1. The Hidden Life of Disinformation
There is a strange and unsettling moment that many of us have experienced while scrolling through social media. A post appears—perhaps a dramatic headline, a grainy video, or an angry comment—that seems to confirm our worst fears about the world. We pause. We feel a surge of emotion. Maybe we share it, or maybe we simply keep scrolling, but the image lingers. What most of us do not realize in that moment is that we have just become part of something much larger than ourselves: a complex ecosystem of influence, manipulation, and unintended amplification. This is the world that Johanna Muhrbeck, a doctoral student at the Department of War Studies at the Swedish Defence University, has spent years trying to understand. In her thesis, Beyond Orchestration: A practice-based study of state-linked disinformation on social media, she asks a deceptively simple question: how does state-linked disinformation actually spread? The answer, it turns out, is far more complicated than the familiar image of a shadowy puppet master pulling strings from a distant capital. Muhrbeck’s research reveals that disinformation is not simply a top-down command-and-control operation. It is a living, breathing social phenomenon, shaped by the choices, emotions, and habits of ordinary users who may have no connection whatsoever to the original source. Her work challenges us to rethink what disinformation is, how it works, and where our responsibility lies in stopping it. It is a story about power, but also about participation—and about the uncomfortable truth that we are all, in ways large and small, part of the machinery of falsehood.
2. Beyond the Puppet Master
For years, the dominant way of thinking about state-linked disinformation was fairly straightforward. A hostile government, the story went, creates a piece of misleading content—a fake news article, a manipulated image, a divisive meme—and then uses bots, trolls, and fake accounts to push it into the public sphere. The goal is to sow confusion, deepen divisions, or undermine trust in democratic institutions. This narrative is not wrong, but it is incomplete. Muhrbeck’s key finding is that the dissemination of disinformation is not solely directed from above. Strategic actors, such as state agencies or their proxies, can indeed craft and launch misleading information with the explicit aim of exerting influence. But once that content is released into the wild, it takes on a life of its own. It is picked up by real people—people who are not paid operatives, who have no ideological allegiance to the original actor, and who may not even realize that they are spreading a lie. They share it because it makes them angry, or because it confirms something they already believe, or simply because it is the kind of content that gets attention. In this way, the original strategic intent becomes entangled with the messy, unpredictable behavior of millions of individual users. Muhrbeck argues that to understand how strategic disinformation spreads, we need to look both at strategic and coordinated activity and at how other users contribute to its dissemination. The metaphor of a virus is useful here: a pathogen may be deliberately released, but its spread depends on the behavior of the hosts it infects. If people did not share, comment, and react, the virus would die. But they do—and in doing so, they become unwitting participants in a process that no single actor fully controls.
3. The Architecture of Amplification
Why do users behave this way? Part of the answer lies in the very design of social media platforms. These platforms are not neutral conduits for information; they are engineered to encourage engagement. Every like, comment, and share is a small signal that feeds into an algorithmic system designed to maximize attention. The more a piece of content provokes an emotional response—especially outrage, fear, or moral indignation—the more likely it is to be boosted and shown to others. This is not an accident; it is the business model. Social media companies profit from keeping us engaged, and the most effective way to keep us engaged is to show us content that makes us feel something intense. Disinformation, it turns out, is exceptionally good at doing this. It is often designed to be provocative, to tap into existing social tensions, and to present the world in stark, Manichaean terms. When a user encounters such content, they are not just passively receiving information; they are being invited to participate in its circulation. Their reaction—whether it is a share, a comment, or even an angry reply—becomes part of the story. Muhrbeck’s research shows that it is not enough to examine who is behind disinformation and what their purpose is. To understand how content gains traction, researchers also need to study how users receive and interact with it. This shifts the focus from the origin of the message to its journey through the social network. It also raises uncomfortable questions about our own role. When we share a sensational headline without checking the source, or when we respond with outrage to a post designed to provoke us, we are not just victims of manipulation. We are active participants in its spread. The line between the orchestrator and the orchestrated becomes blurred, and the responsibility for the spread of falsehood becomes distributed across an entire ecosystem.
