WEBVTT - TechStuff Takes a Gander at Propaganda 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.080 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.360 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:19.080 I Heart Radio and How Stuff Works and a lot 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.599 of all things tech again kind of, this is another 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:24.040 one of those episodes we have to put in a 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:29.480 lot of qualifiers. So in late September twenty nineteen, University 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.560 of Oxford's Computational Propaganda Research Project released the two thousand 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:40.440 nineteen Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation, And apart 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.479 from misspelling the word organized, those wacky ox ford Ians 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.960 turned the Z into an S, so it's an easy mistake. 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.240 But otherwise it's a great report. And yeah, I'm making 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.480 a joke about the differences in spelling conventions between America 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.800 and the UK, because in all honesty, this report is 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.560 pretty scary and I need to get in my oofswell 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.200 I can now. I say the report is scary, but 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.680 it's also not exactly surprising. We've heard plenty of reports 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.759 all around the world over the last few years about 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.240 governments and political parties using social media as a way 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.880 to spread misinformation in an effort to manipulate people to 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.400 do whatever it is the party in question wants them 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:27.040 to do, or in some cases, to not do something, 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.480 depending on the circumstances. But the scale of the issue 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.679 is a truly global one and it's only becoming a 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.240 bigger problem as time goes on. Now, it's also important 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:42.039 to note how the researchers generated this report. This was 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.920 not some sort of deep undercover mission in which dozens 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:51.600 of security experts infiltrated various countries to monitor social media activity. Instead, 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:56.320 the researchers relied heavily on published accounts of governments and 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.400 political parties manipulating social media for the purposes of propit Ganda, 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.080 typically from a lot of news outlets, and they created 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.480 a process in which they would score news sources on 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.880 a scale of one to three. One being a pretty 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:15.760 reliable and reputable source of information, something that is has 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:20.120 got a nice long standing reputation for for being a 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.400 foundational source for news, and then three is on the 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.359 opposite end of that right, Three would be a partisan, 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:32.000 biased or unreliable source. Articles that ranked a three were 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:36.600 removed from the the whole set of articles before the 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:40.000 next step in the process began, and that next step 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.680 was to review all of those articles and then go 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:47.400 into a mode called secondary literature review, in which researchers 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:51.400 would focus on specific countries and do a deeper dive 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.240 into the news stories about manipulation and social media sites. 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:59.639 This included further research that collected stuff like research papers, 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.360 govern ment reports, and other publicly available information. Then the 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:08.520 researchers prepared country case studies for most of the countries 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.440 they covered in their initial search. Their case studies laid 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.920 out specific instances and strategies that were found in the 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.480 respective countries. The researchers then called upon experts to review 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.680 the case studies, and the experts were there to evaluate 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.760 the reliability of the data and also whether or not 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.119 the case studies accurately reflected the information that was available. 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.520 So not just are these facts accurate, but is the 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.480 way that that the report presents the facts is that 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.640 in itself accurate? Because you could have some accurate stats 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:43.720 and then still report on it in a way that 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.320 is not, you know, entirely representational of the truth. So 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.680 the experts were sort of the peer review process for 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.920 this report, and you could argue that the report is 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.560 itself sort of a meta study that would be a 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:00.440 study that pulls information from many other established sources as 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.720 opposed to an original study that does new and original research. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.920 This one was dependent upon stuff that had already been 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.600 read written about these various countries. One thing I think 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:15.000 the report does particularly well is that the researchers acknowledged 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.760 what makes this manipulation possible in the first place. The 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.600 amount of information we have access to at any given 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:28.400 time is truly monumental. Let's think back a few decades 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.760 imagine what it would be like before the eras of 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.800 radio and television. Back when you would get your news 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:39.080 from print. You would get newspapers or journals or magazines 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:43.080 or other periodicals. That was pretty much the only way 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:45.960 you were going to get any news beyond what's just 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.640 going on in your immediate neighborhood. Radio and TV brought 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.400 with them the ability to spread news faster and in 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.240 a wider distribution. Then came cable and the invention of 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.279 twenty four hour cable news, and now we had a 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.640 whole new p problem. Suddenly we had to find a 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.719 way to fill up twenty four hours of news time 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:11.480 every single day. When before newspapers, radio programs, television programs, 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.680 they would curate the most important news stories because you know, 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.040 you had a limited amount of space and or time. 