What 200M+ engagements showed us
Six numbers that define how coordinated narratives work in practice — and what they mean for comms, security, and research teams.
Platform Analysis
Not all platforms play the same role. In 2025–2026 monitoring, a clear pattern emerged: platforms that first-surface narratives are often not the ones where most people see them.
X / Twitter
Mainstream traction point, but no longer first-mover. Narratives originating on Bluesky, Reddit, and fringe forums consistently arrived on X/Twitter 2–4 hours after initial spike.
Bluesky
Consistently where coordinated narratives first surface. 8 of 12 coordinated campaigns analyzed in 2025 originated or amplified on Bluesky before reaching mainstream platforms.
High-authenticity engagement with early narrative formation. Reddit signals show the highest correlation with genuine public sentiment — making it a reliable baseline for authenticity calibration.
YouTube
Long-tail narrative persistence. Narratives that die on X/Twitter within 48 hours continue generating engagement on YouTube for 7–14 days — making YouTube essential for tracking narrative longevity.
Coordination Signatures
Across 14 identified coordinated campaigns in 2025–2026, these behavioral signatures appeared consistently enough to function as reliable early indicators.
Synchronized first-hour posting
Coordinated campaigns consistently show a burst of high-engagement posts within the first 60 minutes — often across accounts created within the same 30-day window. Organic narratives show a gradual ramp.
Term weaponization
High-coordination events frequently involve a single term being 'weaponized' — stripped of its original context and redeployed to reframe a competing narrative. The engagement on weaponized terms concentrates on specific platform segments.
Platform-selective amplification
Authentic narratives distribute relatively evenly across platforms. Coordinated campaigns show a pronounced concentration on one or two platforms — often with account behavior patterns inconsistent with normal platform usage.
Cross-platform divergence
The same event generates dramatically different framings on different platforms simultaneously — a reliable signal of coordinated counter-messaging when the divergence appears within hours of an event.
What this means for your team
Communications & PR
78% of escalations are avoidable. With authenticity scoring, your team can confidently hold back on coordinated spikes and respond only to genuine public sentiment — reducing unnecessary crisis escalations and protecting executive bandwidth.
Security / Trust & Safety
The first 60 minutes are critical. Coordinated campaigns establish their framing early. Teams that can identify coordination signatures in the first hour — before mainstream media picks up the story — can respond proactively instead of reactively.
Research & Policy
Platform divergence is data. When the same event generates radically different framings on X/Twitter vs. Bluesky vs. Reddit simultaneously, that divergence itself is an analytically significant signal worth documenting and investigating.
Five numbers that define the 2025–2026 narrative landscape
Based on analysis of 2,400+ Rolli IQ investigations conducted between January 2024 and December 2025.
- #167%
of monitored crises in 2025 showed signs of coordinated amplification before mainstream press coverage — meaning the manufactured layer appeared first in most cases.
- #24.2 hours
average detection advantage using narrative intelligence vs. traditional monitoring. Teams using Rolli IQ had a 4.2-hour head start on average to prepare communications responses.
- #3340% YoY
increase in influence operations targeting financial services organizations between 2024 and 2025 — the fastest-growing sector for coordinated inauthentic behavior.
- #465%
reduction in crisis response time reported by communications teams using AI-powered narrative monitoring, compared to teams relying on traditional social listening tools.
- #594.2%
precision rate for Rolli IQ's 14-signal behavioral model in detecting inauthentic behavior — based on Rolli IQ internal validation against known CIB datasets.
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About this report
Based on analysis of 2,400+ Rolli IQ investigations conducted between January 2024 and December 2025. All analyses were based on publicly available social media content. Authenticity scores were generated by the Rolli IQ™ algorithm, which analyzes account behavior, posting velocity, network structure, and content patterns across 8 social platforms.
Methodology reviewed by Harvard Shorenstein Center researchers. Platform engagement figures are platform-reported. Individual case studies are published at rolli.ai/case-studies. Full methodology documentation is available at rolli.ai/methodology.
The Rolli IQ scoring algorithm uses four signal families: velocity & timing, account behavior, network structure, and content & language. Precision and recall figures cited in this report are based on Rolli IQ internal validation against known CIB datasets.