4. A Method for the Messy Middle
Studying this kind of phenomenon is no easy task. Disinformation is often hidden, ephemeral, and deliberately difficult to trace. It crosses platforms, languages, and borders. It evolves in response to current events and platform policies. To make sense of this complexity, Muhrbeck combined qualitative and quantitative methods in a way that is both rigorous and creative. She analyzed the content and extent of the disinformation—what was being said, how often, and in what forms. She examined the types of actors involved in its dissemination, from state-linked accounts to seemingly ordinary users. And she delved into the purposes, ideas, and emotions that shaped the content, trying to understand not just what the disinformation claimed, but why it resonated with people. This mixed-methods approach allowed her to see both the forest and the trees. The quantitative data revealed patterns of spread: which accounts were most influential, which posts gained the most traction, and how the conversation evolved over time. The qualitative analysis brought those numbers to life, showing the narratives, symbols, and emotional appeals that made the content compelling. By bringing these two perspectives together, Muhrbeck was able to paint a fuller picture of the disinformation ecosystem—one that includes not only the strategic actors who create the content, but also the human beings who carry it forward. Her work is a reminder that research on disinformation cannot be purely technical. It must be social, psychological, and cultural. It must ask not only “Who did this?” but also “Why did people believe it?” and “Why did they share it?” These are not easy questions, but they are essential ones for anyone who wants to understand the power of falsehood in the digital age.
5. From Understanding to Resilience
The practical implications of Muhrbeck’s research are significant. For years, governments, tech companies, and civil society organizations have struggled to respond to the threat of state-linked disinformation. Many of their efforts have focused on identifying the source of the content—exposing bot networks, attributing attacks to specific intelligence agencies, and taking down fake accounts. These measures are important, but they are not sufficient. If disinformation spreads not only through coordinated activity but also through the voluntary actions of ordinary users, then takedowns and attributions can only do so much. A bot account can be suspended, but the people who shared its content will remain. The falsehood will continue to circulate through their networks, passed along by people who may never know where it came from. Muhrbeck’s findings can contribute to a stronger knowledge base for public authorities and organizations working to prevent and counter disinformation. Understanding both deliberate influence efforts and the subsequent dissemination of content among users can provide a more comprehensive picture of how disinformation circulates on social media. This, in turn, can inform the development of more effective countermeasures. Instead of focusing solely on the supply side of disinformation, we might also need to address the demand side. This means strengthening media literacy, fostering critical thinking, and helping people recognize the emotional triggers that make them vulnerable to manipulation. It means creating a culture of verification, where pausing before sharing becomes a reflex. And it means recognizing that resilience is not just about defending institutions; it is about empowering citizens. As Muhrbeck puts it, a better understanding of how and why disinformation spreads can provide a stronger basis for developing measures to strengthen society’s resilience to disinformation. The goal is not to create a world where no one is ever fooled—that would be impossible—but to create a world where falsehoods cannot spread so easily, because people are equipped to resist them.
6. The Shared Responsibility of the Digital Age
In the end, Muhrbeck’s thesis is more than an academic study. It is a mirror held up to our own behavior. It asks us to look at the way we engage with the digital world and to confront the uncomfortable possibility that we are not just bystanders in the age of disinformation. We are participants. Every time we share a post without checking its source, every time we let our outrage get the better of our judgment, every time we pass along a piece of content that we know, deep down, is probably too good to be true, we are contributing to the problem. This is not to say that ordinary users are to blame for the actions of state actors who deliberately seek to manipulate public opinion. The responsibility for creating and launching disinformation lies squarely with those who do it. But the responsibility for stopping its spread is shared. Platforms must do more to design their systems for health rather than simply for engagement. Governments must do more to support education and research. And citizens must do more to cultivate the habits of mind that make us less susceptible to manipulation. Muhrbeck’s work is a call to action, but it is also a source of hope. If disinformation spreads through human behavior, then human behavior can also be changed. We are not powerless. We can learn to be more skeptical, more thoughtful, and more deliberate in our online interactions. We can build communities that value truth over outrage, and we can create a public sphere that is more resistant to the corrosive effects of manipulation. The challenge is immense, but the tools are within our reach. The first step is understanding—and thanks to researchers like Johanna Muhrbeck, we are beginning to understand the problem in all its complexity. The rest is up to us.