First-hand investigations into narrative manipulation, influence operations, and what they mean for communicators, analysts, and security teams.
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Every post is authored by a practitioner — former intelligence officials, communication directors, journalists, and researchers.
Analysis and intelligence research published by the Rolli IQ team.
Harvard Shorenstein Center affiliate. PhD in Political Communication from MIT. Research on disinformation and democratic resilience published in the Harvard Kennedy School Review.
Co-founder of Rolli. Former CNN en Español Washington DC Bureau Chief and Senior Producer. Building the narrative intelligence layer for organizations that can't afford to be wrong.
Veteran investigative journalist with expertise in political communication and media analysis. Tracks narrative formation and amplification patterns across major news cycles.
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Coordinated inauthentic behavior doesn't stay contained to the platform where it begins. This technical deep-dive traces the cross-platform amplification lifecycle — from seeding on fringe networks to breakthrough into mainstream coverage — and explains exactly how Rolli IQ detects it at each stage.
Nation-state influence operations have expanded beyond electoral politics. Here's how security teams can identify state-linked campaigns targeting corporate reputation.
Traditional PR metrics (impressions, reach, AVE) fail in adversarial information environments. Communications teams need authenticity-adjusted metrics to make accurate decisions.
LLM-generated content has fundamentally changed the disinformation landscape. Detection now requires behavioral signals, not just text analysis.
Narratives begin on Telegram, spread to Reddit, amplify on Twitter/X, then hit mainstream media. Teams monitoring only one platform miss the full picture.
Most PR teams are running a social monitoring program designed for 2015. They're measuring volume and sentiment on a platform landscape that no longer exists, using tools that can't distinguish genuine public concern from manufactured attacks. Here's what needs to change.
The November 2025 midterms generated more coordinated narrative activity than any electoral cycle Rolli IQ has tracked. This case study examines the patterns across eight platforms — what was coordinated, what was organic, and what it means for democratic information integrity.
Key narrative trends, influence operation activity, and intelligence insights from 400+ investigations this month. For communications, security, and research teams.
A wave of coordinated campaigns targeted earnings announcements, executive reputations, and regulatory proceedings. Here's what the data showed — and how teams responded.
Social monitoring tells you what people are saying. Narrative intelligence tells you what it means — and what's about to happen. Here's how to build that capability.
The term appears in every platform's transparency report. But what does it actually mean for communications and security professionals — and how do you detect it?
When the TSA PreCheck expansion announcement dropped, social platforms lit up with reaction — but the signal breakdown revealed sharp differences between organic conversation and coordinated amplification. Rolli IQ tracked the narrative in real time, scoring the amplification within 45 minutes of the spike's onset.
Despite the political stakes, DHS shutdown news generated surprisingly muted organic engagement across major platforms. Rolli IQ's momentum data shows where the story gained traction — and where it didn't — revealing the gap between media coverage and genuine public concern.
The Italian Olympic host city became an unlikely focal point for geopolitical narratives this cycle. Journalists tracking the intersection of sport and policy found signal patterns that outlasted the games themselves, pointing to deeper coordination in political narrative seeding.
As diplomatic back-channels opened on nuclear negotiations, public social conversation diverged dramatically by platform. Rolli IQ mapped the narrative geography across 8 platforms — revealing which voices were driving discourse and which were amplifying it artificially.
Narrative intelligence is the practice of monitoring how stories form, spread, and shift across digital platforms in real time. Here's what it means, why it matters, and how communications, security, and research teams are using it to make faster, more defensible decisions.
Coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) is one of the most persistent threats to the information environment. Here's what the signals look like — and how to find them before they reach mainstream coverage.
Social listening tracks volume and sentiment. Narrative intelligence tracks whether what you're seeing is real. Here's why the distinction matters — and when it becomes critical for your team's credibility with leadership.
When a coordinated narrative emerged around a contested electoral certification, a Rolli IQ research team tracked the signal from origin to mainstream media adoption — in under six hours. A detailed account of the methodology and findings.
Rolli IQ's authenticity confidence score is a 0–100 signal that tells you how likely a piece of content is to come from genuine human activity. Here's how it works — and what it doesn't do — and why the distinction matters for your team.
Meta platform users were overwhelmingly opposed to Trump's Greenland push — just 1% positive sentiment on Instagram and Facebook. Twitter/X showed roughly 20% in favor. The gap reveals how platform realignment has created parallel political realities.
The fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross split social media into two mutually exclusive factual narratives — both citing the same video. Rolli IQ mapped how identical footage became the foundation for opposite conclusions.
A reported U.S. military raid capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro generated over 13 million engagements in 48 hours. Despite some celebration, negative sentiment dominated — driven by concerns about oil interests, legal authority, and U.S. credibility.
Despite a strained relationship with the Trump Administration throughout 2025, Volodymyr Zelenskyy maintained overwhelmingly positive social media sentiment. Even on right-leaning Twitter/X, discourse about him often pivoted to criticism of Trump's handling of Ukraine.
Rolli IQ tracked holiday greeting usage across platforms. 'Merry Christmas' dominated with nearly 10,000 mentions and 2.5M engagements; 'Happy Holidays' received roughly half that volume. The data reveals distinct values-based usage patterns rather than a culture war.
As word of the shooting at Brown University broke, social media erupted with nearly two million engagements in three days. Rolli IQ's Topic Tree broke down the reaction into grief, gun control debate, political blame — and a wave of conspiracy theories.
