Computational Propaganda is big tech using big data to deliver tailor-made propaganda straight to your social media.
Governments and political parties have infiltrated our social media networks to influence our decisions.
Most of the time, people only worry about who is on the other end of their social media when they have to meet in person. Uber, Lyft, Grab, and various other taxi-like apps have now added features to share the trip with a friend so someone knows you’re safe. If people meet someone off a dating site friends encourage each other to share location info, just to be safe. When we meet up with someone off the Internet, we wonder about their identity and their real intent.
But, what about while we are online? Do we really know who is on the other end? How many times on social media have you wondered about the intent of someone commenting on a viral post? Have you ever questioned someone’s identity on Facebook? Have you ever wondered how the advertisements on your web browser know just what’s on your Christmas list? Have you ever questioned your safety online or the intent of the people forming your experience? If you answered no to these questions, you are not alone. Rarely are these questions asked.
My goal today is to explain why we, a society of civilians around the world, should be mindful of why the information on the Internet is being presented to us, and to always ask, “who is on the other side delivering it.” I want to share with you how we are being manipulated, why we are being manipulated, and what we can do to prevent the manipulation.
Around the world government actors are using social media to manufacture consensus, automate suppression and undermine trust in the liberal international order.
Bradshaw and Howard, 2019
I am going to break this up into several parts, as it’s a lot of information.
Part 1 will focus on explaining what exactly is computational propaganda, who is using it manipulating us, and how we can take responsibility for being manipulated,
Part 2 will focus on why we are being manipulated and the campaigns used to manipulate us.
Part 3 will discuss the techniques being used to manipulate us and give tips for protecting ourselves from manipulation while online.
What is Computational Propaganda?
Propaganda is nothing new. It’s been around as long as communication. Propaganda is anything that can be shared that promotes or discredits a belief or ideology in a misleading way. This can be word of mouth, printed materials, videos, or digital information. Sensational news and yellow journalism are great examples of propaganda that many people may be familiar with. There is a popular movie, “Reefer Madness,” that was used for propaganda in an anti-marijuana campaign before color television. Today, propaganda is being delivered to us at an alarming rate compared to any other point in human history. Click bait is propaganda; Fake news is propaganda; Disinformation is propaganda. Misinformation is the sharing of that propaganda! (Bellemare, 2019)
Computational Propaganda is when big data, big tech, and propaganda unite, and spread on social media platforms in particular. (Frank, 2018)
Websites and apps can track our likes and clicks to learn more about us. There are algorithms tracking us on the key phrases we use, and how much time we spend on one page. The information they are collecting is the big data. It’s this mass data that is being collected and organized in ways that was never before possible. Big tech refers to AI bots, fake images, and even fake videos. That’s big tech.
Computational Propaganda is big tech using big data to deliver tailor-made propaganda straight to your social media.
They know what types of messages we will respond to because they are tracking where we are spending our time on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites.
They use this big data, all our habits, and big tech, bots and fake images, to spread their propaganda to us. They know what types of messages we will respond to because they are tracking where we are spending our time on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites. They are collecting our internet footprint and using it to their advantage.
It only makes sense that propaganda spreads like wildfire on platforms like Facebook because that’s where the people are. There are over 2 billion facebook users. That’s a third of the world’s population. (Striclin, 2019)
The University of Oxford did a study on Computational Propaganda in September of 2019. The results are shocking. They not only found out who’s using the computational propaganda, but also how they are using it to spread their agenda.
Who is manipulating us and why?
70 out of 195 countries governments or political parties are using computational propaganda to influence society.
Striclin, 2019
Governments and political parties have infiltrated our social media networks to influence our decisions. They are catching us when we are off guard and most vulnerable; online, in the comfort of our own home while we are interacting with friends, family, and sometimes, complete strangers.
