How to Protect Yourself Against AI-Powered Disinformation

New reports reveal that Russia has been actively interfering in the U.S. midterm elections for months.

Question who benefits if you posts, pause before reposting, and read sources outside your bubble.

Due to constant exposure to Russian disinformation, Ukraine's civil society has developed a robust response.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving new ways to manipulate democracy. And this election season, it’s coming to a smartphone screen near you. New intelligence reports show that over the past several months, Russia has again embarked on a campaign to meddle in American elections.

In the run-up to the 2026 midterms, the New York Times reports that the U.S. intelligence community has been monitoring social media campaigns and AI-powered deepfake videos depicting Hollywood celebrities such as Julia Roberts or Jamie Lee Curtis criticizing Democratic candidates. One of the deepfakes even depicted actress Sarah Jessica Parker calling both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Democratic candidates “Nazis.”

These videos use lies to amplify typical attack lines against candidates’ positions on immigration and LGBT rights, along with accusations of corruption and antisemitism.

The assessments also point to Iran using similar tactics to disrupt U.S. democracy. Because Russia is distracted by its grueling war against Ukraine, experts believe this year’s manipulation during the U.S. midterms is relatively minor compared with Russia’s massive influence operation during the 2016 presidential election.

Disinformation and propaganda efforts have long been part of Russia’s foreign policy and cognitive warfare strategy. They have exploited critical vulnerabilities in free societies through the 2016 election, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and more recently during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. These techniques have been deployed throughout the world, including in recent elections in Georgia and Moldova, and upcoming contests in Germany, France, and Estonia. Understanding how such strategies work is essential to being a savvy consumer of modern media, especially in the social media and AI era.

New Era of Propaganda

During World War II, propaganda worked differently. In Germany, the Nazi Party’s chief propagandist Josef Goebbels executed a top-down strategy. With total command of broadcasters and mass media, Goebbels dictated the truth through radio, film reels, and posters.

In today’s fractured and high-speed information landscape, authoritarian information manipulators use different techniques to reach similar outcomes, says Halyna Padalko, a postdoctoral scholar at MIT from Ukraine. She studies disinformation and teaches courses on modern propaganda techniques.

Modern propaganda is decentralized, rather than centralized. Instead of a singular ministry, there are armies of state media outlets, private contractors, social media influencers, and automated bot networks. , techniques practiced by Russia are not necessarily designed to induce a whole population to believe the same lie; rather, they aim to confuse enough of the population such that people stop believing what’s real. AI deepfakes only accelerate an already worrying trend. Disinformation shatters the notion of a singular truth, rather than dictates it. Bot farms amplify a range of distorted narratives to the point that individuals quit believing it’s possible to know the truth, or are so overwhelmed they give up. Contradictory or inconsistent information makes it harder to act or can lead us into a state of passivity. Finally, propaganda and disinformation are now highly personalized. Narratives and fake news can be algorithmically deployed to those most susceptible, based on the habits, tastes, preferences, and demographics of individual users. Because it stokes hate or fear , it triggers deep urgency in users to click or it, and then it is further amplified when those posts trigger intense arguments.

“The goal is often not to convince people of a specific alternative fact but to exhaust their trust in the idea that truth is knowable at all,” Padalko said.

Padalko recommends several tips for how individuals can inoculate themselves against disinformation. A few practical habits can help you engage with discernment, keep your distance, and ultimately be part of the solution.

First, check the source's incentive, not just its claim. Ask yourself: Who benefits if I believe this? A story engineered to make you angry, afraid, or triumphant is worth extra scrutiny. Strong emotion is often the point, not a side effect. If it confirms your existing viewpoint, that could be as manipulative. Terms such as “regime,” “liberators,” or “so-called” work to polarize readers toward one side or to call facts into question. , slow down before sharing. Pause and consider. Disinformation is designed to spread far faster than fact-checkers can respond. Make sure to read the story, check who wrote it, and determine whether independent outlets are reporting similar information. Doing this usually filters out a large percentage of manipulated content.

Take special care that sources confirming a piece of information are indeed independent. “Volume is not evidence,” Padalko said. “Ten accounts repeating the same claims can still be one source amplified by bots.”

Be aware of short viral video clips that purport to show a slanted viewpoint: Recycled or out-of-context imagery is one of the most common tricks.

Finally, diversify and design your media diet so that you don’t strictly read outlets that your viewpoint. This helps you notice when a story online appears in a particular ideological echo chamber.

A Society Fights Back

Over the past two decades, including years of full-scale war, Ukraine has borne the brunt of Russian disinformation campaigns. As a matter of survival, the nation has responded by building a whole-of-society inoculation system, pairing government coordination with private-sector AI tools, independent watchdogs, and mass civic education . National polls show that the of Ukrainians with “above average” media literacy increased from 55 percent in 2021 to 81 percent in 2022, just as Russia’s full-scale invasion launched. The Ministry of Culture's " Filter " project runs nationwide campaigns teaching people to spot deepfakes and manipulated narratives. The government’s Diia.Education platform streams media-literacy content to more than two million users. And Ukraine’s tech community regularly organizes hackathons that bring together teams to prototype disinformation detectors in 72-hour sprints. Much of the success of Ukraine’s model stems from how it engages civil society: Homegrown AI companies work directly with stratcom units within the government, coordinating detection efforts, forecasting how false narratives will spread across dozens of countries, mapping bot-driven coordination, or monitoring Russian Telegram channels for emerging propaganda themes.

At the same time, independent journalists perform in-depth investigations, and millions of citizens play their role flagging and verifying questionable content in real time. “That redundancy is what has let Ukraine keep pace with and sometimes get ahead of a Russian propaganda machine that is built for volume and speed,” Padalko said.