The Rising Tide of Disinformation: How the West Is Losing Ground to Russia and China

While cyberattacks on critical infrastructure by state-sponsored threat groups from Russia and China often dominate headlines, a quieter yet equally insidious battle is unfolding—one fought through disinformation aimed at shaping global public opinion.

Despite the growing efforts of these adversarial nations, Western governments and companies appear to be retreating from the fight. Last week, President Trump issued an executive order dismantling the US Agency for Global Media, which operated Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, two key outlets countering propaganda from authoritarian regimes. This follows the recent defunding of the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC), a move driven by concerns over government overreach after Elon Musk criticized its work as censorship.

The consequences of these cutbacks are becoming evident. While the U.S. scales down its efforts, China, Russia, and Iran continue ramping up their influence campaigns. According to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), China allocates $10 billion annually to propaganda initiatives and employs 20 million “network volunteers” to amplify state narratives online. Russia, meanwhile, has increased its state media and propaganda budget by 13%, investing the equivalent of $1.6 billion into information warfare.

Disinformation Tactics Evolve

Recent data suggests that Russia is actively expanding its infrastructure for disinformation heading into 2025. Internet security firm DomainTools has observed a surge in domain registrations designed to mimic Western news outlets and policy organizations, likely to be used in upcoming influence campaigns.

Russia's Social Design Agency (SDA) has been linked to Operation Undercut and Doppelgänger, malign influence campaigns aimed at undermining support for Ukraine by distributing AI-modified videos and impersonating legitimate news sources. Similarly, China has used fake media outlets to push anti-Western narratives, including a 2024 campaign targeting the Philippines over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Currently, more than 1,200 state-controlled media and disinformation websites linked to China and Russia produce localized content to influence regional audiences, according to threat intelligence firm Logically.ai.

The Challenge of Defending Against Disinformation

Despite growing awareness of the problem, Western efforts to counter disinformation remain fragmented. Deep divisions persist over what constitutes misinformation versus legitimate debate, making coordinated responses difficult. The Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), originally established to study and combat disinformation, faced backlash over its focus on election-related misinformation, leading to its restructuring under the Stanford Cyber Policy Center.

Complicating matters further, advances in generative AI (GenAI) have made detecting and countering disinformation significantly harder. Serena Huang, an AI analytics researcher, notes that while social media platforms have reduced investments in trust and safety teams, adversaries have leveraged AI to create increasingly sophisticated content, including deepfakes and nuanced foreign-language disinformation.

Ultimately, while technical tools exist to monitor and analyze disinformation campaigns, the real challenge lies in the political and regulatory will to take meaningful action. DomainTools' Daniel Schwalbe warns that although visibility into disinformation efforts remains intact, the willingness of Western governments and regulatory bodies to push back has weakened considerably.

"The real issue isn't whether we can detect disinformation," Schwalbe says. "It's whether there’s the public and political appetite to do something about it at scale. And on that front, we’ve taken several steps back."