Center for Media Engagement

WhatsApp has become a dominant platform for communication, entertainment, and news sharing among U.S. diaspora communities. It has also emerged as a significant source of misinformation. Complimenting ongoing and previous research, this report focuses on Caribbean diaspora communities....

A look at the role EMAs play in global disinformation efforts and the manipulation of public opinion....

The Center for Media Engagement wanted to find out how some aspects of identity, such as gender, age, education, political orientation, and time spent online, are tied to the ways in which people participate in certain anonymous actions....

We asked WhatsApp users in three sub-groups (Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, and Indian Americans) about their perceptions of the platform; their news and information consumption behaviors; and their encounters with false information....

The Center for Media Engagement examined: How are encrypted messaging apps (EMAs) relevant for propagandists and/or activists in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Libya? How do these platforms fit into the existing (dis-)information landscape?...

Testimony of Samuel Woolley, Ph.D. for Congressional hearing "A Growing Threat: The Impact of Disinformation Targeted at Communities of Color."...

This report builds the foundation of our future research on diaspora communities, false information, and EMAs with regard to the 2022 mid-term elections and provides an assessment useful for the design of community-centric counter programs....

The Propaganda Lab at the Center for Media Engagement created an overview on location-based targeting, including its history, the technologies behind it, and its usage over the years. The report also includes recommendations addressing some key concerns....

The Propaganda Lab at the Center for Media Engagement expanded its research into the use of encrypted messaging apps (EMAs) for political talk, analyzing both how EMAs are used by people for everyday political talk and how EMA technology is being used for coordinated manipulation campaigns in Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Ukraine....

The Center for Media Engagement investigated how certain socio-political differences — including where people get their news, time spent online, political views, and age — relate to people’s views about anonymity....

The disclosures by NYPD – the first required by the POST Act – raise substantial questions about how police in New York acquire and maintain data across dozens of surveillance systems, how NYPD thinks about safety and possible harms to society, and reveal new details about the suite of technologies enabling covert police activities on social media networks. ...

New forms of direct communication, such as campaign apps and digital wallet passes on smartphones, are poised to bring political messaging to even higher levels of intimacy and efficacy, and, disturbingly, render them factually impossible to audit by outsiders....

The Center for Media Engagement propaganda research team spent the past year studying political manipulation on encrypted messaging applications (EMAs) in the U.S., India, and Mexico....

The Center for Media Engagement's propaganda research team reports on the phenomenon of social media influencers as an avenue for political campaign communications, describes the challenges this issue poses to platforms and governments, and briefly explores solutions....