Internet manipulation

Internet manipulation is the co-optation of online digital technologies, including algorithms, social bots, and automated scripts, for commercial, social, military, or political purposes.^[1] Internet and social media manipulation are the prime vehicles for spreading disinformation due to the importance of digital platforms for media consumption and everyday communication.^[2] When employed for political purposes, internet manipulation may be used to steer public opinion,^[3] polarise citizens,^[4] circulate conspiracy theories,^[5] and silence political dissidents. Internet manipulation can also be done for profit, for instance, to harm corporate or political adversaries and improve brand reputation.^[6] Internet manipulation is sometimes also used to describe the selective enforcement of Internet censorship^[7][8] or selective violations of net neutrality.^[9]

This section is in list format but may read better as prose. (November 2024)

Behavior Manipulation: Internet manipulation often aims to change user perceptions and their corresponding behaviors.^[5] Since the early 2000s, this notion of cognitive hacking meant a cyberattack aiming to change human behavior.^[10][11] Today, fake news, disinformation attacks, and deepfakes can secretly affect behavior in ways that are difficult to detect.^[12]

High-arousal emotion virality: It has been found that content that evokes high-arousal emotions (e.g. awe, anger, anxiety or with hidden sexual meaning) is more viral and that content that holds one or many of these elements: surprising, interesting, or useful is taken into consideration.^[13]

Simplicity over complexity: Providing and perpetuating simple explanations for complex circumstances may be used for online manipulation. Often such are easier to believe, come in advance of any adequate investigations and have a higher virality than any complex, nuanced explanations and information.^[14] (See also: Low-information rationality)

Peer-influence: Prior collective ratings of an web content influences ones own perception of it. In 2015 it was shown that the perceived beauty of a piece of artwork in an online context varies with external influence as confederate ratings were manipulated by opinion and credibility for participants of an experiment who were asked to evaluate a piece of artwork.^[15] Furthermore, on Reddit, it has been found that content that initially gets a few down- or upvotes often continues going negative, or vice versa. This is referred to as "bandwagon/snowball voting" by reddit users and administrators.^[16]

Filter bubbles: Echo chambers and filter bubbles might be created by Website administrators or moderators locking out people with altering viewpoints or by establishing certain rules or by the typical member viewpoints of online sub/communities or Internet "tribes"

Confirmation bias & manipulated prevalence: Fake news does not need to be read but has an effect in quantity and emotional effect by its headlines and sound bites alone.^{[citation needed]} Specific points, views, issues and people's apparent prevalence can be amplified,^[17] stimulated or simulated. (See also: Mere-exposure effect

Information timeliness and uncorrectability: Clarifications, conspiracy busting and fake news exposure often come late when the damage is already done and/or do not reach the bulk of the audience of the associated misinformation^{[18][better source needed]}

Psychological targeting: Social media activities and other data can be used to analyze the personality of people and predict their behaviour and preferences.^[19][20] Michal Kosinski developed such a procedure.^[19] Such can be used for media or information tailored to a person's psyche e.g. via Facebook. According to reports such may have played an integral part in Donald Trump's 2016 election win.^[19][21] (See also: Targeted advertising, Personalized marketing)

The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group unit of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British intelligence agency^[32] was revealed as part of the global surveillance disclosures in documents leaked by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden^[33] and its mission scope includes using "dirty tricks" to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies.^[33][34] Core-tactics include injecting false material onto the Internet in order to destroy the reputation of targets and manipulating online discourse and activism for which methods such as posting material to the Internet and falsely attributing it to someone else, pretending to be a victim of the target individual whose reputation is intended to be destroyed and posting "negative information" on various forums may be used.^[35]

Known as "Effects" operations, the work of JTRIG had become a "major part" of GCHQ's operations by 2010.^[33] The unit's online propaganda efforts (named "Online Covert Action"^{[citation needed]}) utilize "mass messaging" and the "pushing [of] stories" via the medium of Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube.^[33] Online "false flag" operations are also used by JTRIG against targets.^[33] JTRIG have also changed photographs on social media sites, as well as emailing and texting colleagues and neighbours with "unsavory information" about the targeted individual.^[33] In June 2015, NSA files published by Glenn Greenwald revealed new details about JTRIG's work at covertly manipulating online communities.^[36] The disclosures also revealed the technique of "credential harvesting", in which journalists could be used to disseminate information and identify non-British journalists who, once manipulated, could give information to the intended target of a secret campaign, perhaps providing access during an interview.^[33] It is unknown whether the journalists would be aware that they were being manipulated.^[33]

Furthermore, Russia is frequently accused of financing "trolls" to post pro-Russian opinions across the Internet.^[37] The Internet Research Agency has become known for employing hundreds of Russians to post propaganda online under fake identities in order to create the illusion of massive support.^[38] In 2016 Russia was accused of sophisticated propaganda campaigns to spread fake news with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton and helping Republican Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election as well as undermining faith in American democracy.^[39][40][41]

