Esteban Ponce de León
Esteban Ponce de León is a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) of the Atlantic Council. Esteban specializes in open-source research, online disinformation, and influence operations, with a focus on developing open-source intelligence tools and research methods grounded in data science. His work focuses in developing methods to integrate artificial intelligence models into digital research workflows to enhance open research, as well as developing methodology frameworks to assess artificial intelligence language models capabilities and risks for the information environment.
March 2022
RT and Sputnik in Spanish boosted by Russian embassy tweets and suspicious accounts
RT en Español and Sputnik News catapulted by diplomatic Twitter accounts and inauthentic activity after Russia invaded Ukraine.
February 2022
Russian outlets steadily increased claims that Ukraine will start a war
Russian media mentions of “Ukrainian aggression” narratives increased 50 percent in January 2022 compared with the two prior months.
January 2022
Twitter accounts disproportionately amplified Chilean presidential candidate hashtags
Analysis of hashtags supporting both presidential candidates shows activity highly concentrated among a small percentage of accounts.
