How brands can detect and mitigate disinformation threats

Disinformation can result in devastation. It’s the main strategy behind the major crises of our time: election interference, conspiracy theories around Covid-19 or climate change, expansion of Wagner’s mercenaries in Africa, and the war between Ukraine and Russia. 

Social media has dramatically increased the sphere of risk for businesses. Brands lose revenue from massive bad buzz, while banks crash from a single rumor posted on Twitter. 

Disinformation-as-a-service challenges Brand Protection and Brand Equity managers, as dis/misinformation costs the global economy $78 billion each year, with economic damage being inflicted on key industries including finance, retail, and media. 

CIO and CISO – Chief Information and Security Officers – need to broaden the spectrum of intrusion and threat detection in the information space. Companies should prioritize social media threat management to mitigate risks effectively. 

The 3 dimensions of « Fake news »: Misinformation, Disinformation, Malinformation

The spread of rumors and false information has always existed in History since Antiquity, but social media now accelerate low-cost disinformation campaigns to instantly reach a massive international audience at-speed and at-scale. 

“Fake news” differs in intent and purpose, content, author, and behavior. Schematically, we distinguish the following MDM triptych:  

• Misinformation – False information created or disseminated out of ignorance with no intent to harm. 
• Disinformation – False information deliberately created to deceive, harm or manipulate a person, a social group, an organization or a country. 
• Malinformation – Content based on true facts, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate. 

Malicious organizations leverage multiple and constantly evolving techniques and tactics

Digital adversaries keep expanding their social media toolbox to increase impact: 

• Creation and curation of massive batches of accounts ;
• Crafting of fake identities ;
• Assisted content creation ;
• Automation of publications… 

Generative AI further lowers the barrier of entry for the dissemination of massive textual, visual, and audio deepfakes.

Bloom AI-enabled technologies detect and analyze inauthentic digital behavior to protect corporate and business assets

Bloom offers an innovative Risk Account Management solution [RAM] to detect, measure and anticipate informational attacks. 

Our clients leverage its unique features on the daily basis to:

• Uncover botnets, trolls, sock puppets, sleeper accounts…
• Detect amplification, astroturfing, spintax, and coordinated inauthentic actions ;
• Infer origin of manipulation and amplification ;
• Document tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP).

Learn how Bloom’s innovative solutions can help you mitigate informational threats. Register now for a demo with our experts > 

Bloom Social Analytics, an innovative European company, offers sovereign solutions for collecting signals from various social media. Bloom’s unique social data processing and visualization capabilities enable government agencies, companies, and asset managers to detect, quantify and anticipate informational attacks and malicious actions in order to preserve their reputation and assets.

[Photo : AI Generated deepfakes]