Disinformation war: 40% of monitored mines faced disruptive attacks

The mining industry is under siege: coordinated disinformation campaigns now target mines worldwide; nearly 40% of monitored mines faced disruptive attacks, derailing operations and stock prices.

It’s a geopolitical game-changer: hybrid tactics – from Wagner-backed propaganda in Africa to troll farms in Eastern Europe – undermine Western miners and prop up allied regimes

real-world impacts: viral fake news has shut down billion-dollar mining projects

Recently, mining investors in London watched in disbelief as shares of First Quantum Minerals plummeted. Overnight, Panama’s Supreme Court (on November 27–28, 2023) had struck down the company’s contract for the Cobre Panama copper mine. The mine had became the focus of an intense misinformation war, helping to fuel protests and blockades against the project, with false claims that the mine brought no benefit to Panama and that the land was given away to Canada went viral, whipping up public anger.

The ensuing blockades and political crisis didn’t just halt a US$10 billion project; they wiped out ca 50% of First Quantum Minerals’ market value (US$6 billion) virtually overnight.

This dramatic episode, far from isolated, underscored a new reality that many mining companies are all to well area of — but unprepared for: disinformation has become a strategic weapon in the mining sector — with AI and geopolitics accelerating these trends.

According to a London-based AI tech startup, established to help organizations detect, analyze, and counter sophisticated disinformation and narrative attacks, 40% of mines that Refute monitored faced highly disruptive disinformation attacks from approx 1,135 bots pushing false narratives that are increasing in complexity and severity.

The increase in disinformation targeting Western interests coincides with China and Russia’s strategic expansion across Latin America and Africa, whether it’s China’s state-backed investment in Latin America or Russia’s approach in Africa of hybrid warfare tactics and coordinated disinformation through groups like Wagner — but, it’s not just major powers but local governments, activists and opportunists.

• Eastern Europe: campaigns are led by environmental activists and geopolitical actors, that reflect foreign interests in countries like Serbia. Inauthentic narratives both for and against Rio Tinto’s Jadar mine have also been found, and are linked to the ongoing protests in Serbia
• Africa: the continent’s mineral wealth and great power rivalries make it especially vulnerable, with the main threat activity comes from inauthentic accounts, and reflects the position of local governments
• Latin America: the region has become a hotbed of mining disinformation given its rich copper, lithium, and gold reserves, with campaigns in the region can often be traced back to local governments and environmental activists
• Asia: with a particular focus on Indonesia, the Philippines, and Myanmar, main threat actors in the region include terrorist organisations, foreign influence actors, and local governments
• Australia: negative narratives around DEI policies and indigenous peoples provide a basis for further misinformation and influence campaigns

The main influencers in the local disinformation wars include:

• foreign influence actors
• local governments
• activists
• terrorists or insurgent groups

And, the main themes and narratives targeted in the disinformation war exploit local grievances to incite opposition to Western developments, often focusing on the local environment (including tailings dams), indigenous community, as well as DEI and employee safety.

“Disinformation poses a significant and growing threat to mining organisations, with the potential to disrupt operations, physically harm executives, damage reputations, and even impact financial valuations. With little to no disinformation regulation, threat actors can mount campaigns that infiltrate employee safety and send share prices tumbling before organisations have the chance to detect and respond to the attack,” concluded Refute

For example, a proposed lithium mine or copper pit can swiftly be recast online as a dire ecological threat or neocolonial theft of national wealth, regardless of facts, and such narratives can swiftly gain traction, forcing governments to backtrack on permits and sending company executives scrambling.