Disinformation
ISD identifies, monitors and analyses online information operations targeting elections and policy agendas.
ISD’s research on disinformation is a central pillar of our Digital Analysis Unit. Using state-of-the-art data analytics, OSINT techniques and ethnographic research, we investigate the complex relationship between foreign state and transnational non-state actors attempting to undermine democracy and promote polarisation through online manipulation and disinformation.
ISD defines disinformation as false, misleading or manipulated content presented as fact, that is intended to deceive or harm. In contrast, misinformation is false, misleading or manipulated content presented as fact, irrespective of an intent to deceive.
ISD, in partnership with LSE Arena and CASM, has analysed malicious campaigns launched during a number of elections including the 2017 German Federal Election, 2018 Swedish Election, 2018 Bavarian State Elections, 2019 European Parliamentary Elections and 2020 US Presidential Election. ISD’s analysis of disinformation also covers the use of online manipulation to target policy issues, including climate change and migration.
ISD’s work surveys the wide range of disinformation tactics used to promote polarisation, to undermine elections and to threaten democratic discourse. This includes smear and defamation campaigns, distortive and deceptive content and identities, and the range of inorganic methods used to covertly amplify this content to wider audiences.
ISD uses this research to provide timely and evidence-based data to media, policy and civil society representatives. We aim to enable rapid responses to emerging and long-term disinformation threats and malicious uses of social media that target democracies and democratic processes. ISD’s evidence base also feeds into ongoing debates on platform accountability and regulation.
Launch of the Google Impact Challenge for Safety
Munich, Germany, 2019
ISD’s Disinformation research team
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Jiore Craig
Resident Senior Fellow, Digital Integrity
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Jiore Craig is a Resident Senior Fellow at ISD with focus on Digital Integrity. Her work focuses on safeguarding democracy globally and the wider impact of online harms on society. Jiore advises global leaders on mitigating online harms including work to advance tech policy reform and tech accountability at a global scale.
She has extensive international experience, previously spending eight years helping elected officials, political leaders, media organizations, academic institutions and civic society organizations across five continents to research, measure, and effectively mitigate the impact of disinformation and influence operations on public opinion and elections.
She previously built a digital research and communications practice serving Europe, Asia, Africa, South and Central America, and the US at a global political consulting firm. Jiore’s work informed the design of major coalition efforts to counter disinformation in the 2020 US and 2019 European Parliament elections. In 2022, Jiore testified for the U.S. Congressional House Administration Elections Subcommittee Hearing on “A Growing Threat: Foreign and Domestic Sources of Disinformation”. She is a member of Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media. Her work is cited in The Washington Post, New York Magazine, The L.A. Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and she has been a featured guest in election broadcast programs around the world, including the podcast Pod Save America.
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Jacob Davey
Director of Policy & Research, Counter-Hate
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Jacob Davey is the Director of Research & Policy for Far-right and Hate Movements at ISD. Jacob has managed projects focusing on online hate speech, the international far-right and political violence. He has led a number of projects piloting novel models for identifying extremist conversation and hate speech online, including analysis tracking hate groups in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, and is currently leading a major programme of work mitigating hate threats in the US. He has advised national and local policymakers on right-wing extremism, including the Home Affairs Select Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. Jacob has managed and co-authored numerous ISD reports including Between Conspiracy and Extremism: A Long COVID Threat?, ISD’s Gaming and Extremism Series, and A Safe Space to Hate: White Supremacist Mobilisation on Telegram.
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Mauritius Dorn
Director of Public Affairs, ISD Germany
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Mauritius Dorn
Director of Public Affairs, ISD Germany
Mauritius Dorn is the Director of Public Affairs at ISD Germany, where he coordinates ISD’s digital policy recommendations on election-related online harms and presents them to political stakeholders at the EU level and in Germany. Currently he leads AHEAD.tech, a project to research systemic risks for elections in the context of the Digital Services Act (DSA). He also supports the Digital Policy Lab (DPL), an intergovernmental working group focused on policy responses to prevent and counter online disinformation, hate speech and extremism.
Mauritius previously conducted disinformation trainings with political parties and candidates, coordinated with other stakeholders from academia and civil society, and assisted in the design of awareness campaigns. Before this, Mauritius worked as a public affairs consultant in Berlin, advising clients from the public and private sector on their lobbying strategies in the area of digital policy and digital economy. Mauritius holds an MSc double degree in Global Media and Communications from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and Fudan University, as well as a BA in Sociology, Politics and Economics from Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen.
Mauritius previously conducted disinformation trainings with political parties and candidates, coordinated with other stakeholders from academia and civil society, and assisted in the design of awareness campaigns. Before this, Mauritius worked as a public affairs consultant in Berlin, advising clients from the public and private sector on their lobbying strategies in the area of digital policy and digital economy. Mauritius holds an MSc double degree in Global Media and Communications from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and Fudan University, as well as a BA in Sociology, Politics and Economics from Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen.
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Jennie King
Senior Fellow
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Jennie King is a Senior Fellow at ISD. Previously, she served as ISD's Director of Climate Disinformation Research and Policy, where she led initiatives to transform ISD's digital research into actionable frontline programs and responses. Through ISD, she helped found Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), a coalition of over 50 organisations working to identify, analyse and counter climate disinformation worldwide. She has spearheaded investigations on climate denialism and ‘discourses of delay’ in the contexts of Australia, Canada, Central Europe, Germany, South Africa, the US and UK, as well as co-authored a number of ISD’s flagship reports on this issue. Jennie also helped design, and currently manages, the COP Intelligence Units on behalf of CAAD, leading over 15 partners to produce real-time monitoring of mis- and disinformation around climate summits.
