# Unveiling Coordinated Groups Behind White Helmets Disinformation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.01313 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01313/

## Key facts

- Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 3 Mar 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Detecting Propaganda Techniques in Memes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.08013/) (2021)
- [Leveraging Large Language Models to Detect Influence Campaigns in Social Media](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.07816/) (2023)
- [Coordinating Narratives and the Capitol Riots on Parler](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.00945/) (2021)
- [The Spread of Propaganda by Coordinated Communities on Social Media](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.13046/) (2021)
- [Detection and Characterization of Coordinated Online Behavior: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01257/) (2024)
- [Emergent Coordinated Behaviors in Networked LLM Agents: Modeling the Strategic Dynamics of Information Operations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.25003/) (2025)
- [IOHunter: Graph Foundation Model to Uncover Online Information Operations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14663/) (2024)
- [Density-aware Walks for Coordinated Campaign Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13912/) (2025)
- [Beyond Content: Behavioral Policies Reveal Actors in Information Operations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.02838/) (2026)
- [Not All Duplicates Are Coordination: Generic vs. Non-Generic Duplicate Campaigns in Information Operations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.13671/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Propaganda, disinformation, manipulation, and polarization are the modern illnesses of a society increasingly dependent on social media as a source of news. In this paper, we explore the disinformation campaign, sponsored by Russia and allies, against the Syria Civil Defense (a.k.a. the White Helmets). We unveil coordinated groups using automatic retweets and content duplication to promote narratives and/or accounts. The results also reveal distinct promoting strategies, ranging from the small groups sharing the exact same text repeatedly, to complex "news website factories" where dozens of accounts synchronously spread the same news from multiple sites.