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.360 But with twenty four hours, suddenly time was not as 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:23.839 big of a problem. In fact, it was the opposite problem. 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:25.960 How do you fill it all up? Then we get 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.200 to the Internet, which, like the twenty four hour cable 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.880 news channels, is also always on. And much of the 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:37.760 business that is on the Internet relies on doing a 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.880 few things, and they're all related. And this is not 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:42.680 going to come as news to any of you, but 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.640 I want to lay it out. So business on the internet, 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:49.080 if that's in fact where you are, are really dependent 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:52.159 upon generating revenue. As the Internet itself, you want to 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.080 attract as many sets of eyeballs as possible, so get 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.760 as many people to visit your website as you possibly can. 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.039 You want to keep those eyeballs on the company's web 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.119 pages as much as possible, so you don't want people 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.960 bouncing off and leaving. And as a consequence, you also 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.320 want to serve up as many ads to those eyeballs 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:14.800 as possible, because that's generally how most web based businesses 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.240 are generating their revenue. Uh. You know, obviously you've got 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.760 other businesses like retail that use the web as a 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:26.159 portal to shop the inventory of the retail store. But 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:31.120 for anything that's specifically dependent upon the web itself for revenue, 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.440 that's generally how this works unless you're doing a subscription model, 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.039 and all of these things I just mentioned contributes to 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.880 add revenue. So yeah, I know, again I'm starting with 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.640 the obvious and that if you didn't know this already, 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.359 you probably had noticed it at the very least. But 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.200 this is why you find so many web pages that 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:54.040 take kind of irritating approaches, like they'll create a gallery 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:56.720 or slide show approach which forces you to click on 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.880 the next button to generate another page view. So rather 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:02.599 than just lay it all out in one page where 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.160 you can just scroll through and read everything, you're clicking 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.039 over and over again. Well, those clicks count as page views, 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.200 which help the the company that makes the web page 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:17.560 market it to advertisers, or the websites that are designed 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:23.000 for mobile that just have super long articles that scroll 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.760 and scroll and scroll. You might get a picture a 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.160 line of text, and then an AD, and then you'll 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.160 get another picture in a line of text and another AD, 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.360 and then you finally get around to finding the point 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.560 where the article actually tells you whatever the headline was 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.440 claiming at the top. And that's not even really touching 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:43.800 on the whole concept of click bait, in which a 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.640 title and thumbnail image are carefully curated to get as 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.160 many clicks as possible, sometimes with no regard as to 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:53.840 whether or not the final web page actually reflects whatever 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.240 the original promise was of the title and the thumbnail. 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.920 And one of the consequences of all this data around us, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.560 coupled with the various methods companies are using to get 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.440 our attention, means we don't tend to spend a lot 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:15.440 of time actually, you know, attending to anything. We can't. Instead, 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.920 our attention drifts over data point after data point. Meanwhile, 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.560 we've got a limitation on how much we trust information sources, 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.360 so skillful manipulators take all of this into account when 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:31.800 designing an approach to manipulate the public. The executive summary 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.240 of the report lays out the scale of the problem 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:39.040 right away, and according to the researchers, their work uncovered 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:43.520 instances of governments or political parties using social media manipulation 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:48.120 in twenty eight countries. In a year later, the number 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.680 of countries had grown to forty eight, and this year 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.280 twenty nineteen, the number of countries in which at least 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.720 one political party, if not the government itself, is using 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:02.640 social media for manipulation purposes is at seventy countries. The 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:06.240 researchers also point out this doesn't necessarily mean the number 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.880 of countries with governmental agencies using misinformation online is doubling 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.920 year over year. Part of the increase maybe do not 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:19.040 to more countries doing this, but rather are growing awareness 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.960 and ability to detect social manipulation. So it's not just 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.559 that more people are using these techniques though that seems 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.040 like it's a pretty safe bet, but also that we're 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:32.400 getting better at detecting them, so in places where it 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.400 may once have been overlooked, we now know about it. 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.920 So and again, it's just that our our tool set 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:42.040 has gotten better, so that's also contributing to this growing number. 