Democracy – Page 2 – misterfergusson

Threat Assessment: Chinese Technology Platforms

The American University Washington College of Law and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University created a working group to understand and assess the risks posed by Chinese technology companies in the United States. They propose a framework to better assess and evaluate these risks by focusing on the interconnectivity of threats posed by China to the US economy, national security and civil liberties.

tl;dr

The Trump administration took various steps to effectively ban TikTok, WeChat, and other Chinese-owned apps from operating in the United States, at least in their current forms. The primary justification for doing so was national security. Yet the presence of these apps and related internet platforms presents a range of risks not traditionally associated with national security, including data privacy, freedom of speech, and economic competitiveness, and potential responses raise multiple considerations. This report offers a framework for both assessing and responding to the challenges of Chinese-owned platforms operating in the United States.

Make sure to read the full report titled Chinese Technology Platforms Operating In The United States by Gary P. Corn, Jennifer Daskal, Jack Goldsmith, John C. Inglis, Paul Rosenzweig, Samm Sacks, Bruce Schneier, Alex Stamos, Vincent Stewart at https://www.hoover.org/research/chinese-technology-platforms-operating-united-states

China has experienced consistent growth since opening its economy in the late 1970s. With its economy at about x14 today, this growth trajectory dwarfs the growth of the US economy, which increased at about x2 with the S&P 500 being its most rewarding driver at about x5 increase. Alongside economic power comes a thirst for global expansion far beyond the asian-pacific region. China’s foreign policy seeks to advance the Chinese one-party model of authoritarian capitalism that could pose a threat to human rights, democracy and the basic rule of law. US political leaders see these developments as a threat to their own US foreign policy of primacy but perhaps more important a threat to the western ideology deeply rooted in individual liberties. Needless to say that over the years every administration independent of political affiliation put the screws on China. A most recent example is the presidential executive order addressing the threat posed by social media video app TikTok. Given the authoritarian model of governance and the Chinese government’s sphere of control over Chinese companies their expansion into the US market raises concerns about access to critical data and data protection or cyber-enabled attacks on critical US infrastructure among a wide range of other threats to national security. For example:

Internet Governance: China is pursuing regulation to shift the internet from open to closed and decentralized to centralized control. The US government has failed to adequately engage international stakeholders in order to maintain an open internet but rather has authorized large data collection programs that emulate Chinese surveillance.

Privacy, Cybersecurity and National Security: The internet’s continued democratization encourages more social media and e-commerce platforms to integrate and connect features for users to enable multi-surface products. Mass data collection, weak product cybersecurity and the absence of broader data protection regulations can be exploited to collect data on domestic users, their behavior and their travel pattern abroad. It can be exploited to influence or control members of government agencies through targeted intelligence or espionage. Here the key consideration is aggregated data, which even in the absence of identifiable actors can be used to create viable intelligence. China has ramped up its offensive cyber operations beyond cyber-enabled trade or IP-theft and possesses the capabilities and cyber-weaponry to destabilize national security in the United States.

Necessity And Proportionality

Considering mitigating the threat to national security by taking actions against Chinese owned- or controlled communications technology including tech products manufactured in China the working group suggests an individual case-based analysis. They attempt to address the challenge of accurately identifying the specific risk in an ever-changing digital environment with a framework of necessity and proportionality. Technology standards change at a breathtaking pace. Data processing reaches new levels of intimacy due to the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Thoroughly assessing, vetting and weighing a tolerance to specific risks are at the core of this framework in order to calibrate a chosen response to avoid potential collateral consequences.

The working group’s framework of necessity and proportionality reminded me of a classic lean six sigma structure with a strong focus on understanding the threat to national security. Naturally, as a first step they suggest accurately identifying the threat’s nature, credibility, imminence and the chances of the threat becoming a reality. I found this first step incredibly important because a failure to identify a threat will likely lead to false attribution and undermine every subsequent step. In the context of technology companies the obvious challenge is data collection, data integrity and detection systems to tell the difference. By that I imply a Chinese actor may deploy a cyber ruse in concert with the Chinese government to obfuscate their intentions. Following the principle of proportionality, step two is looking into the potential collateral consequence to the United States, its strategic partners and most importantly its citizens. Policymakers must be aware of the unintended path a policy decision may take once a powerful adversary like China starts its propaganda machine. Therefore this step requires policymakers to include thresholds for when a measure to mitigate a threat to national security outweighs the need to act. In particular inalienable rights such as the freedom of expression, freedom of the press or freedom of assembly must be upheld at all times as they are fundamental American values. To quote the immortal Molly Ivins “Many a time freedom has been rolled back – and always for the same sorry reason: fear.” The third and final step concerns mitigation measures. In other words: what are we going to do about it? The working group landed on two critical factors: data and compliance. The former might be restricted, redirected or recoded to adhere to national security standards. The latter might be audited to not only identify vulnerabilities but further instill built-in cybersecurity and foster an amicable working-relationship.

