The ability to analyze online content such as news stories to understand their anatomy, history, and connection to organized campaigns, would have substantial impact on how people interact with rich online information streams. ESOC is working on identifying disinformation campaigns and their effects on worldwide democratic elections and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Detecting, analyzing, and ultimately combating disinformation efforts require new tools and scientific approaches. 

Our work falls under three distinct tasks:

• Identifying and characterizing content generated as part of coordinated disinformation campaigns;
• Develop tools to detect ongoing campaigns and use the data created by applying those tools to understand how influence campaigns are run.
• Contribute to addressing emerging misinformation threats, particularly around the COVID-19 pandemic.