Indiana's redistricting battle — potentially eliminating all Democratic districts — generated a fraction of the engagement driven by Netflix's $83B bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. Rolli IQ shows entertainment dwarfing real political news by 22-to-1.
Pete Hegseth began the week at 38% positive — above his baseline. By Friday, a SEAL Team 6 strike targeting boat survivors flipped the narrative: negative sentiment hit 68%, bipartisan criticism emerged, and even conservative users largely disengaged.
MTG's resignation announcement triggered an unexpected surge in positive sentiment — up from 2% to 23%. Rolli IQ compared her 2023 and 2025 Topic Trees, revealing a shift from one-dimensional MAGA boosterism to a more complex reassessment of her tenure.
Twitter/X — reliably Trump-friendly since 2022 — turned on the president over the Epstein files. Rolli IQ tracked a 1000x increase in mentions and a sharp decline in positive posts as MTG led the charge from the right calling for full disclosure.
When eight Democratic senators voted to end the shutdown on Republican terms — five days after strong electoral gains — social media exploded with 76% negative sentiment. Tim Kaine's mentions rose nearly 100-fold overnight.
Rolli IQ compared March–October 2024 vs. 2025: mentions of Canada up 300%, trade-related posts up 7–17x, and a sharp shift from neutral policy discussion to angry partisan framing — driven by tariffs, annexation talk, and a Super Bowl Reagan TV ad.
October's No Kings protests drew 7M demonstrators — 40% more than June. But social media engagement grew only 10%, and positive sentiment nearly vanished. Rolli IQ found 'antifa' mentions doubled with 300% higher engagement — a coordinated counter-narrative in action.
The NFL's announcement that Bad Bunny would headline Super Bowl LX ignited a firestorm. Rolli IQ tracked a 1,300% surge in English-language engagement — driven by anger at his selection and misinformation about his U.S. citizenship.
Five major Trump Administration cases on the docket — tariffs, transgender rights, redistricting, campaign finance — and barely a ripple on social media. The data reveals a public that reacts to rulings, not to cases being granted cert.
Rolli IQ compared the 2025 shutdown buildup to 2018: engagement is 7x higher, emotions have collapsed into pure anger and disgust, and the focus has shifted from federal workers to healthcare as the defining issue.
Kimmel's suspension generated 16.5M engagements in five days — more than double Colbert's cancellation. Rolli IQ reveals why: the Kimmel story was driven by political identity, not entertainment business, making it a perfect social media accelerant.
Despite Twitter/X's documented right-leaning tilt, Rolli IQ found nearly 80% negative sentiment about food and consumer prices — including from pro-Trump accounts. Even Grok's own AI analysis pointed to administration policy.
Rolli IQ compared October 2023 — when social media backed Israel after the Hamas attacks — to September 2025. The reversal is near-total. 'Genocide,' 'atrocities,' and 'starvation' now dominate in one of the platform's most lopsided sentiment maps ever produced.
Rampant health rumors about Trump drove speculation about his VP. Rolli IQ tracked Vance from January's optimism to 100-day unpopularity, to a late-summer bump driven ironically by Gavin Newsom's taunting posts. International allies showed almost no support.
Newsom's all-caps mockery and AI parody images dwarf all other potential 2028 Democratic candidates — even AOC. Rolli IQ shows he's running far ahead in name recognition and engagement, even if most of that engagement is negative.
14M+ Epstein engagements running 89% negative. Rolli IQ tested whether the LA National Guard deployment, DC policing takeover, and Putin summit were distracting the public. Only the Putin meeting briefly surpassed Epstein volume — and even then, the story rebounded.
A $10 keychain sparked a global craze after Lisa from BLACKPINK was spotted with one. Rolli IQ's authenticity analysis found only 11% of amplification came from top accounts — well within organic range. Pop Mart's Labubu line hit $418M in sales growing 726% YoY.
Using the Fukushima wastewater release as a case study, researchers examine how coordinated social media campaigns distort scientific consensus — and what the signal patterns look like when coordination is present versus absent.
As AI systems replace traditional search for millions of users, the old playbook for expert visibility is breaking down. This guide examines how AI citation works and what journalists, researchers, and communications professionals can do to stay findable.
Rolli IQ tracked the social media explosion around a single meme coin from zero to $10B market cap in 72 hours. The velocity curve looks nothing like organic retail interest — a case study in financial narrative manipulation.
As newsrooms shed journalists at record rates, the PR-to-journalist ratio has reached levels that fundamentally change how information flows. What the imbalance means for communications teams and the integrity of the information ecosystem.
HARO is gone. Qwoted, Cision, and Muck Rack serve platforms, not experts. This comparison breaks down what each service actually delivers for experts seeking media visibility — and where Rolli's journalist network fills the gap.
London's Ultra Low Emission Zone sparked one of the most coordinated anti-policy campaigns in recent UK social media history. Rolli IQ reveals the hallmarks of coordinated amplification — and how a legitimate policy debate got hijacked by inauthentic network activity.
A coordinated German-language hashtag blamed Ukrainian refugees for Germany's debt crisis. Rolli IQ documented the network signatures, account activation patterns, and cross-platform amplification that confirm this as a textbook influence operation.
When #BanTheADL trended on X, the question wasn't whether the sentiment was real — it was whether the volume was. Rolli IQ examines the network topology and account behavior to determine what portion was organic and what was coordinated.
Showing all 51 articles. More coming soon — write to us at hello@rolli.ai to contribute.
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