The Biden administration is faced with a daunting challenge to review and develop appropriate cyber policies that will address the growing threat from Chinese technology companies in a coherent manner that is consistent with American values. Only a broad policy response that is tailored to specific threats and focused on stronger cybersecurity and stronger data protection will yield equitable results. International alliances alongside increased collaboration to develop better privacy and cybersecurity measures will lead to success. However, the US must focus on their own strengths first, leverage their massive private sector to identify the specific product capabilities and therefore threats and attack vectors, before taking short-sighted, irreversible actions.

An Economic Approach To Analyze Politics On YouTube

YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is said to be a gateway to introduce viewers to extremist content and a stepping stone towards online radicalization. However, two other factors are equally important when analyzing political ideologies on YouTube: the novel psychological effects of audio-visual content and the ability of monetization. This paper contributes to the field of political communications by offering an economic framework to explain behavioral patterns of right-wing radicalization. It attempts to answer how YouTube is used by right-wing creators and audiences and offers a way forward for future research.

tl;dr

YouTube is the most used social network in the United States and the only major platform that is more popular among right-leaning users. We propose the “Supply and Demand” framework for analyzing politics on YouTube, with an eye toward understanding dynamics among right-wing video producers and consumers. We discuss a number of novel technological affordances of YouTube as a platform and as a collection of videos, and how each might drive supply of or demand for extreme content. We then provide large-scale longitudinal descriptive information about the supply of and demand for conservative political content on YouTube. We demonstrate that viewership of far-right videos peaked in 2017.

Make sure to read the full paper titled Right-Wing YouTube: A Supply and Demand Perspective by Kevin Munger and Joseph Phillips at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161220964767

YouTube is unique in its combination of leveraging Google’s powerful content discovery algorithms, i.e. recommending content to keep attention levels on its platform and offering a type of content that is arguably the most immersive and versatile: video. The resulting product is highly effective to distribute a narrative, which caused journalists and academics to categorize YouTube as an important tool for online radicalization. In particular right-wing commentators make use of YouTube to spread their political ideologies ranging from conservative views to far-right extremism. However, the researchers draft a firm argument that the ability to create and manage committed audiences around a political ideology who mutually create and reinforce their extreme views is not only highly contagious to impact less committed audiences but pure fuel to ignite online radicalization.

Radio replaced the written word. Television replaced the spoken word. And online audio-visual content will replace the necessity to observe and understand. YouTube offers an unlimited library across all genres, all topics, all public figures ranging from user-generated content to six-figure Hollywood productions. Its 24/7 availability, immersive setup by incentivising comments and creating videos, allows YouTube to draw in audiences on much stronger psychological triggers than its mostly text-based competitors Facebook, Twitter or Reddit. Moreover, YouTube transcends national borders. It enables political commentary from abroad ranging from American expats to foreigners to exiled politicians or expelled opposition. In particular the controversial presidency of Donald Trump triggered political commentators in Europe and elsewhere to comment (and influence) the political landscape, its voters and domestic policies in the United States. This is important to acknowledge because YouTube has more users in the United States than any other social network including Facebook and Instagram.

Monetizing The Right

YouTube has been proven valuable to “Alternative Influence Networks”. In essence, potent political commentators and small productions that collaborate in direct opposition of mass media, both with regard to reporting ethics and political ideology. Albeit relatively unknown to the general populous, they draw consistent, committed audiences and tend to base their content around conservative and right-wing political commentary. There is some evidence in psychological research that conservatives tend to respond more to emotional content than liberals.