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.000 And listing all the countries of those seventy would be 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.920 pretty tedious, but pretty much everyone you would expect to 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.880 be there is there. That includes the United States and 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.920 the United Kingdom. It also includes Russia and China. Other 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:01.400 countries on the list include India, Greece, the Check Republic, Nigeria, 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:08.040 North Korea, Pakistan, Brazil, Cambodia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:12.040 and many many more. So the researchers were casting a 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.880 broad net around the globe. In this study, much of 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.719 that focus has been on how governments use social platforms 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.959 to manipulate things within their own borders, so, in other words, 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:28.720 domestic concerns. But the researchers also found some reports about 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:33.160 foreign influence operations or attempts to manipulate people who are 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.480 living in other countries entirely. Now, this focus was more 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:43.360 narrow than the overall domestic focus because it's a challenge 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.000 to get a handle on how frequently this foreign influence 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:51.319 operation stuff is happening because platforms like Twitter and Facebook 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.840 have either limited the investigations into such things or the 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.960 reporting of any findings they've had has been pretty limited. 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.600 For example, those platforms have at least in their reporting, 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:08.240 limited all their actions against campaigns that originated in just 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:15.199 seven countries, those seven being China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.800 Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. And to be clear, we're talking 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.200 about just the stuff the researchers were able to find. 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.439 I think it's safe to say there are probably instances 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.520 of this that have yet to be uncovered, and some 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.760 countries they didn't have time to look into thoroughly. There 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:37.080 are on countries in the world, or three if you 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.400 only go with countries recognized by the United Nations. So 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.240 this is a really big deal. Seventy out of a hundred, 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.840 that's a significant Now, in this episode, I'm going to 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.400 go through the report with you guys to talk about 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.840 what they found and what it all means, and maybe 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:56.160 think about what we might do to protect ourselves and 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:00.360 those around us from being manipulated bad news. There's not 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.120 a whole lot we can do on an individual basis, 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.920 but we'll get there now. Part of what makes this 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.679 all challenging is that the Internet isn't exactly the same 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.960 all across the world, as you guys know. I live 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.760 in the United States, and despite a few attempts to 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:20.520 shut down access to servers that were hosting pirated media, 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:25.880 because corporations have enormous sway in the United States, internet 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:31.360 access in the States is largely unfettered, so essentially, if 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.880 it's out there, you can access it in the United States. 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:38.480 This is an over generalization but you get the idea. 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.240 There are other countries that restrict, to one degree or 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:46.360 another that sort of access. In China, for example, there 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.640 is the famous Great Firewall of China. The term describes 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:54.280 not just the technology used, but the political policies. In China, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:59.040 the restrict citizens access to the Internet. State approved sites 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:03.280 and services are fine, they can access those. The Chinese 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.439 government subjects other stuff to heavy censorship or just blocks 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:11.480 it outright. Controlling information is one way to maintain control 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.400 over a population, and China is one of the most 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.880 obvious examples of that happening today. Another one would be 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.680 North Korea. One of the big developments in twenty nineteen 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:26.520 saw China get more involved in foreign influence operations. Previously, 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.320 nearly all of China's propaganda efforts were confined to China 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.560 itself and its strict control over Internet access to its citizens. 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:37.320 But in two thousand nineteen, with the rise of public 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.320 demonstrations and protests in Hong Kong, the country began to 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.760 initiate misinformation campaigns on social media to attempt to undermine 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:50.360 public support for Hong Kong, casting the protesters as lawless 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.160 and violent. The researchers state that there's no reason to 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.559 assume China will stop using social media in an effort 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.800 to shape the public understanding of things that are of 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.480 importance to the country, So we'll probably see that country 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:08.120 continue it's foreign influence operations. Now, a lot of countries 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.480 fall between these extremes I've just laid out, and you 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.800 could also argue that neither the US nor China are 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:18.080 truly on the very opposite ends of the spectrum, but 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.880 that's the way they're often portrayed. Now, for the purposes 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.360 of the report, the researchers decided to focus only on 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.600 cases in which there was a clear mandate from a 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.720 government or political party to initiate the manipulation. This is 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.000 important to distinguish because there may be many cases in 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:40.080 which hackers, activists, companies, subcultures, or other groups of people 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:45.120 could act on their own without the explicit permission or 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.240 mandate of a government or political party. In cases like those, 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.960 the ideologies and the goals of the group and the 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.960 government just happened to align, but there's no explicit direction 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.760 from the state to commit any acts. You may remember 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.560 that in the wake of the massive two thousand fourteen 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:07.000 cyber attack on Sony which involved the theft of a 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.960 ton of confidential information within the company. A hacker group 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.760 called the Guardians of Peace claimed responsibility, and while the 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.960 hacker group's goals were in line with those of North 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.440 Korea as a whole, the country of North Korea maintained 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:25.280 it had not directed any hackers to go after Sony. 