Algorithms, Influencers, and Propaganda
This week’s issue is a small collection of good reads that offer interesting insights into the digital information ecosystem. They span everything from foreign election interference to the contemporary influencer economy, focusing on how brands and politicians leverage online influencers and how their content affects us. We’ll be back next week with a longer piece on foreign election interference, reading between the lines of Microsoft’s release this past week (linked below) and Iran’s hacking of the Trump campaign. We promise to write about more optimistic topics in the coming weeks, but until then, enjoy!
Microsoft - “Russian Election Interference Efforts Focus On The Harris-Walz Campaign” (Sep. 2024)
Microsoft’s latest release details state-funded Russian troll farms that are posting doctored or fabricated videos about the Harris campaign. The report names two Russian groups, Storm-1516 and Storm-1679, who use generative AI tools and sock puppet influencer accounts to spread misinformation videos, some of which have earned millions of views. Read the full report here.
Nature - “How Influencers And Algorithms Mobilize Propaganda — And Distort Reality” by Sander van der Linden (Sep. 2024)
“If you make it trend, you make it true.” A review of Renée DiResta’s new book Invisible Rulers, in which she studies the influencer economy and modern concept of digital virality. She details how social-media influencers and algorithms “hijack the public debate,” in what she calls the fantasy-industrial complex. Read the full article here.
The New York Times - “Brands Love Influencers (Until Politics Get Involved)” by Sapna Maheshwari (Aug. 2024)
With our partisan divides as deep as they are now, brands that leverage digital influencers do all they can to avoid associating with those that produce political content. This article from the New York Times explores how some marketing firms are using AI not to see if an influencer has been politically outspoken, but if they will be in the future. Read the full article here.
Network Propaganda by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts (2018)
This book might be six years old, but it remains the most insightful and illuminating thing I have read about our modern digital media landscape. If you are at all interested in what the combination of partisan cable news and social media has done to our politics, it is well worth your time. You can download a free PDF copy here.