COMPUTATIONAL PROPAGANDA

Online politics needs to be cleaned up – but not just by Facebook and Twitter

Lisa-Maria Neudert and Phil Howard argue in the Guardian’s Opinion section for greater transparency from political parties on how and where they advertise:

To keep our elections free and fair, and to be confident in their outcomes, parties need to disclose what ads they’re buying, on which platforms, and at what price. Now is the chance for campaigns to demonstrate their commitment to transparency and accountability…

In preparing for 12 December, political campaigners in the UK are relying heavily on data-driven targeted advertising, but share little information about their content, placement and pricing. After 10 months of research and consultation with policymakers, the tech industry, security experts and academia, our central recommendation is that advertising transparency must start with political parties.

New York Times Magazine: So the internet didn’t turn out the way we hoped.

State-sponsored disinformation is on the rise.  According to the Oxford Internet Institute, the number of countries with political disinformation campaigns nearly doubled to 70 in the last two years or so. Facebook remains the preferred platform for pushing propaganda; organized information operations were found on the social network in 56 countries. Perhaps most terrifying, it has been reported that disinformation tactics are spreading around the world as countries learn from one another.

Nieman Lab: WhatsApp’s message forwarding limits do work (somewhat) to stop the spread of misinformation

One of the researchers’ main findings is that Facebook “remains the dominant platform for cyber troop activity,” though “since 2018, we have collected evidence of more cyber troop activity on image- and video-sharing platforms such as Instagram and YouTube. We have also collected evidence of cyber troops running campaigns on WhatsApp.”