As the US prepares for next year’s midterm elections, and the slew of foreign and domestic online disinformation and propaganda likely to accompany it, it is crucial to develop sensible social and legal protections for the groups most likely to be targeted by digital spin campaigns. While the timing is right, we must create a renewed blueprint for democratic internet governance so we can protect the diverse array of people affected by ongoing problems in the space.
For the last two years the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement at UT Austin has been studying the ways in which various global producers of social media-based propaganda efforts focus their strategies. One of the lab’s key findings in the US has been that these individuals—working for an array of political parties, domestic and foreign governments, political consulting firms, and PR groups—often use a combination of private platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram and more open ones like Facebook and YouTube in bids to manipulate minority voting blocks in specific regions or cities.
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Source: Global Democracies Need to Align to Fight Disinformation | WIRED