In a 2017 report^[42] Facebook publicly stated that its site has been exploited by governments for the manipulation of public opinion in other countries – including during the presidential elections in the US and France.^[17][43][44] It identified three main components involved in an information operations campaign: targeted data collection, content creation and false amplification and includes stealing and exposing information that is not public; spreading stories, false or real, to third parties through fake accounts; and fake accounts being coordinated to manipulate political discussion, such as amplifying some voices while repressing others.^[45][46]

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In 2016 Andrés Sepúlveda disclosed that he manipulated public opinion to rig elections in Latin America. According to him with a budget of $600,000 he led a team of hackers that stole campaign strategies, manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm and derision, and installed spyware in opposition offices to help Enrique Peña Nieto, a right-of-center candidate, win the election.^[47][48]

In the run up to India's 2014 elections, both the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and the Congress party were accused of hiring "political trolls" to talk favourably about them on blogs and social media.^[37]

The Chinese government is also believed to run a so-called "50-cent army" (a reference to how much they are said to be paid) and the "Internet Water Army" to reinforce favourable opinion towards it and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as well as to suppress dissent.^[37][49]

In December 2014 the Ukrainian information ministry was launched to counter Russian propaganda with one of its first tasks being the creation of social media accounts (also known as the i-Army) and amassing friends posing as residents of eastern Ukraine.^[37][50]

Twitter suspended a number of bot accounts that appeared to be spreading pro-Saudi Arabian tweets about the disappearance of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.^[51]

A report by Mediapart claimed that the UAE, through a secret services agent named Mohammed, was using a Switzerland-based firm Alp Services to run manipulation campaigns against Emirati opponents. Alp Services head, Mario Brero used fictitious accounts that were publishing fake articles under pseudonyms to attack Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood networks in Europe. The UAE assigned Alp to publish at least 100 articles per year that were critical of Qatar.^[52]

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Internet manipulation may be seen being used within business and marketing as a way to influence consumers. Forbes, discusses how disinformation online can be spread rapidly across social platforms. Legitimate and fake news are blurring together and both are being weaponized on large-scale campaigns to influence the general population.^[53]

We may be influenced by a company but is it manipulation? Learning what to look out for is crucial to avoid internet manipulation. Businesses and marketing may provide misleading images, non-relevant context, or not delivering on their intent.^[54]

A business should be providing ethical marketing practices to ensure the most trust and reliability to consumers. To avoid such manipulation online, it's important to understand your target audience. Being able to directly communicate to your audience is key. By collectively showing and discussing the product efficiently by not being misleading to try to influence your audience.

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Hackers, hired professionals and private citizens have all been reported to engage in internet manipulation using software, including Internet bots such as social bots, votebots and clickbots.^[55] In April 2009, Internet trolls of 4chan voted Christopher Poole, founder of the site, as the world's most influential person of 2008 with 16,794,368 votes by an open Internet poll conducted by Time magazine.^[56] The results were questioned even before the poll completed, as automated voting programs and manual ballot stuffing were used to influence the vote.^[57][58][59] 4chan's interference with the vote seemed increasingly likely, when it was found that reading the first letter of the first 21 candidates in the poll spelled out a phrase containing two 4chan memes: "Marblecake. Also, The Game".^[60]

Jokesters and politically oriented hacktivists may share sophisticated knowledge of how to manipulate the Web and social media.^[61]

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In Wired it was noted that nation-state rules such as compulsory registration and threats of punishment are not adequate measures to combat the problem of online bots.^[62]

To guard against the issue of prior ratings influencing perception several websites such as Reddit have taken steps such as hiding the vote-count for a specified time.^[16]

Some other potential measures under discussion are flagging posts for being likely satire or false.^[63] For instance in December 2016 Facebook announced that disputed articles will be marked with the help of users and outside fact checkers.^[64] The company seeks ways to identify 'information operations' and fake accounts and suspended 30,000 accounts before the presidential election in France in a strike against information operations.^[17]

Inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee considers putting few companies in charge of deciding what is or is not true a risky proposition and states that openness can make the web more truthful. As an example he points to Wikipedia which, while not being perfect, allows anyone to edit with the key to its success being not just the technology but also the governance of the site. Namely, it has an army of countless volunteers and ways of determining what is or is not true.^[65]

Furthermore, various kinds of software may be used to combat this problem such as fake checking software or voluntary browser extensions that store every website one reads or use the browsing history to deliver fake revelations to those who read a fake story after some kind of consensus was found on the falsehood of a story.^{[original research?]}

Furthermore, Daniel Suarez asks society to value critical analytic thinking and suggests education reforms such as the introduction of 'formal logic' as a discipline in schools and training in media literacy and objective evaluation.^[63]

 This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY SA 3.0 IGO (license statement/permission). Text taken from World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development Global Report 2017/2018​, 202, University of Oxford, UNESCO.