The Weaponization of Social Media

http://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/09/the-weaponization-of-social-media/
Date Written:  2018-11-09
Publisher:  CounterPunch
Year Published:  2018
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23084

How the online environment and social media is being used as a political weapon, notably through the use of 'Bots'.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) has studied online political discussions relating to several countries on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. It claims that in all the elections, political crises and national security-related discussions it examined, there was not one instance where social media opinion had not been manipulated by what they call 'computational propaganda'. For them, while it remains difficult to quantify the impact bots have 'computational propaganda' is now one of the most 'powerful tools against democracy'.