Disinformation campaigns such as those perpetrated by far-right groups in the United States seek to erode democratic social institutions. While many studies have emphasized the importance of identity confirmation and misleading presentation of facts to explain who disinformation is shared, these accounts can also portray people as relatively passive recipients of this content. A new article on Disinformation by Design: The Use of Evidence Collages and Platform Filtering in a Media Manipulation Campaign by the OII’s Peaks Krafft with Joan Donovan (Harvard Kennedy School), examines how platform design contributes to the spread of disinformation – even when it is actively challenged. They employ a multi-site trace ethnography to analyze how a contested rumour about the Charlottesville (VA) car attack crossed from anonymous message boards, to the conservative media ecosystem and other platforms.
We caught up with Peaks and Joan to discuss how disinformation campaigns are constructed, the dangers of loss of context as (dis)information crosses platforms, and the need for further transparency and accountability of social media.
[…]