WEBINAR: Narrative Attacks Don’t Go Viral On Their Own: Tracking The Behaviors Behind The Narrative

Traditional tooling breaks that reality into silos. Social listening watches mentions. Threat intel hunts indicators. Neither sees the whole picture or the people behind it. That blind spot costs time and money during an information crisis.

Narrative attacks have evolved from isolated incidents into sophisticated, coordinated campaigns that can destabilize markets, undermine public trust, and threaten organizational reputations within hours. These attacks are carefully orchestrated by threat actors who understand how to weaponize social media algorithms and exploit information gaps. 

On September 23 at 1 pm ET, we are teaming up with Fivecast to close that gap. Daniel González, Narrative Intelligence Advisor at Blackbird.AI, and Lawson Ferguson, Tradecraft Lead at Fivecast, will show how to link narrative detection with open-source investigation. Dan Patterson, our Director of Content and Communications, will serve as the moderator. The title says the quiet part aloud: Narrative Attacks Don’t Go Viral on Their Own. We will demonstrate the behaviors that motivate them and the workflows that hinder them.

WATCH: Narrative Attacks Don’t Go Viral On Their Own: Tracking The Behaviors Behind The Narrative

A use case

In a recent demo data set on the Kursk incursion, our team pulled 1.3 million mentions across mainstream and fringe platforms. Constellation surfaced a high-risk cluster that alleged the use of chemical weapons. Compass Context checked the claim against trusted reporting and flagged it as unsubstantiated. The narrative showed clear signs of manipulation. Fourteen percent of authors matched bot-like patterns, roughly one-third aligned with a known Russian state supporter cohort.

Network analysis revealed heavy overlap between that chemical-weapons claim and a separate claim about Western mercenaries in the fight. The same influencers linked the two. Time-series analysis showed the order of operations. Reports of Russian surrender hit first. Coordinated counter-claims spooled up next to crowd out attention. That is the play: seed doubt, then redirect focus with a louder story that fits a preferred frame.

Analysts need to review that sequence, assess its risk, and identify the key drivers. Then the work shifts from narrative to actor. That is where Fivecast comes into play.

Where Fivecast extends the investigation

Fivecast ONIX collects and analyzes public data at scale across social platforms, forums, and the deep and dark web. Lawson’s team will demonstrate how to transition from an account handle to a comprehensive online footprint through discovery workflows that resolve backup accounts, linked platforms, and breach-linked artifacts. The point is not curiosity. The fact is speed and confidence.

Take a driver we identified in the Kursk narratives. ONIX tied a primary handle to a backup account and linked presences across Telegram, YouTube, and other platforms. It surfaced related contact details from breach records and archived pages. It produced a clean, analyst-ready corpus covering tens of thousands of posts over multiple years. The corpus revealed topic pivots from one conflict to another and demonstrated clear handoffs between platforms during spikes. The cycle closes fast. Constellation shows the narrative and the cohorts. ONIX resolves the people and the infrastructure that carry the message.

Why the partnership matters

Security leaders live in a converging risk. Narrative attacks do not stay in the comms lane. They trigger fraud attempts, drive harassment, and shape threat surfaces around executives and brands. A complete workflow needs both narrative context and actor context. Together, Blackbird.AI and Fivecast deliver that view.

• Detection with context. Constellation detects narrative objects, ranks them by manipulation and toxicity, maps cohorts, and highlights domain networks.
  
• Rapid validation. Compass Context verifies claims against credible sources to distinguish between signal and speculation.
  
• Actor resolution. ONIX footprints the drivers and their linked accounts across the open, deep, and dark web.
  
• Triage to action. Analysts transition from a high-risk narrative to identifying named drivers, support networks, and behavioral patterns over time.
  
• Response and learning. Comms, security, and legal teams align on a shared picture. Analysts feed indicators and behaviors back into watchlists and playbooks.
  

The win is not a prettier chart. The win is a faster time to clarity with less noise. That pace advantage lowers financial, operational, and reputational impact.

What you will see in the session

• How coordinated behavior lifts a low-credibility claim into mainstream view
  
• How to read overlapping networks that move two or more narratives in tandem
  
• How Compass Context reduces wasted cycles on unverified claims
  
• How cohort models expose ideological alignment and repeat playbooks
  
• How ONIX links handles, backup accounts, and cross-platform activity without manual scraping
  
• How to build a repeatable workflow that pushes clean insights to executive protection, SOC, IR, and comms teams
  

Who should watch

Security leaders, intelligence teams, crisis communicators, and anyone tasked with protecting executives and brands should dial in to this webinar. If your job requires fast decisions during an information surge, this session will provide helpful insights that will protect your brand from the next fast-moving narrative attack.

The actors behind these campaigns count on you treating symptoms while they control the disease. They bet on your tools staying in silos while their attacks move freely across platforms. They assume you’ll chase mentions while missing the machine.

That bet ends when you see both the narrative and the network. Watch the webinar now to learn how.

• To receive a complimentary copy of The Forrester External Threat Intelligence Landscape 2025 Report, visit here.
• To learn more about how Blackbird.AI can help you in these situations, book a demo.