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Melanie Smith
Director of Research, Information Operations
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Melanie Smith
Director of Research, Information Operations
Melanie Smith is the Director of Research, Information Operations, at ISD. Based in London, she leads a team of analysts focused on detecting and exposing information threats from state and non-state actors. Her recent work has focused on topics like state-backed influence campaigns, conflict-related propaganda and political violence.
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Henry Tuck
Director of Digital Policy
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Henry Tuck is the Director of Digital Policy at ISD, where he leads Advisory work on digital regulation and tech company responses to terrorism, extremism, hate and dis/misinformation online. Henry oversees ISD’s Digital Policy Lab (DPL) and engagement on key digital regulation proposals in Europe and Five Eyes countries, advises key governments, international organisations and major private sector tech companies, and collaborates with ISD’s Digital Analysis Unit to translate research into actionable digital policy recommendations. Having joined ISD in 2013, Henry has previously worked across a variety of ISD’s Analysis and Action programmes, including education, on- and offline counter-extremism interventions, and civil society networks. Henry holds a Masters in International Conflict Studies from Kings College London, and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Durham University.
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Jakob Guhl
Senior Manager, Policy & Research
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Jakob Guhl is a Senior Manager, Policy & Research, at ISD, where he works within the Digital Research Unit and with ISD Germany. His research focuses on the far-right, Islamist extremism, hate speech, disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Jakob is a frequent commentator on German radio and broadcast and has been invited to present his research on online hate to the German Ministry of the Justice and provided evidence to the German Minister of the Interior and the German Family Minister on how to strengthen prevention against right-wing extremism and antisemitism. His research has been featured in Die Zeit, The Guardian, DW, The Telegraph, CNN, Euronews, Coda Story, Vice, Politico, New Republic and Die Welt, among others. Additionally, he has published articles in the “Journal for Deradicalisation”, “Demokratie gegen Menschenfeindlichkeit”, Taz, Der Standard, New Statesman and GNET, and contributed to edited volumes about antisemitism on social media, conspiracy theories and the origins of contemporary political anger.
He is the co-author of the ISD reports Researching the Evolving Online Ecosystem: Barriers, Methods and Future Challenges, Gen-Z & The Digital Salafi Ecosystem, Crisis and Loss of Control: German-Language Digital Extremism in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Hosting the ‘Holohoax’: A Snapshot of Holocaust Denial Across Social Media, A Safe Space to Hate: White Supremacist Mobilisation on Telegram and The Online Ecosystem of the German Far-Right.
Jakob holds an MA in Terrorism, Security and Society from King’s College London.
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Charlotte Moeyens
Senior Manager, Networks & Civic Action
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Charlotte Moeyens
Senior Manager, Networks & Civic Action
Charlotte Moeyens is a Senior Manager, Networks & Civic Action, at ISD, sitting in the central Resources and Methods team to support with the collation and distribution of counter-extremism best practice, overseeing the development and international delivery of training modules, materials and resources for practitioners and civil society. She has supported the delivery of the Google.org Impact Challenge on Safety in Europe, Africa Online Safety Fund and Mayor of London’s Shared Endeavour Fund. Most recently, she is working with the McCain Institute to develop and build the capacity of a US Prevention and Intervention Practitioners Network. Charlotte also forms part of the Strong Cities Network's (SCN) Central Management Unit, and is co-author of the SCN's Multi-Agency Models for Preventing Violent Extremism: A Guidebook for Bangladesh, as well as ISD reports YouthCAN: The Many States of Activism and Women, Girls and Islamist Extremism.
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Dominik Hammer
Research Manager, ISD Germany
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Dominik Hammer
Research Manager, ISD Germany
Dominik Hammer is a Research Manager at ISD Germany. Dominik focuses on the analysis of far-right online activities with an emphasis on qualitative research. Dominik’s prior research focused on democratic theory, the strengthening of democratic praxis and the analysis of antidemocratic movements. Dominik holds a MA in Political Science from the Dresden University of Technology and a BA in Governance and Public Policy from the University of Passau. He is currently working on his PhD in Political Theory.
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Christian Schwieter
Fellow
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Christian Schwieter is a Fellow at ISD and a PhD candidate at the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University, where he investigates the impact of European platform governance efforts on far-right activity on social media. Between 2020-2023, he led ISD Germany’s research on the migration of right-wing extremist actors to Telegram and other smaller platforms in response to increased content moderation on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. At ISD, he also co-led the pilot phase of the Digital Policy Lab, a new intergovernmental working group focused on charting the online policy path forward to prevent and counter disinformation, hate speech and extremism. In his role, he has advised the German Ministry of Justice, the German Foreign Office and the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, among others. Before ISD, Christian worked as a researcher for the Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute and was Specialist Adviser on Disinformation Matters for the DCMS Select Committee at the UK House of Commons. He holds an MSc (Dist) in Social Science of the Internet from the University of Oxford and a BA (Hons) in World Politics from Leiden University.
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Cécile Simmons
Research Manager
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Cécile Simmons is a Research Manager at ISD, specialising in malign influence operations targeting elections, public health and climate disinformation, far-right extremism and conspiracy theories. Her research includes social media network mapping, data analysis and ethnographic monitoring of closed online spaces. Her writing and commentary has been featured by the BBC, The Guardian, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Wired, among others. She previously worked in publishing and journalism, and holds an MSc in International History from the London School of Economics.