Governments around the world have used targeted online hate and harassment campaigns to intimidate or silence people.
The news: A report out yesterday by the Institute for the Future, a California-based public policy group, documented the extent of the practice, and found it to be widespread in both dictatorships and democracies.
How they do it: Using fake accounts, bots, and coordinated attacks by legions of followers, governments make it extremely difficult to distinguish between public opinion and sponsored trolls.
For example: The Indian government reportedly paid throngs of people to make coordinated posts to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attack his opponents. The report details similar instances in Ecuador, Malta, and Mexico as well. The US doesn’t get away scot free, either. “The strategy of inciting or fueling trolling campaigns has been witnessed in the United States,” the report says, “where hyperpartisan news outlets such as Breitbart and sources close to Trump signal to trolls who to target.”
SOURCE:MIT DOWNLOAD
The news: A report out yesterday by the Institute for the Future, a California-based public policy group, documented the extent of the practice, and found it to be widespread in both dictatorships and democracies.
How they do it: Using fake accounts, bots, and coordinated attacks by legions of followers, governments make it extremely difficult to distinguish between public opinion and sponsored trolls.
For example: The Indian government reportedly paid throngs of people to make coordinated posts to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attack his opponents. The report details similar instances in Ecuador, Malta, and Mexico as well. The US doesn’t get away scot free, either. “The strategy of inciting or fueling trolling campaigns has been witnessed in the United States,” the report says, “where hyperpartisan news outlets such as Breitbart and sources close to Trump signal to trolls who to target.”
SOURCE:MIT DOWNLOAD
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