In the University of Oxford’s study they found that, “Around the world government actors are using social media to manufacture consensus, automate suppression and undermine trust in the liberal international order.” (Bradshaw and Howard, 2019)
70 out of 195 countries’ governments or political parties are using computational propaganda to influence society. They are listening in and participating in social media platforms like, Facebook and Instagram, to suppress fundamental human rights, discredit their political opponents, and to drawn out any dissenting opinions. (Striclin, 2019) Various governments and political parties employ Cyber troops around the world. These cyber troops can be humans with real, fake or even hacked accounts. The cyber troops can be bots or even cyborg! (Striclin, 2019) This isn’t science fiction; this is 2019.
That was a lot to process. Read it again if you need to. Understand the gravity. 70 of the world’s governments or party leaders are listening in on our internet life and trying to manipulate us to adhere to their values. Here is the data from the University of Oxford study. Is your country on the list?
How can we take responsibility?
In order to take responsibility for being manipulated we have to slow down and start to process the information presented to us.
It’s important to note why the internet and social media have become avenues for manipulation.
Ask Google a question, any question of your choosing. I asked, “Is genocide in Myanmar real?” I got 3,740,000 results in .67 seconds. Google has given me far more search results than I could ever actually read, no matter how much of a human rights’ activist I may be. We have so much information at the tips of fingers that we cannot possibly process it all. (Striclin, 2019) But perhaps, somewhere in those 3,740,000 search results lies the truth.
We have so much information at the tips of fingers that we cannot possibly process it all.
Over the three million search results found, I decided to read a few, based on the description given, the web address, and their ranking. We usually never find ourselves at the end of those 3 million search results or even past the first 3 pages of results. As I click on pages I am being bombarded with advertisements. Most of them are for things I am really interested in and it’s easy to become very sidetracked. I can click on links or leave autoplay on YouTube and hours can slip by, becoming completely derailed from my original question, “Is genocide in Myanmar real?” We can’t pay attention to our original search results because our attention is drifting. (Striclin, 2019)
If my belief system is confirmed by the articles I read, I am more likely to share this information on social media. If it goes against my beliefs I will either spend time questioning the source or finding another source that confirms it. Either way, I’m not spending time thinking critically about the information presented to me. We spend so much time distrusting the information we are searching for, that we can’t spend time to understand the whole-ality of it all.
This seems harmless on our end right? We are just living our lives after all. We have so much information, so many advertisements (tailor-made for our surfing pleasure), and so much distrust in what we see on the net, that we have become easy to manipulate.
In order to take responsibility for being manipulated we have to slow down and start to process the information presented to us. We can’t get sidetracked with advertisements, or overwhelmed with search results. And we have to find balance. We can’t be so distrustful that we don’t trust anything we read, but we can’t trust everything we see. We have to seek out reputable sources and trust them but still find a second opinion as well.
Check back soon to find out why the governments and political parties want to manipulate us and the campaigns being used by the cyber troops to manipulate us.
Works Cited
Bradshaw, Samantha and Howard, Philip.”The Global Disinformation Order, 2019 Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation”. The Computational Propaganda Project, Algorithms, Automation and Digital Politics. Oxford Internet Institute. 2019. https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/93/2019/09/CyberTroop-Report19.pdf
Bellemare, Andrea. “The Real ‘Fake News’ How to Spot Misinformation and Disinformation Online”, CBC News. July 4, 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/fake-news-misinformation-online-1.5196865
Bellemare, Andrea. “So You Think You’ve Spotted Some ‘Fake News’ – Now What?”. CBC News. July 5, 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/fake-news-disinformation-propaganda-internet-1.5196964
Frank, Adam. “Computational Propaganda: Bots, Targeting, and the Future”. npr.org. February 9, 2018. https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2018/02/09/584514805/computational-propaganda-yeah-that-s-a-thing-now
Striclin, Jonathan. “TechStuff Takes a Gander at Computational Propaganda” . TechStffpodcast.com October 09, 2019. https://www.techstuffpodcast.com/podcasts/techstuff-takes-a-gander-at-propaganda.htm
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