03-05-2018 | Samantha Bradshaw
Propaganda, the foreign meddling in elections, and “fake news” are extremely topical, but far from a new phenomenon unique to the Internet era. For quite some time, powerful state actors have leveraged communication technologies to distort political processes, influence media agendas, and shape the outcome of important political events. But the sheer ubiquity of the Internet, its global and immediate reach, as well as ongoing socio-technical innovations in machine learning, algorithms, and big data analytics, are making the subversion of political processes more effective than ever before. Democracy is under threat. There are critical concerns that regulators, technologists, and citizens need to address in order to build a more resilient digital public sphere.
Throughout 2016 and 2017, there has been growing concern over the use of social media to manipulate public opinion and shape political outcomes. State and non-state actors have strategically combined cyber-attacks with online information leaks, digital disinformation campaigns, and political bots to distort political processes, spread scepticism and distrust, and interfere with a citizen’s ability to make sound political decision. By leveraging the affordances of everyday social media technology, computational propaganda—or propaganda that is augmented by algorithms, automation, and data—are affecting power and politics.
Although Russia’s trouble-making often dominates the headlines, there are a number of state actors experimenting with social media to meddle with elections, shape narratives, and manipulate political outcomes, both at home and abroad. As social media increasingly becomes embedded into everyday life and politics, the implications of leveraging technology to interfere with elections and other political processes are significant. At the Computational Propaganda Project at Oxford University, we authored the first report that comparatively examined this phenomenon, finding evidence of social media manipulation in more than 28 different countries. The tools, capacity and organizational structure of different government actors vary. But increasingly, politicians, ministries, and military organizations are experimenting with social media as a new medium for social control and information warfare. The consequences for Internet freedom and democracy are worrying.
Moving beyond traditional censorship and surveillance techniques, state actors are increasingly using bots to flood social media with fake news and political propaganda, amplifying marginal voices and ideas by inflating the number of likes, shares and retweets. State-sponsored harassment campaigns have been launched to silence political dissent and intimidate online users. Big data is being used to both target and suppress voters based on their psychological profiles. And the coordinated, selective distribution of hacked documents has been used to sow distrust and spread conspiracies that reverberate across online echo chambers.
While assessments of power in the digital age have typically focused on the “hard” capabilities affecting both the cyber and real-world domains (such as attacks that damage critical infrastructure, cripple military communication channels, censor freedom of speech, or surveil citizens), recent events have demonstrated that the ability to shape public attitudes and beliefs through social media should not be underestimated. The low cost of entry for “hybrid” or “subversive” activities in cyberspace could escalate cyber conflicts. And the lack of international law and norms for these grey-zone activities leave governments with little precedent to reprimand bad actors. But the rule-making process around these challenges is still in its early stage, and the development of norms around these issues will take time.
There has been a lot of energy and effort by private actors and government regulators to control the spread of “fake news”. Social media companies have begun establishing partnerships with fact-checking organizations to flag fake news stories as they spread across the platform, and have announced plans to make advertising on their sites more transparent. At the same time, governments are increasingly imposing new regulations on private actors. For example, the German parliament has enforced a new law that fines social media companies up to 50 million euros if they do not remove fake news stories within 24 hours of being reported. While social media has contributed to the spread of bad information online, regulations that restrict speech could have unintended consequences for the freedom of the Internet, or legitimize the actions of non-democratic states. Russia has already passed a bill that almost explicitly references the law passed in Germany.
There has long been a tension between freedom of speech and preventing the spread of information that is harmful to society. Thus, we do not necessarily need new laws to regulate old problems. But there are still challenges to applying laws that were developed in a pre-Internet era to the Internet, especially as social media platforms operate across legal and cultural divides. The continued (soft) power of social media platforms as a medium to shape the thoughts and actions of individuals in a democracy is something that these companies need to acknowledge. They are not simply platforms that connect friends and family, or help college students socialize. Platforms have a great deal of power and it is important that government and industry work together to develop best practices, norms, and legal precedents that continue to enhance free speech while supporting a healthy and diverse digital public sphere.
Samantha Bradshaw is a D.Phil. candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute and works on the Computational Propaganda Project as a core member of the research staff. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Canadian International Council. Samantha’s research examines issues around social media, politics and democracy. She holds an MA in global governance from the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and a joint honors BA in political science and legal studies from the University of Waterloo.
