American voters are facing an election disinformation crisis

As Election Day approaches, disinformation efforts are everywhere. A Russian disinformation network spread false claims of sexual abuse by Tim Walz, Kamala Harris' vice president, Wired reports. Election interference efforts by foreign adversaries are “more active now than ever before,” says the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The U.S. intelligence community “expects foreign influence efforts to intensify leading up to Election Day,” according to a memo issued Monday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

We are used to viewing propaganda and disinformation through one lens: the far right. Stories on this topic have often revolved around the alt-right movement, which gained popularity in 2016, as well as Russian efforts to support the rise of Donald Trump. In fact, at the time, it was by far the greatest threat America faced online and beyond.

But in the last eight years, things have changed. Or rather, they have evolved.

Disinformation and online propaganda are skills that have now been perfected by fascist and far-right governments and adopted worldwide. This means we are no longer just dealing with Russia or the alt-right. What we are dealing with is extensive, all-encompassing, and focused on all of us. We are facing an online propaganda crisis the likes of which we have never experienced before.

As Russia has expanded its influence activities since 2016, the internet has become an influence battlefield. One in which enforcing global opinion, sowing discord and chaos, and encouraging anti-democratic thinking in democracies have become the tactics of a larger strategy by world powers to weaken their enemies, strengthen themselves and change the landscape the future physical battlefields might one day take place.

Far-right movements are oppositional in nature and driven by maximalist ideologies, meaning that while they share certain characteristics such as nationalism, xenophobia and anti-globalism, their goals and strategies often clash. In essence, far-right movements are not a monolith, but a network of conflicting and collaborating entities, each using propaganda to advance their own specific agenda while combating both liberal democracies and rival authoritarian movements.

For example, the far-right movements in the United States focus heavily on anti-immigrant sentiment and Christian nationalism, while the far-right movement in Iran manifests itself through theocratic authoritarianism and anti-Israel rhetoric. These differences in ideology mean that far-right propaganda in the United States differs significantly from far-right narratives in Iran or Russia, despite their shared rejection of liberal democracy.

Iran, for example, is targeting both the US left and right. Hackers linked to the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have targeted both presidential campaigns, according to U.S. intelligence assessments and researchers. An Iranian influence operation has created fake news sites that appear to be based in the United States. One website published comments such as “Why Harris' stance on Palestine cost me my vote” intended to cause more internal division among those on the left, while another website was intended to act as a right-wing news outlet based in Georgia and spread anti-Harris -Propaganda. By using AI software, they were able to expand the scope and productivity of their propaganda. Unlike Russia, which often focuses on specific policy outcomes, Iran's main goal is to foment internal discord and undermine trust in U.S. democratic institutions overall.

At the other end of the spectrum is Israel. According to the New York Times and Haaretz, Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs funded an influence campaign targeting both lawmakers and young progressives to increase support for its war in Gaza. The campaign created websites to spread Islamophobia by focusing on the role of Muslims in the slave trade in East Africa and amplified divisions in campus protests by labeling some campuses as “safe” or “unsafe.”

More broadly, Israel's information warfare has aligned itself with other far-right movements that spread propaganda consistent with their position. Poland's far-right publication Visegrad 24 has spent the entire Gaza war promoting Israel's position, including collaborating with some of the most outspoken pro-Israel influencers. Visegrad 24, which has some ties to the Polish government, also exists as an anti-Russian propaganda outlet.

Similar operations by other countries and movements have been uncovered, from China to Venezuela to North Korea. Essentially this means that these countries are at war with each other and that we are all potential victims. If they can convince us to turn against each other or spread anti-democratic sentiment, we will become their digital allies and help achieve their goals of destroying trust in democracy and increasing their global power. One only needs to look at how some white nationalists have successfully positioned themselves as pro-Palestinian to see how successful these movements can become.

With the news that Russia has used some of America's biggest far-right influencers to spread propaganda, we can see how extensive and effective these operations have become among the biggest players. All of this means that we need to arm ourselves with digital media literacy and be constantly vigilant about the information we collect online. Being liberal, progressive or centrist no longer protects anyone from disinformation. We are all both soldiers and targets on the digital battlefield.