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.720 If that were the case, which is still a matter 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.200 of dispute, then it would be an example of what 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.880 I was saying earlier. So the report would focus only 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.840 on stories that link back to official government or political agencies, 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:43.400 and not campaigns from apparent independent groups that just happened 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:47.760 to align with those governments. Okay, so those are the 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.120 basics when we come back. I'll talk more about specifics 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.120 in the report, but first let's take a quick break. 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:06.560 According to the report, authoritarian governments and political parties use 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:11.920 social manipulation to achieve one or more of three general outcomes, 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.080 and the first is to suppress fundamental human rights, which 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:19.920 I think we can all agree is pretty horrifying. The 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:24.080 second is to discredit political opponents, and the third is 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.960 to drown out any dissenting opinions. Now, those last two 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.880 points show that these manipulators are relying on a tool 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:35.200 set used by Internet trolls. In general, trolls will use 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:39.240 all sorts of manipulative tactics to dismiss anyone they target, 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.440 and to rely on strategies to start flame wars or 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.800 other distractions to keep the targeted party from being able 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.800 to make any sort of impact. So, in some ways, 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:53.400 the techniques being used in social manipulation are already incredibly 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.760 familiar to us. It's just that instead of popping up 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:01.520 on a message board centered around no Dancing with the stars, 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.400 it's a government or political party trying to establish control 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:09.800 over a population. However, it does get more complicated than 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.320 just rilling up folks on the internet. The report's introduction 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.640 starts off with the sentence and I quote around the world, 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:22.439 government actors are using social media to manufacture consensus, automate suppression, 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.959 and undermine trust in the liberal international order end quote. 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.040 Now some of that still falls in the troll wheelhouse. 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:34.520 Manufacturing consensus, for example, this is when a party attempts 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.240 to make it seem as though the majority of people 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.720 around you all believe a certain philosophy or a course 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:44.160 of action is the right one. It's the whole concept 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.320 of go with the crowd, right, or if you're being 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:52.240 particularly cynical, it's likening people to sheep or cattle. People 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.280 tend to go along with what others are doing because 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.080 to do otherwise, to go outside of that, is to 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.720 invite scrutiny or criticism, and a lot of us just 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.680 prefer to avoid that, so, rather than make waves, will 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.879 go with the flow. Trolls do this online through stuff 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.359 like sock puppet accounts. That's when a troll makes two 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.720 or more accounts for an online discussion, and the troll 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:19.359 will use their primary account to make whatever statement they want, 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:23.000 and then the sock puppets are used to help the 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:27.560 troll achieve that goal, typically by adding support in some way, 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:31.080 so the trolls controlling all three or four, however many 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:34.840 of these accounts there are, and using the sock puppet 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:38.800 accounts to add support and credence to whatever the troll 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.159 is saying. So to an outside viewer, it's as if 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:43.720 the troll has said something and that other people are 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.000 now chiming in to support that's something, But in reality, 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.479 it's just the troll, or sometimes a group of trolls, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.960 manufacturing that consensus, when in fact no such consensus exists 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.440 within the group of at large well countries and political 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.440 parties are doing the same thing, but on a much 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.639 larger scale. Governments do this by employing either directly or 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.080 otherwise agents to do the dirty work, and the report 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.040 refers to these agents as cyber troops. And some of 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:15.359 those cyber troops are a little extra cyber. That is, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.159 some of the agents working on behalf of achieving the 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.119 goals of these various governments and political parties are bots. 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.680 They are programs that generate automated responses with the goal 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:30.240 of either suppressing messages in opposition to the party's goals 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:35.000 or elevating an escalating language that supports those goals. The 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:39.119 researchers identify three types of fake accounts in the report, 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:44.480 human bot, and then cyborg. Now, out of the seventy 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.639 countries that the researchers looked at, fifty were found using 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.280 fake accounts run by bots in some way, mostly to 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:57.800 spread certain messages while drowning out dissent. Interestingly, human run 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:01.520 accounts were even more widespread, with sixty out of the 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.840 seventy countries employing them in some way to run fake accounts, 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.560 and typically the people who are running these fake accounts 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.480 would engage with others people who have real accounts, like 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:16.119 the real users of these sites, by leaving comments on 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.640 posts or sending private messages, and otherwise attempting to start 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:24.960 up conversations aligned with the overall goals of the communication strategy. 