DFRLab

Still thinking about applying to Digital Sherlocks? 🤔

Good news! Applications for our 2026 cohort have been extended to April 21.

If you’ve been meaning to apply, this is your opportunity to join a global community of working to track narratives, verify digital content, and understand today’s information environment 🔎

Through this free, three-month program from the DFRLab, participants build practical open-source investigative skills and connect with peers across regions.

Apply now: https://bit.ly/47JLw02

If you’re already trying to make sense of the information environment, tracking narratives, verifying content, or following influence operations... you know how complex this space is.

Digital Sherlocks 2026 is built for that work.

This free program from the Digital Forensic Research Lab brings together journalists, researchers, students, and civil society practitioners for hands-on training—and connects you to a global community of Digital Sherlocks doing this work every day.

🗓 Applications close April 14
🔗 https://bit.ly/47JLw02

Digital Sherlocks is back 🕵️‍♀️

Applications are now open for Digital Sherlocks 2026, the DFRLab’s free online program training a global community of investigators to track, verify, and understand today’s information environment.

Across three months of live sessions, participants build real open-source investigative skills through live sessions with DFRLab experts.

Join the community and build the skills to investigate today’s information environment.

🗓 Apply by April 14, 2026 (23:59 ET)
🔗 https://bit.ly/47JLw02

We’re excited to introduce the 2026 cohort of Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas - DDIA's Latinos, Media, and Democracy Program (LMDP) – The AI Edition.

This year’s journalists, content creators, and community leaders will explore AI, media, and information integrity to strengthen Latino communities.

Meet the cohort: https://ddia.org/en/LMDP-2026

Watch the Watchers 👁️ 👁️

A new report from Conexión Segura y Libre and the DFRLab reveals how surveillance technologies are used for political control in Venezuela. From AI-powered cameras to digital apps and cyberpatrolling, the system creates layered risks for activists, journalists, and everyday citizens.

🔎 Explore the report now:

Watch the Watchers: Surveillance technologies for political control in Venezuela Despite changes in leadership, Venezuela's extensive surveillance infrastructure remains fully operational.

Venezuela’s surveillance state didn’t disappear with Nicolás Maduro.

Join the Atlantic Council’s Democracy + Tech Initiative and Conexión Segura y Libre for the launch of "Watch the Watchers: Surveillance technologies for political control in Venezuela," examining the architecture of Venezuela’s surveillance system, from AI CCTV to telecom interception.

🗓 Mar 26 | 10 AM ET
Register: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event/how-venezuela-deploys-surveillance-to-maintain-political-control/

Still watching: How Venezuela deploys surveillance to maintain political control The Atlantic Council's Democracy + Tech Initiative and Conexión Segura y Libre present the most comprehensive analysis to date of Venezuela's massive surveillance system, which is still operational after Maduro's removal, and its implications for democratic transition.

AI, memes, and hashtags: How China is battling the US online over Venezuela 🤖 🇻🇪

Kenton Thibaut's analysis shows that Chinese state-linked social media accounts responded to the US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with a deliberate narrative push: casting the United States as unpredictable and destabilizing, while positioning China as a steady, responsible actor upholding the rules-based international order.

Rather than relying on traditional state messaging, these accounts engaged in memefied political dialogue, deliberately adopting an irreverent, digitally native aesthetic optimized for virality.

For China, this incident offers strategic value, strengthening the state's efforts to undermine US alliance while simultaneously self-positioning as a "responsible global power."

Read more:

AI, memes, and hashtags: How China is battling the US online over Venezuela Chinese state media and inauthentic accounts promoted narratives of US decline.

Russia’s influence networks didn’t wait. Within hours of , pro-Kremlin actors launched coordinated narratives aimed at diluting US credibility online.

🔎 Analysis from Eto Buziashvili tracks how it unfolded:

How Russia's influence machine mobilized immediately after Maduro's capture Unable to protect an ally, Moscow's digital assets deployed narrative confusion.

We’re only a week into 2026, and the information environment is already moving fast.

Before the DFRLab turns fully toward what’s next, Deputy Director of Research Layla Mashkoor takes a moment to reflect on the investigations that shaped 2025: election interference, coordinated influence operations, and the growing role of AI in the information space.

Here’s what we learned, and why it matters for the year ahead:
https://bit.ly/4pvwTmX

Join us today @ 8:30 AM ET | 2:30 PM CET for key lessons from Moldova’s 2025 elections w/ DFRLab's Eto Buziashvili, Victoria Olari & Layla Mashkoor

🔗 Watch live: https://t.co/aA9BNrbuPT

Lessons on countering foreign manipulation from Moldova’s 2025 elections The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab discusses lessons learned from safeguarding the 2025 elections in Moldova against foreign information manipulation and interference.

📅 Dec 17 | 2:30 PM CET | 8:30 AM ET

How did foreign information manipulation shape Moldova’s 2025 parliamentary elections...and what lessons emerged from the response? 🇲🇩

Join the DFRLab’s Victoria Olari and Eto Buziashvili for a virtual discussion examining how foreign and domestic actors sought to influence Moldova’s 2025 parliamentary elections, and what lessons emerged from efforts to counter those campaigns.

This event will launch a new report developed under FIMI-ISAC’s FIMI Defenders for Election Integrity (FDEI) project, drawing on coordinated monitoring by more than thirty organizations and analysis from twenty-two incident alerts documenting the information threats shaping Moldova’s electoral environment.

🔗 Register now:

Lessons on countering foreign manipulation from Moldova’s 2025 elections The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab discusses lessons learned from safeguarding the 2025 elections in Moldova against foreign information manipulation and interference.