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Technique T0097.108: Expert Persona
Summary: A person with an expert persona presents themselves as having expertise or experience in a field. Commonly the persona’s expertise will be called upon to add credibility to a given narrative.
While presenting as an expert is not an indication of inauthentic behaviour, an influence operation may have its narratives amplified by people presenting as experts. Threat actors can fabricate experts (T0143.002: Fabricated Persona, T0097.107: Researcher Persona) to add credibility to their narratives.
People who are legitimate experts (T0143.001: Authentic Persona, T0097.107: Researcher Persona) can make mistakes, use their persona for malicious purposes, or be exploited by threat actors. For example, someone could take money for using their position as an expert to provide legitimacy to a false narrative or be tricked into doing so without their knowledge.
Tactic: TA16 Establish Legitimacy Parent Technique: T0097 Present Persona
| Associated Technique | Description |
|---|---|
| T0097.107 Researcher Persona | People who present as experts may also present as conducting or having conducted research into their specialist subject. |
| T0097.204 Think Tank Persona | People with an expert persona may present as being part of a think tank. |
| Incident | Descriptions given for this incident |
|---|---|
| I00079 Three thousand fake tanks | “The sixth [website to repost a confirmed false narrative investigated in this report] is an apparent think tank, the Center for Global Strategic Monitoring. This website describes itself, in English apparently written by a non-native speaker, as a “nonprofit and nonpartisan research and analysis institution dedicated to providing insights of the think tank community publications”. It does, indeed, publish think-tank reports on issues such as Turkey and US-China relations; however, the reports are the work of other think tanks, often unattributed (the two mentioned in this sentence were actually produced by the Brookings Institution, although the website makes no mention of the fact). It also fails to provide an address, or any other contact details other than an email, and its (long) list of experts includes entries apparently copied and pasted from other institutions. Thus, the “think tank” website which shared the fake story appears to be a fake itself.” In this example a website which amplified a false narrative presented itself as a think tank (T0097.204: Think Tank Persona). This is an entirely fabricated persona (T0143.002: Fabricated Persona); it republished content from other think tanks without attribution (T0084.002: Plagiarise Content) and fabricated experts (T0097.108: Expert Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona) to make it more believable that they were a real think tank. |
| Counters | Response types |
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