No technology has been weaponized at such an unprecedented global scale as social media. Diverse research approaches now attempt to decipher how laptop screens and smartphones around the world are used to manipulate public debate, hijack mainstream media agenda, and influence political agendas.
In this report, we:
Narrate “deep stories” of individual workers positioned at different levels of the hierarchy, not to vilify them but to understand their motivations and social backgrounds.
Discuss the labor arrangements that underpin networked disinformation in order to reveal the vulnerabilities of professional industries and institutions to political deception work.
Discuss the persuasive techniques that architects of networked disinformation deploy in mobilizing populist sentiment to further clients’ elite agendas and for their own economic and political gain.
List preliminary recommendations aimed at every level of fake news production’s hierarchical structure.