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.720 The report also looked into instances of hacked accounts, in 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:32.480 which a person's online account would become compromised and then 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.280 pulled out of their control. Then a bot or a 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:40.760 human agent or the hybrid cyborg could post as that person. 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:45.000 This strategy accomplishes two things at once. It can silence 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.760 someone who otherwise might speak the scent against a government 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.280 or political party, and it can appear to lend credibility 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.240 to that government or political party by having a quote 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.680 unquote real person add to the conversation in a way 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.960 that further is the political goals. Complicating matters is that 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.960 in some countries governments encourage citizens to engage in spreading 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:13.320 propaganda and silencing dissenting voices on behalf of the government. 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:15.960 This would be a strategy where you say it's all 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:20.040 part of being a good patriotic citizen of that country. 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:24.959 In those cases, you're not talking about compromised or fake accounts. Instead, 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:29.560 you're talking about indoctrinated people using their accounts to support 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:32.880 their respective governments. And because we're starting to see some 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:38.000 platforms actually make moves against bots and other fake accounts, 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:41.520 this could become a more common practice in the future. 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.639 It's a lot harder for social platforms to remove quote 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:49.280 unquote real accounts that happen to spread propaganda without running 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.919 the risk of being labeled as partisan or advocating for censorship. 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:57.680 As for the messaging, the research team identified five general 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.560 types of messages and their intended effects. So number one 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:06.280 is the straightforward pro government propaganda. So these are messages 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:10.159 that praise whatever power is behind the manipulation, just you know, 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:16.400 yea America, or yea our glorious leader, or go socks. 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:22.080 Next our messages designed to discredit or defame political dissidents 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.080 and opponents, which might include a mixture of truth and 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.679 misinformation about the target. So this is where you have 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:34.040 identified some potential opponent to the powers that be, and 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.720 you use every tool in your tool chest to make 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.600 that person seem like the worst human being in the 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:42.480 world and no one should ever support him or her. 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.920 The third path is to use misinformation to distract from 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.120 important issues. In the United States, you'll hear a lot 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:53.560 of people complain about this sort of activity, in particular 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.160 in which let's say a government official or an agency 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:01.320 issues an outrageous or a controversial mess edge, and people 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:03.520 will say it's an effort to pull the focus off 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:07.320 of matters of more critical importance. I'm not saying this 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.800 actually happens all the time in the United States, instead 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:13.639 of saying people talk about it happening all the time 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.720 in the United States that when someone does make such 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:20.199 a statement, one of the frequent responses is, this is 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:24.000 just a pull focus away from X, you know, and 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:27.200 it's not really a genuine attempt to start a real 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:32.040 conversation about this other thing. And the fourth type of 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:37.160 message is one meant specifically to polarize and divide a population, 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:39.840 because if you divide the people, if you push them 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:43.600 further to extremes, it means that the people will not 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:48.480 unify on anything. They're they're less powerful divided than they 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:52.680 would be unified. So while that can lead to other 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:56.600 major social problems, as you push people to political extremes, 0:23:57.040 --> 0:23:59.920 you've also really decreased the ability of them to organ 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:03.800 eyes on any meaningful level, and they can't really counteract 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:07.240 what the government is doing. The fifth type of message, 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:11.920 the final one, is a direct attack on dissidents themselves, 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:14.280 made in an effort to drown out their voices through 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:17.960 any means necessary. And the researchers also pointed out that 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:23.200 authoritarian regimes use social media propaganda in conjunction with other 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:28.280 methods of intimidation, including surveillance and threats of violence. Frequent 0:24:28.320 --> 0:24:32.960 targets would be political opponents, journalists, and sometimes members of 0:24:32.960 --> 0:24:36.040 the population or at least large segments of the population 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:39.480 as a whole. If such a government can intimidate those 0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:43.800 who would otherwise speak out against it while simultaneously manipulating 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:46.760 the conversation on social media to be in support of 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:50.560 that same government, it's in a stronger position to maintain power. 0:24:51.320 --> 0:24:55.600 The report also details the actual communication strategies governments and 0:24:55.680 --> 0:24:58.719 political parties are using. So we've talked about the types 0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:03.159 of messages that the organization's propagate, but how are they 0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:06.639 propagating the messages? What are those strategies and the report 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:12.000 identifies five key ways. Number one is creating outright disinformation. 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:16.600 This can include fake news articles, fake videos, that kind 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:20.159 of thing, and as technology becomes more sophisticated, it becomes 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:24.280 increasingly challenging for the average person to determine if something 0:25:24.320 --> 0:25:28.280 they encounter is genuine or has been faked. In some cases, 0:25:28.560 --> 0:25:31.920