From Disinformation to Atrocity: Confronting Russian Propagandists Who Manufacture Impunity

In this project, GRC lawyers and researchers at the Reckoning Project worked to expose how information operations and digitally enhanced propaganda were used as an integral part of criminal acts. The project was aimed at combining investigations into the command structure of Russian information operations, detailed content analysis of propaganda, data analysis of online behaviour, and other evidence to make a compelling case that:

– Shifted the public debate to clearly mark the difference between even the most extreme types of abhorrent but legal speech and the use of information operations as part of criminal conduct;

– Established a foundation for stronger sanctions and other forms of public pressure to disrupt the funding and functioning of Russian information operations, thus weakening Russia’s military and ‘hybrid war’ machine in Ukraine and across the world;

– Advanced legal principles and build the evidentiary basis necessary to pursue criminal cases against those responsible for integrating information operations into criminal acts.