| > What we just saw was a public alpha. There will be a beta and a final version of this system. The rewards are too great for every state-level actor to ignore and fail to develop election manipulation tools using any new technology they can get their hands on. Big data may have doomed democratic process in an irreversible way. The next couple of decades will be telling. What we saw was the first export version for the West. Authoritarian regimes have been honing many of the same propaganda techniques on their own populations for some time. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency (they were involved in the 2016 election interference, but they've long been doing similar in Russia and Eastern Europe). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party (Chinese equivalent) I think it's important for Westerns to study the details of these propaganda programs, so we can recognize and respond to the export versions. More links: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html https://gking.harvard.edu/50c https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/business/international/ch... https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/06/future-banned-on-sina-... https://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russia... (from 2014!) |