As such, the supply side on YouTube is fueled by the easy and efficient means to create political content. Production costs of a video are usually the equipment. The required time to shoot a video on a social issue is exactly as long as the video. In comparison drafting a text-based political commentary on the same issue can take up several days. YouTube’s recommendation system in conjunction with tailored targeting of certain audiences and social classes enable right-wing commentators to reach like-minded individuals and build massive audiences. The monetization methods include

Ad revenue from display, overlay, and video ads (not including product placement or sponsored by videos)
Channel memberships
Merchandise
Highlighted messages in Super Chat & Super Stickers
Partial revenue of YouTube Premium service

While YouTube has expanded its policy enforcement of extremist content, conservative and right-wing creators have adapted to the fewer monetization methods on YouTube by increasingly relying on crowdfunded donations, product placement or sale of products through affiliate marketing or through their own distribution network. Perhaps the most convincing factor for right-wing commentators to flock to YouTube is, however, the ability to build a large audience from scratch without the need of legitimacy or credentials.

The demand side on YouTube is more difficult to determine. Following the active audience theory users would have made a deliberate choice to click on right-wing content, to search for it, and to continue to engage with it over time. The researchers of this paper demonstrate that it isn’t just that easy. Many social and economic factors drive middle class democrats to adopt more conservative and extreme views. For example economic decline of blue-collar employment, a broken educational system in conjunction with increasing social isolation and lack of future prospects contribute to susceptibility to extremists content leading up to radicalization. The researchers rightfully argue it is difficult to determine the particular drivers that made an individual seek and watch right-wing content on YouTube. Those who do watch or listen to a right-wing political commentator tend to seek for affirmation and validation with their fringe ideologies.

“the novel and disturbing fact of people consuming white nationalist video media was not caused by the supply of this media radicalizing an otherwise moderate audience, but merely reflects the novel ease of producing all forms of video media, the presence of audience demand for white nationalist media, and the decreased search costs due to the efficiency and accuracy of the political ecosystem in matching supply and demand.”

While I believe this paper deserves much more attention and a reader should discover its research questions in the process of studying this paper, I find it helpful to provide the author’s research questions here, in conjunction with my takeaways, to make it easier for readers to prioritize this study:

Research Question 1: What technological affordances make YouTube distinct from other social media platforms, and distinctly popular among the online right?

Answer 1: YouTube is a media company; media on YouTube is videos; YouTube is powered by recommendations.

Research Question 2: How have the supply of and demand for right-wing videos on YouTube changed over time?

Answer 2.1: YouTube viewership of the extreme right has been in decline since mid-2017, well before YouTube changed its algorithm to demote far-right content in January 2019.

Answer 2.2: The bulk of the growth in terms of both video production and viewership over the past two years has come from the entry of mainstream conservatives into the YouTube marketplace.

This paper offers insights into the supply side of right-wing content and gives a rationale why people tend to watch right-wing content. It contributes to understanding how right-wing content is spreading across YouTube. An active comment section indicates higher engagement rates which are unique to right-wing audiences. These interactions facilitate a communal experience between creator and audience. Increased policy enforcement effectively disrupted this communal experience. Nevertheless, the researchers found evidence that those who return to create or watch right-wing content are likely to engage intensely with the content as well. Future research may investigate the actual power of the recommendation algorithm on YouTube. While this paper focused on right-wing content, the opposing political spectrum including the extreme left are increasingly utilizing YouTube to proliferate their political commentary. Personally I am curious to better understand the influence of foreign audiences on domestic issues and how YouTube is diluting the local populous with foreign activist voices.

Trump’s Grand Strategy

Legacy matters these days. As President-elect Joe Biden is about to take office I thought it is worth my while to reflect on America’s leadership role in the world. How did Donald Trump fare with international relations? What happened to the immigration ban and withdrawal of U.S. military overseas? Is the world safer because of Trump’s ‘America First‘ rhetoric? This paper sheds light on the contrasting ideologies that governed U.S. foreign policy under Trump.

tl;dr

When a new President is elected in the United States, the first thing analysts do is define that President’s grand strategy; yet, naming Donald Trump’s grand strategy was a difficult task as his pre-election speeches often contradicted traditional US foreign policy norms. Trump’s ambiguous grand strategy combines two US foreign policy strategies: nationalism in the sense that his preference is for unilateral policies prioritising American interests, and a traditional foreign policy approach, as seen in the moves taken against China and Iran. Surprisingly, this grand strategy unintentionally contributes to cooperation in Eurasia, as actors like Russia, China, Turkey, India and the European Union continue to try to balance the threat from the United States instead of competing with each other, while smaller countries are reluctant to challenge the regional powers due to mistrust towards Trump.

