‘Nebulous’. ‘Far right’. ‘Conspiracist and anti-vax’. ‘Radical far left’: almost every label has been applied to the ‘Bloquons tout !’ (‘Let’s Block Everything!’, i.e. ‘Bring France to a Standstill!’) movement since it first emerged in early July in Telegram groups. So what exactly is it? Clearly, the reality of the movement is disparate, colorful, and […]
When the most notable victim of MAGA-approved conspiracy merchant Candace Owens announced a decision to fight back against her bullying, the response came in typical style. “Today I have been sued by the First Lady-Man of France,” announced a gleeful Owens, an unrepentant peddler of anti-women, gay and transgender slanders as well as Holocaust denial, […]
On Tuesday, someone posted a video on X of a procession of crosses, with a caption reading, “Each cross represents a white farmer who was murdered in South Africa.” Elon Musk, South African by birth, shared the post, greatly expanding its visibility. The accusation of genocide being carried out against white farmers is either a […]
Russia’s long-term objective in the global information war has never been to convince the world of its version of events. Instead, it seeks to erode the very idea that objective truth exists. The Kremlin’s goal, as described by British journalist Peter Pomerantsev, is to create a world where “nothing is true and everything is possible.” This strategy […]
In the first edition of the DFRLab’s Narrative Warfare series, released on the first anniversary of Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we examined narratives that claimed Ukraine had developed biological weapons that were sponsored by the West. Now, on the third anniversary of the war, we reexamined this narrative and found the conspiracies and false […]
Conspiracy theories about vaccines. Secret meetings with dictators. An enemies list. President Donald Trump’ s most controversial Cabinet nominees — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel — flooded the zone Thursday in back-to-back-to-back confirmation hearings that were like nothing the Senate has seen in modern memory. The onslaught of claims, promises and testy exchanges did not occur in a political vacuum. The […]
