The second quarterly Robotrolling report of 2021 tracks the number of times inauthentic russophone social media activity has been observed and recorded.
NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence is publishing quarterly reports on bot and troll activity in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. The reports seek to monitor the current state of online manipulation of information on social media platforms regarding NATO presence.
The report has found an alarming increase of automated Russian-language social media activity. This is different from the last quarterly report which found a decrease of inauthentic activity. Albeit an increase of fake activity in the Russophone space has been observed, no such escalation has been recorded in the English-language space.
This edition is the first to use the Global Database of Events Location and Tone (GDELT). This database serves to map how the presence of NATO in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland is reflected in the media. The database serves as a comparison to the current affairs observed on VK and Twitter.
The issue also explores how Artificial Intelligence can aid us in bettering our understanding of the current news environment, based on conversations with StratCom COE expert Gundars Bergmanis-Korāts and GDELT-founder Kalev Leetar.