Hjort, the head of Sweden’s Psychological Defense Agency, has spent years studying how hostile states try to break democratic societies from the inside. His conclusion is deceptively simple: do not take the bait. In his view, the best way to handle coordinated disinformation campaigns is to deny them the oxygen of engagement. “Many of these things you need to ignore,” he said, rather than falling into the Russian “trap.” The whole point of such operations, he explained, is to provoke a reaction. “They want to get you engaged, they want you to get angry, they want to get you excited.…

Imagine scrolling through your social media feed and seeing a short, dramatic clip. The camera swoops through a parking lot, chasing two women who are running between cars. There’s music, maybe a caption in bold letters, and the implication is clear: this is police surveillance, a drone operated by law enforcement, hunting down suspected shoplifters. The video feels real, looks urgent, and gets shared thousands of times. But what if it isn’t what it seems? What if the drone was a private citizen’s toy, or the video was edited and reposted with a false narrative? This exact scenario unfolded recently…