She’s a spy! (Isn’t she?)

Meet Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno, a world-famous researcher (and target) of Russia’s misinformation machine.

Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made. 

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Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno’s work shot to prominence when Roger Stone, self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” attacked her on social media. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

If you followed the Russian hacking campaign against Hillary Clinton, or if you’re on Twitter, you’ve likely heard of Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno. A behavioral scientist who researches social media manipulation, online information warfare, and far-right extremism, Orr Bueno may seem an unlikely candidate to gain a massive public following, but that is exactly what happened after she connected the dots between Roger Stone and Wikileaks in the lead-up to the 2016 election. It also didn’t hurt that Stone went off the deep end and publicly called her a “stupid stupid bitch.”

Orr Bueno and I have gotten to know each other over the past few years, partly because former President Donald Trump blocked both of us on Twitter, and because we’ve both been incessantly abused online by his supporters. While watching her rise, I wondered what it was like for her to go from being a little-known scholar to someone internationally recognized for her insights on massive political scandals. We spoke recently about how she has dealt with becoming a major social media presence — as well as a target of the very Russian hackers and disinformation campaigns she has spent her career writing about.