The BBC World Service has launched Global Signals, groundbreaking new research to provide a deeper assessment of the online information space. The research will strengthen the BBC’s ability to understand and respond to disinformation and help build information resilience.

The findings explore how BBC journalism impacts the online information space both through scale, presence and pace of reporting as well as debunking. Global Signals examines how disinformation in Russian appeals to its audience and how the BBC – which is blocked in Russia – is continually attacked and discredited.

Global levels of uncertainty and instability are reaching new heights, fuelled by contested information online, exacerbated by barriers to accessing news and intensified by the scale of investment from Russia in state media.

Using the unique expertise of BBC Monitoring and the BBC’s Global Audiences team, the BBC World Service worked with the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM Technology) to look at highly contested and complex information markets. Researchers focused on two environments across the BBC’s 45 languages – Russian and Arabic – to examine the challenge. The teams assessed over 100,000 posts from known disinformation accounts and over 54,000 mentioning the BBC across 11 social platforms between 1 February and 31 May 2026.

The Global Signals research identifies three key ways in which the BBC influences the global information environment –

• Directs Attention: It’s essential for the BBC to be part of the information ecosystem at scale before disinformation or false information can fill the vacuum. The BBC is part of the conversation in key global moments and responds quickly
• Shapes Interpretation: The BBC is used as a source to establish facts and to provide important context and analysis
• Trusted Authority: The BBC proactively debunks claims and is widely used as an authoritative source

Further analysis suggests that –

• A comparison of the Arabic and Russian information ecosystems indicates that whilst the BBC is mentioned regularly in Arabic markets in relation to our journalism, blocking and jamming in Russia means that circumvention is essential to achieve the same presence in Russian
• The scale of Russia’s disinformation tide appears, at surface level, overwhelming. The BBC needs scale and pace to begin to respond to the challenges of Russia’s state investment
• The research found a number of significant efforts to attack and discredit the BBC
• Across both Arabic and Russian information ecosystems, networks fabricated BBC personas and content
• Importantly, both markets reveal the BBC World Service is covering stories that local outlets and state media are not

Fiona Crack, BBC World Service Director, says:

“This pioneering research is the start of a much deeper understanding of the BBC’s role in complex information markets. While it recognises the importance of journalism that debunks and verifies, is also underlines the importance of scale and presence, and ensuring we’re responding at pace.

“If our BBC teams better understand the information environment and the false narratives our audiences are exposed to, we can ensure that our daily news and content, including the mix of reporting, explanation and analysis, responds to their needs. In this context, accurate and impartial journalism that people can trust has never been more important.”

Carl Miller, Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM Technology), says:

“This research shows that the BBC’s role in confronting information threats isn’t just about debunking and factchecking. From capturing attention in the first place to providing context and analysis in how events are understood, we can see the BBC confers additional protections to our information integrity before disinformation is even created. It’s little surprise then that the BBC is such a key target of Russian information warfare; it’s one of the most important barriers standing in their way.

“This work is the first of its kind and seeks to better understand the information ecosystem the BBC World Service is operating in. The findings suggest the level of the problem is much vaster than we had anticipated. The Russian information ecosystem is incredibly crowded with inauthentic online activity. To compound that threat, the resource focused on attacking the BBC is breathtaking. It demonstrates the critical need for circumvention to reach audiences in international markets.”

BBC News Arabic is the BBC’s largest and oldest language service reaching over 37 million people on average every week. In 2025/26, BBC News Russian reached 6.5 million Russian speakers on average every week – up over 45% year-on-year.

You can find the research here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/documents/bbc-global-signals-research.pdf

The BBC’s response to the Government’s Green Paper outlined the critical role of the BBC in rising to the challenge of information resilience and countering disinformation. This includes the contribution the BBC makes in defending democratic values and strengthening epistemic security across the globe.

[Source: BBC World Service]