A new tactic known as ‘computational propaganda’ is when a fake website or social media account uses an automated ‘bot’ (an autonomous program on the internet or another network that can interact with systems or users) to draw unsuspecting people to their accounts.
Other techniques involve misinformation/disinformation agents embedding themselves in genuine Facebook and WhatsApp groups with the sole purpose of inserting, then by proxy spreading, fake news stories to those associated with the unsuspecting reader. In some cases it even finds itself being picked up by legitimate mainstream news outlets.
