👋 On October 15 and 16, we attended #Disinfo2025, the @disinfo.eu's annual conference. This year, over 600 participants gathered in Ljubljana, Slovenia, for two days of discussions centered around many aspects of #disinformation.

Next week, we'll be heading to Ljubljana to attend @disinfo.eu's #Disinfo2025!

Shivika Sharma, our senior manager specialising in digital threats and policy, will present @radar.checkfirst.network during the “Turning data into evidence” roundtable on 16 October.

If you have any questions about this report, please write to us at info[a]checkfirst[dot]network. Thanks for reading!

Each interception centre also has a unique way of depicting itself through its insignia, as can be seen in these two examples from our report.

Thanks to phaleristics, we were able to gain insight into the unit's current
symbolism.

To unveil the infrastructure of the 16th Center, we employed a combination of unusual and traditional OSINT techniques. Our primary sources were hundreds of photographs of Russian insignia available on specialised websites.

Today, we are proud to publish our latest investigation into the FSB’s 16th Center, publicly accused of operating some of Russia's most sophisticated cyber-espionage groups.
🔗 checkfirst.network/decoding-se...

🔴 NEW REPORT
Alongside ‪@reset.tech‬, we publish our third investigation into Operation Overload. ⤵️

🗣️ "The goal of Operation Overload is to use you, the fact-checkers, to amplify their narrative."

Today our CTO Amaury was in Brussels for the inaugural #EFCSNConference. He spoke to the fact-checking community about Operation Overload ( 🔎 checkfirst.network/operation-ov...).

🇫🇮 On Wednesday, our CEO @g.checkfirst.network st.network met with Věra Jourová, Vice-President of the European Commission, presenting key lessons from our CrossOver project in Finland with @faktabaari.bsky.social.

📷 Alessandro Rampazzo/Copyright: European Union, 2024/EC - Audiovisual Service

🔔 Save the date: 14 March. Join our CEO @g.checkfirst.network for an insightful webinar with @aa.disinfo.eu @disinfo.eu on the Finnish far right's presence and visibility on social media platforms in the lead-up to the country's presidential elections.
🔗 Sign up here:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

As we embrace the onset of 2024, a year that holds the destiny of many with votes in at least 64 countries (plus the EU), the imperative for transparency and accountability from major platforms has never been more crucial.

Yesterday our CEO Guillaume Kuster gave a talk at the OIF headquarters in Paris about our project CrossOver, and
@obsint.eu.

CrossOver tracks and measures the impact of content recommendation algorithms on social media. @obsint.eu offers guidelines for public interest #OSINT investigations.

Best practices for #OSINT investigations, where to find them and how to apply them. Mattia Caniglia presents ObSINT guidelines. Very proud to have helped designing these guidelines for the community. Give us your feedback obsint.eu #Disinfo2023 @dfrlab.bsky.social

@Meta identifies phases of an online operation which all present vulnerabilities allowing actors to act against malicious actors. #Disinfo2023

Transparency is no silver bullet - John Albert, Algorithm Watch
"Companies have been backsliding on particular commitments to transparency" #Disinfo2023

➡️ Ethical and reliable #Osint ⬅️

Main takeaway from the presentation of the ObSINT guidelines our CTO @theal.bsky.social and @ineswnarciso.bsky.social did yesterday at #osintsummit2023