Inauthentic Behavior

Inauthentic behavior is online activity that misrepresents who is behind an account, campaign, audience, or pattern of engagement. It can include coordinated networks of deceptive accounts, concealed sponsorship, fake personas, or artificial amplification. The key issue is deceptive identity or coordination, not simply whether the content is partisan, wrong, or unpopular.

Coordinated inauthentic behavior can distort the apparent popularity or origin of election-related messages, manufacture false consensus, target groups with concealed influence, or make a campaign appear grassroots when it is centrally organized. Analysts should separate those deceptive tactics from ordinary advocacy, anonymous speech, satire, and genuine users independently sharing similar views.

No. Inauthentic behavior describes deceptive identity, coordination, or representation, while misinformation refers to false or inaccurate content regardless of who shares it. An authentic person can spread misinformation, and an inauthentic network can distribute factually accurate material. Election analysis should identify which problem is present instead of treating the terms as interchangeable.