Make sure to read the full paper titled Mixing Grand Strategies: Trump and International Security by Murat Ülgül at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03932729.2020.1786928

When Donald Trump assumed office as 45th President of the United States the world was facing a known unknown. A mercurial real-estate developer and reality show entertainer was suddenly in a position to reshape America’s international relations. Until then, Trump’s political record consisted of commentary on current affairs and one failed attempt to run for President in 2000. His business record was strained with few successful real estate developments in New York City and a number of unsuccessful business ventures in different industries.

Historically U.S. foreign policy is set by the President. Entire presidencies rested on a sophisticated strategy to secure American interests at home and abroad. Following WWII the United States adopted a foreign policy of primacy, which according to Patrick Porter branches into a grand strategy of

Military preponderance
Allied relationships
Proliferation of U.S. capitalism
Absolute control of nuclear (power) weapons

However Trump’s world views stand in stark contrast with that of previous administrations. His nationalistic rhetoric of ‘America First’ struck a chord in harmony with authoritarian dictatorships. It created concerns among democratic nations whether President Trump would continue to invest into alliances and build amicable relationships or if he would lead the United States into isolationism. His chaotic leadership style had many scholars speculate whether Trump would recognize the power imbalance between America’s allies and Russia or China. It raised questions whether Make America Great Again rhetoric meant a complete withdrawal from the international stage and mark a pivot point in America’s pursuit of primacy as its grand strategy.

“Grand strategy can be defined as a great power’s roadmap to realising its long-term objectives with its actual and/or potential resources”

In this paper, Murat Ülgül reframes the analysis of Trump’s grand strategy by focusing on the complementary elements of a nationalist traditionalism rather than its competing positions. Unlike other scholars have suggested, Trump’s grand strategy is not exclusive continuity of previous “business as usual”. Albeit divisive in rhetoric throughout his pre-election years and time in office, his grand strategy cannot be viewed as raw isolationism. Moreover Ülgül makes a case for a combination of nationalism and traditionalism. Nationalism can be observed in the character and image of Donald Trump himself. Traditionalism leaves its mark in Trump’s choices for his national security advisors, e.g. Michael Flynn, H. R. McMaster and John Bolton, which had gained significant influence over Trump throughout the course of his presidency. This unique but ambiguous combination appears to mitigate the negative effects of each individual strategy. Both are conflict-prone strategies yet the rate of international conflicts has steadily decreased during Trump’s tenure. America First has led the United States to a delayed or complete disengagement from international contests. All the while his administration is running a traditional, hawkish narrative that has led foreign powers known for the pursuit of authoritarian objectives to cooperate and resolve their disagreements with America’s allies against a potential fallout from the United States. In other words, the administration continues to influence global policy without military leverage or engagement. Nevertheless its impact is waning. As a result of this grand strategy, the United States has suffered some reputational damage for fewer countries retained faith into America’s ability to manage international relations or to be a beacon of democracy.

While this paper goes into more depth than I can summarize here, I found this idea of a mixed grand strategy not as new as the paper suggests. Prior to WWII, the United States practiced a calibrated offshore balancing. In 2016, Stephen Walt suggested a deliberate withdrawal from conflict areas in favor of an intentional engagement of strategic partners. Walt’s propositions imply an element of deliberation of U.S. foreign policy which never seemed to register with Trump, but it helps in finding Ülgül’s argument even more convincing. It further helps to see some positive from this oddball presidency as he disappears from the international (relations) stage.

A History Of Disinformation And Political Warfare

After political powerhouse Hillary Clinton lost in a spectacular fashion against underdog Donald J. Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, the world was flabbergasted to learn of foreign election interference orchestrated by the Russian Internet Research Agency. Its mission: to secretly divide the electorate and skew votes away from Clinton and towards Trump. In order to understand the present, one must know the past. This is the baseline of ‘Active Measures – The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare’ by Johns Hopkins Professor of Strategic Studies Thomas Rid.

I bought this book to study the methodology, strategy and tactics of disinformation and political warfare. To my surprise, the book only spends 11 pages on disinformation. The remaining 424 pages introduce historic examples of influence operations with the bulk of it dedicated to episodes of the cold war. Rid offers insights into the American approach to defend against a communist narrative in a politically divided Germany. He details Soviet influence operations to time-and-again smear American democracy and capitalism. The detail spent on the German Ministry of State Security known as “Stasi” is interesting and overwhelming.

