Unwitting Engagement

Spillover
Unwitting engagement is a state-directed influence operation that recruits authentic individuals and organizations to advance foreign strategic objectives without their awareness, exploiting their genuine credibility and social networks to mask orchestration and transform inauthentic messaging into perceived consensus.
Author
Affiliation

E. Rosalie Li

Information Epidemiology Lab

Published

February 17, 2026

Spillover

Unwitting engagement is a state-directed influence operation that recruits authentic individuals and organizations to advance foreign strategic objectives without their awareness, exploiting their genuine credibility and social networks to mask orchestration and transform inauthentic messaging into perceived consensus.

FIMI Taxonomy by Information Epidemiology Lab.

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{li2026,
  author = {Li, E. Rosalie},
  title = {Unwitting {Engagement}},
  date = {2026-02-17},
  url = {https://fimi.infoepi.org/mechanisms/unwitting-engagement.html},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Li, E. Rosalie. 2026. “Unwitting Engagement,” February. https://fimi.infoepi.org/mechanisms/unwitting-engagement.html.