Coordinated campaigns

This entry explores the coordinated campaigns phenomenon on online social media platforms, where actors strive to capture users’ attention and spread specific messages to shape public opinion and influence discourse. Coordinated campaigns leverage multiple accounts to increase content visibility and often include false or misleading information. These campaigns have significant impacts on individuals, societies, and even geopolitical landscapes, with effects ranging from polarization and election interference to economic consequences. While coordinated campaigns can also serve positive purposes, they are predominantly employed for manipulative ends. Differentiating between fake, bot, and spam accounts is crucial to understanding coordinated activities, and the distinction can inform appropriate interventions. Collaborative efforts from various stakeholders are necessary to address the challenges posed by coordinated campaigns to their cross-border nature. To safeguard the integrity of online public discourse, social media platforms, governments, and researchers are developing techniques to detect and mitigate the effects of such campaigns.