Strategies for spreading false information on online platforms to influence public opinion usually involve psychological manipulation, technical tools, and the use of loopholes in social media algorithms. Here are some common strategies and how they work： --- ### **1. Fake accounts and Bot networks** -**Strategy**: Create a large number of fake accounts or use automated programs (bots) to post, forward, or like specific content in batches in a short period of time. -**Purpose**: To create "false popularity”, so that false information seems to be widely discussed, thereby affecting public awareness. -**Case **: During the 2016 U.S. election, Russian agencies used bot accounts to spread divisive content on social media. --- ### **2. Deepfake and tampering with media** -**Strategy**: Use artificial intelligence to generate fake pictures, videos, or audios (such as imitating the voices of political figures), or tamper with the real content through editing. -**Purpose**: To create visual/auditory "evidence” to enhance the credibility of false information. -**Case **: During the 2022 Ukrainian crisis, a fake video of Zelensky's “surrender” was briefly circulated. --- ### **3. Emotional manipulation (emotional content)** -**Strategy**: Fabricate inflammatory headlines or stories, and use emotions such as fear, anger, and sympathy to trigger users to quickly forward them. -**Purpose**: Emotional content is easier to break through rational judgment and accelerate dissemination. -**Example**: Rumors of “vaccine death” during the epidemic often combine individual tragic stories to cause panic. --- ### **4. Posing as an authoritative source** -**Strategy**: Fake the accounts or websites of governments, media, experts, or institutions to publish false statements that appear to be official. -**Purpose**: To use the public's trust in authority to reduce suspicion. -**Case **: Issued an epidemic error guide in the name of the World Health Organization (WHO). --- ### **5. Out of context and information fragmentation** -**Strategy**: Intercept fragments of real events (such as speeches, data), remove context or tamper with background, and distort the original meaning. -**Purpose**: To mislead the public's overall understanding of the incident. -**Example**: Editing clips of political figures' speeches to create the illusion of ”supporting extreme policies". --- ### **6. Coordinated Disinformation Campaign (Sybil Attack)** -**Strategy**: By organizing teams (such as the “Navy”) to publish the same content simultaneously on multiple platforms, the illusion of “consensus” is created. -**Purpose**: Use “information bombing” to make users mistakenly believe that false information is the mainstream view. -**Case **: Some countries use the "online navy" to promote specific narratives on international platforms. --- ### **7. Algorithm Hijacking (Exploitation Algorithms)** -**Strategy**: Use the preferences of social media algorithms (such as prioritizing highly interactive content) to deliberately create controversial and extreme content to gain traffic. -**Purpose**: To amplify the coverage of false information through algorithms. -**Mechanism**: The platform algorithm tends to promote posts that cause anger or opposition. --- ### **8. Nested Disinformation (Nested Disinformation)** -**Strategy**: Embed a small amount of false details in some real information, or misinterpret conclusions after quoting real sources. -**Purpose**: To reduce users' doubts about the overall content. -**Example**: Quote a real research report, but tamper with its conclusions to support a specific point of view. --- ### **9. Time-based Attacks (Timing-Based Attacks)** -**Strategy**: Quickly spread rumors and take advantage of the public's hunger for information when crisis events (such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks) occur. -**Purpose**: To maximize the dissemination effect before the truth is verified. -**Case **: After the explosion in Beirut in 2020, the false “identity of the murderer” quickly spread on social media. --- ### **10. Use niche platforms to communicate with encrypted communications** -**Strategy**: Publish false information on platforms with weak supervision (such as Telegram and niche forums), and then spread to mainstream platforms through screenshots. -**Purpose**: To avoid content review and pretend to be third-party evidence in the form of “screenshots”. --- ###**Defense and response recommendations** 1. **Improve media literacy**: Educate the public to identify information sources and verify the authenticity of pictures/videos (such as reverse search tools). 2. **Technical means**: The platform deploys AI to detect fake accounts, deeply forged content, and naval networks. 3. **Cross-platform collaboration**: Governments, companies and non-governmental organizations share databases of false information. 4. **Legal deterrence**: Accountability for the malicious dissemination of false information. --- The core logic of false information is to take advantage of human cognitive biases (such as confirmation bias, herd mentality) and technical loopholes. Only through multi-dimensional defense can its influence be effectively curbed.