Exploring Information Warfare Strategies during the Russia-Ukraine War on Twitter

Twitter, one of the mainstream social media platforms, has played a significant role in strategic communication and public diplomacy. Using tweets during the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war period as a case study, the researchers aim to build a pipeline that automatically detects information manipulation. Artificial intelligence and machine learning technology are adopted to target certain coordinated groups of people, and how they manipulate online public opinion internationally via social media platforms by retweeting identical tweets between members within the groups and even with their own tweets. With the large number of tweets posted and retweeted by the coordinated groups, their intended content will appear in the news feeds of normal users. This study maps an approach to future warfare that social media is becoming a vital part of information warfare to influence the results of conflict and regional relationships. The researchers argue that the government should consider taking countermeasures: 1) Set up legislation regarding media platforms and cooperate with social media companies to monitor manipulating behaviors. 2) Establish a model to orchestrate inter-agency defensive strategies. 3) Increase people's media literacy to allow them to be aware of manipulative and collaborative behavior and decrease their likeliness to spread fake/manipulated information online unintentionally. Also, similar research can be adapted to different regional conflicts.