaganda manipulates minds, rewrites memory, and survives legal scrutiny — based on a landmark law review.

#CognitiveSecurity #Disinformation #NarrativeWarfare

7 Cognitive Tactics Disinfo Uses — and How to See Them Coming

Disinfo doesn’t work because people are irrational.

It works because it understands the mind. 🧵 A recap of 7 cognitive vulnerabilities that political misinformation exploits — and how to recognize them.

#CognitiveSecurity #PsychologicalDefense #Disinformation

Crisis-Time Disinfo: Exploiting Collective Stress

In a crisis, attention spikes.
So does confusion.

That’s when disinfo hits hardest. 🧵 How disinformation campaigns weaponize collective stress to anchor false narratives and bypass resistance.

#EUDisinfo2021 #CognitiveSecurity #Disinformation

Microtargeting as a Weapon: Precision Disinfo at Scale

Mass propaganda is out.
Tailored influence is in.

🧵 How microtargeting allows disinfo to bypass logic, exploit emotion, and avoid detection — one user at a time.

#EUDisinfo2021 #CognitiveSecurity #InfoOps In 2021, the EU warned:
Microtargeting wasn’t just a marketing tool — it was becoming a psychological weapon.

And disinfo actors were early adopters.

Laundered Narratives: How Disinformation Gains Legitimacy

The most effective lies don’t sound fake.
They sound familiar.

🧵 How laundering gives disinfo the appearance of trust — and why it still works in 2025.

#EUDisinfo2021 #CognitiveSecurity #NarrativeWarfare Disinformation doesn’t just spread through trolls or fake news.

It spreads through fronts — fake think tanks, synthetic experts, and proxy media that make the lie look trusted.

The EU flagged this clearly in 2021.

Disinformation isn’t new. But some tactics are so effective, they’ve outlasted the headlines.

In 2021, the EU Parliament mapped them out.

We’re breaking them down — one by one. 🧵 A thread series on the operational playbook of modern disinformation.

#EUDisinfo2021 #CognitiveSecurity #NarrativeWarfare

Fixation: The Biological Attack Surface Behind Disinformation

You weren’t tricked because you’re stupid.

You were tricked because your brain had to believe something. 🧵 Here’s how disinformation weaponizes a biological necessity: fixation.

#CognitiveSecurity #Disinformation #NarrativeWarfare

After Disinformation: A Recovery Roadmap

Fact-checking isn’t enough.

Not after trust collapses.
Not after meaning breaks.

What disinformation really wounds is the psyche — and healing it takes more than corrections. 🧵 Existential recovery as the missing piece.
#Disinformation #TragicOptimism

The Four Phases of an AI-Powered Election Attack

AI doesn’t just generate content.
It moves through systems.

Every election disinfo op — whether high-tech or homemade — now flows through four stages.

🧵 Here’s the breakdown.
#Disinformation #AIThreats Disinformation isn’t an accident.

It’s a pipeline.

And when AI is added, that pipeline gets faster, cheaper, and harder to detect — unless we know where to look.

Europe's Early Warning: How the Baltics and Nordics Built Resilience

While others scrambled, a few countries had already prepared.

The Baltics and Nordics understood early: You can't censor your way out — you have to strengthen society.

#Disinformation #CivicResilience #MediaLiteracy

Soviet Information Machine: Lessons from the Origins of Modern Disinformation

Modern disinformation wars didn't start online.

They were born decades ago — shaped by Soviet strategies of confusion, control, and distrust. Here’s the full breakdown:

#Disinformation #DemocracyDefense #InformationWarfare

The Soviet Information Machine: How Yesterday’s Propaganda Shapes Today’s Disinformation.

Modern disinformation tactics are not inventions of the digital age.

They are evolutions of Soviet strategies perfected decades ago. Understanding them is key to protecting democracy

#Disinformation #PoliticalTechnology #DemocracyDefense

5 Alarming Risks of Political Microtargeting Identified in 2018

Well before recent scandals, experts mapped out how microtargeting could quietly erode democracy.

Here are 5 key dangers they identified — many now unfolding today.

#Microtargeting #Democracy Risk 1: Undermining Voter Autonomy

🔹 Microtargeting can influence voters by exploiting psychological vulnerabilities
🔹 Voters are steered toward decisions they might not make with full awareness
🔹 Autonomy — the foundation of democratic choice — is weakened

Political Microtargeting: Early Warnings from 2018

As Cambridge Analytica made headlines, scholars were analyzing the deeper dangers of political microtargeting.

Here’s what they knew — and why it still matters today:

#Microtargeting #Democracy Source:
Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius, Judith Möller, Sanne Kruikemeier, Ronan Ó Fathaigh, Kristina Irion, Tom Dobber, Bodo Balazs, Claes de Vreese (2018)

"Online Political Microtargeting: Promises and Threats for Democracy"

doi.org/10.18352/ulr.4…

How Disinformation Flips Elections: A Step-by-Step Breakdown

Disinformation doesn't just confuse voters.

It follows a predictable chain that can shift election outcomes — if conditions are right.

Here’s how it works:

#Disinformation #ElectionIntegrity Step 1: Data collection
🔹 Platforms gather detailed behavioral data about voters
🔹 Political groups infer political leanings, demographics, and vulnerabilities

How Microtargeting Changes Voter Behavior — and Why It Hurts Democracy

Political microtargeting does not just inform voters.

It alters who receives information, what they believe, and how elections function.

#Disinformation #Microtargeting How microtargeting works:
🔹 Platforms collect extensive voter data, including political preferences and behaviors
🔹 Political groups use this data to send customized messages to individuals

🧵 Disinformation didn’t start online. It was engineered — by the KGB.

Over 6 threads, we traced Cold War lies that never really died.

They weren’t improvised. They were industrial. Here’s what we uncovered in the Mitrokhin Files — and why it still matters.👇

#DisinfoArchaeology

🧵 They told the world AIDS was made by the CIA.

They claimed Western doctors were harvesting children’s organs.
They tried to convince Africa the U.S. was plotting coups.

All lies — from one source: the KGB.

Let’s dig up what they buried👇

#DisinfoArchaeology This is disinformation archaeology.

We’re not chasing fake news — we’re exhuming it.
Not just who lied — but how. Why. What stuck.

And how those Cold War tactics still shape what we see and share today.

🧵 Over the last 2 days, we published 20 laws and effects that explain how disinformation really works

It’s not just trolls or bots.
It’s how your mind, your media, and your peers are being shaped — without you realizing.

This thread recaps them all👇 #Disinformation #ThreadSeries

Why does this matter?
Because what your neighbors believe… affects your life.

Bad information leads to worse decisions — at the ballot box, in public health, in war.

And no, you can’t live well while surrounded by fools.
That’s a fantasy.

🧵 18. The Third-Person Effect: Why We Think Others Are the Problem

“We’re not the ones falling for this — other people are.”

That instinct? It has a name. It’s the Third-Person Effect, and it warps how we see media, propaganda, and disinformation.👇

#ThirdPersonEffect #Disinformation #ThreadSeries