Reports of nation states influencing the results of foreign elections via the internet are fast becoming commonplace. For several years commentators have been reporting practices ranging from the defacing of campaign websites and accessing of opponents’ donor databases, to the hacking of vote counting machines and smartphones, the creation of clone webpages, the sending of mass emails and texts and the use of automated bots to control activity on social media. Annabelle Gold-Caution of Fieldfisher analyses the impact of targeted social and technical influence on recent significant political events across the globe, comparing state responses to fake news, social media propaganda and cyber espionage. / read more