Faketivism: protest that looks grassroots?

Faketivism is the simulation of an authentic activist movement to serve concealed objectives – run from a keyboard, aimed at brands as much as at politics. Our security research team takes these campaigns apart: how they are built, how they spread, and why a prolonged flood of fakes lets people dismiss real evidence as fake – the “liar’s dividend”. A community contribution asks the question from the other side: can you hack a democracy without hacking a computer?

How we researched it

The research draws on social-media and signals-intelligence investigations by specialists in our Security & Intelligence Research Team, and on cognitive science – including the difference between fast, automatic thinking and slow, deliberate thinking. A community contribution looks at influence operations in Romania as a case study.

Take it to your team

• Who owns a fake-outrage campaign against our brand: communications, security or legal?
• How fast could we prove that a viral video or document about us is fake?
• Which of our executives would make the most convincing deepfake?
• Who is our public voice if a false story about us goes viral?
• Do our people know what a coordinated fake campaign looks like – and where to report it?

Explore some other questions:

• Did the AI attack wave arrive – or something else? → Explore | AI

• Your biggest insider risk – malicious or well-meaning? → Explore | Threat Detection

• What do takedowns really do to ransomware gangs? → Explore | Law Enforcement

• How many extortion gangs are active – and who leads? → Explore | Cy-X

• The CVE flood: did it reach real networks? → Explore | Vulnerabilities