Aleksandra Atanasova

Clickbait Cures: Unmasking the Deceptive Health Ad Infrastructure on Meta and Google

Collected 350,549 Facebook ads and 2,073 Google ads (2023-2026) promoting unregulated nutraceuticals with false medical claims, reaching an estimated 878 million accounts across the EU on Facebook; 20% of the 390 products studied had been flagged by EU or national health authorities as illegal or dangerous, yet coordinated advertiser networks kept promoting them.

The Dormant Danger: How Meta Ignores Large-Scale Inauthentic Behavior Networks of Malicious Advertisers

Mapped seven dormant networks totalling about 3.8 million Facebook pages reused for political propaganda and scams, and found Meta consistently removes individual ads while leaving the underlying inauthentic-behaviour networks intact, a systemic DSA compliance gap.

Verified Disinformation: How X Profits From the Rise of a Pro-Kremlin Network

Documented a network of about 530 inauthentic X accounts that doubled over five months and used paid verification to amplify Kremlin-aligned propaganda in six languages, posting roughly 16,000 times between June and October 2024 to EU audiences, with X monetising the Doppelganger-linked operation.

Profiting from Propaganda: How Meta Benefits from Pro-Kremlin Election Meddling Ads in Moldova

Co-published with WatchDog.md: a pro-Kremlin campaign paid Meta about EUR 300,000 over 18 months, nearly a quarter of Moldova's political ad spend since August 2020, running 150+ inauthentic pages with disinformation and deepfakes ahead of Moldova's elections while Meta failed to dismantle the network.

Operation Overload: pro-Russian actors flood newsrooms with fake content

Exposed the 'Matryoshka'/Operation Overload campaign flooding 800+ media/fact-checking organisations with content urging them to 'verify' fabricated anti-Ukraine material, diverting fact-checker resources.