Social Media as a Disinformation Infrastructure: Tactics, Strategies, and National Security

Abstract

For the last two decades, the global information environment has become a place for strategic competition and superiority, where boundaries between communication, propaganda, and psychological operations have become much more blurred. The evolution of social media platforms has amplified this transformation, switching from mere channels of civic expression into solid influence infrastructures capable of shaping perceptions, behaviors, and political attitudes. In this context, disinformation is no longer a marginal phenomenon but rather a central instrument for hybrid and cognitive warfare, used against social cohesion and trust in democratic institutions. Thus, this paper analyzes the role of social media in undermining national security, focusing on disinformation tactics and strategies used in the current digital environment. Through this study, we manage to use a combined sequence model to establish links and relationships between the tactics (micro-level) used in disinformation campaigns and the strategies (macro-level) used in order to affect society and the way people think and behave. This article is part of a larger PhD research effort that focuses on the impact of social media instruments in modern conflicts, serving as a means to analyze the role of disinformation in the current digital environment.