Targeting Greta Thunberg: A Case Study in Online Mis/Disinformation

The German Marshall Fund’s Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative worked with MediaCloud to examine misinformation and disinformation related to the climate-change activist Greta Thunberg, a young climate activist who was smeared by a number of conspiracy theories. We focused on a key period analyzing how narratives spread, whether one can discern strategic disinformation promotion, and how platform practices might address the promotion of conspiracy theories.