{"id":9672,"date":"2019-11-22T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T15:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/?p=9672"},"modified":"2019-10-01T07:25:35","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T15:25:35","slug":"computational-propaganda-70-governments-use-social-media-to-manipulate-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/computational-propaganda-70-governments-use-social-media-to-manipulate-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Computational Propaganda: 70+ Governments use Social Media to Manipulate Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Social media is increasingly being manipulated as a tool for political propaganda.  Evidence of manipulation of media in more than 70 different countries by <a href=\"https:\/\/comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/93\/2019\/09\/CyberTroop-Report19.pdf\">at least one government agency or political party, according to research by the Oxford Internet Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report found that social media is used for controlling information with the goals of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Suppressing human rights<\/li><li>Discrediting political opponents<\/li><li>Challenging and drowning out dissenting opinions<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The use of computational propaganda to shape public attitudes via social media has become mainstream, extending far beyond the actions of a few bad actors. In an information environment characterized by high volumes of information and limited levels of user attention and trust, the tools and techniques of computational propaganda are becoming a common \u2013 and arguably essential \u2013 part of digital campaigning and public diplomacy,&#8221; according to the research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zeynep_Tufekci\">Zeynep Tufecki<\/a>, researcher, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerweekly.com\/news\/252471118\/Instagram-and-WhatsApp-the-new-tools-of-social-media-propaganda\">said that<\/a> &#8220;disinformation is a little bit like fat, sugar and salt \u2013 humans know it\u2019s bad for them, but at the same time they want a little bit more of it. That\u2019s what algorithms are designed to amplify.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oii.ox.ac.uk\/people\/philip-howard\/\">Philip Howard<\/a>, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, said that &#8220;the manipulation of public opinion over social media remains a critical threat to democracy, as computational propaganda becomes a pervasive part of everyday life. 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Evidence of manipulation of media in more than 70 different countries by at least one government agency or political party, according to research by the Oxford Internet Institute.<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/computational-propaganda-70-governments-use-social-media-to-manipulate-opinion\/\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-networking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9673,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9672\/revisions\/9673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}