While my personal expectation wasn’t met with this book, I learned about retracing historic events to attribute world events to specific nations. Its readability is designed for a mass audience fraught with thrilling stories. What is the role of journalistic publications in political warfare? Did Germany politically regress under American and Soviet active measures? Was the constructive vote of no confidence on German chancellor Willy Brandt a product of active measures? Who did really spread the information the AIDS virus was a failed American experiment? On the downside, this book doesn’t really offer any new details into the specifics of disinformation operations. Most contemporary espionage accounts have already been recorded. Defectors told their stories. This makes these stories sometimes bloated and redundant. Nevertheless, I believe to understand our current affairs, we must connect the dots through the lens of political history. Rid presents the foundations for future research into influence operations.

How COVID19 Will Impact The 2020 US Presidential Election

The way Americans choose their President is complicated. Foreign election interference in previous elections as well as a polarized, partisan political arena at home only made it more complicated to elect the leader of the free world. In the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the coronavirus pandemic completely upended how presidential campaigns rally supporters and how to run for public office at large. An underfunded and stripped of its human capital Postal Service is facing an unprecedented volume of mail-in ballots. This leaves me with the question: What is the impact of COVID on the race for the White House? How are both campaigns using it (or not) to drive their political pitch to capture voters? An answer might be a recent data memo by researchers from the University of Leeds – School of Politics and International Studies.

tl;dr

The impact of COVID on the upcoming November 2020 US election will be an important topic in the coming months. In order to contribute to these debates, this data memo, the final in our summer 2020 series on COVID, considers this question based on an analysis of social media discourse in two week-long periods in late May and early July. We find that only a very small proportion of tweets in election-related trends concern both the election and COVID. In the May period, there was much evidence of conspiracy-style and misinformative content, largely attacking the Democrats, the seriousness of COVID and postal-voting. Tweets also showed that the stances of the Presidential nominees towards the coronavirus has emerged as a major point of political differentiation. In the July period, tweets about COIVD and the election were dominated by the influence of a new anti-Trump Political Action Committee’s viral videos, with the hashtags associated with these videos found in 2.5% of all tweets in election-related trends across the period. However, this criticism was not mirrored in the wider dataset of election-related or political tweets in election-related trends. Criticism of Trump was frequent across all time periods and samples, but discourse focused far more on Trump especially in the July period in which tweets about Trump outnumbered tweets about Biden 2 to 1. We conclude that these patterns suggest the issue of COVID in the US has become so highly politicised that it is largely only one side of the political spectrum engaging with how COVID will impact the US election. Thus, we must ask going forward not how COVID will impact the process and outcome of the election but rather how COVID will be used as a political and campaign issue in the coming election.

Make sure to read the full data memo titled COVID’s Impact on the US 2020 Election: Insights from Social Media Discourse in the Early Campaign Period by Gillian Bolsover at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3714755

^{Chip Somodevilla (Getty Images) & Gerry Broome (AP Photo)}

We had a good run in the first three months of 2020. Then the COVID pandemic spread across the globe. Most industrial nations had to shut down their economies with rigorous lockdown and shelter-in-place policies paralyzing its citizens and economies alike. COVID also impacted the democratic processes of many developed nations. For example, New Zealand rescheduled their national election until late 2020. Elections for the Hong Kong city legislature were postponed until 2021. At least 88 elections were impacted in one way or another by COVID. This data memo focuses on the 2020 U.S. presidential elections, which will not only decide a highly polarized presidential campaign between incumbent President Donald Trump and his democratic challenger Joe Biden, but also elect the entire U.S. House of Representatives, a third of the U.S. Senate and decide numerous races for public office. It takes a snapshot from the campaign trail comparing social media data discussing the elections and COVID in conjunction with either candidate and it does demonstrate how the pandemic not only impacts the 2020 U.S. presidential elections but how COVID is used as a political weapon to advance campaign objectives.

For most people across the globe, Mid-March marks the beginning of indoor restrictions, facemasks, social distancing and the loss of minimal certainty that our socio-economic environments have to offer. It was a pivot-point for political operatives, who in past elections were able to rely on a candidate’s charisma at in-person political rallies. COVID forced both campaigns to adhere to public health guidelines. Republican and Democratic campaign events were either cancelled or moved indoors and online. Supporters and candidates alike were confined to choppy Zoom calls on small screens. Studies have shown that these national crises usually create an increase in favorability for an incumbent president, e.g. the popularity of George W. Bush spiked following the terrorist attacks on September 11. They also tend to benefit Republican or conservative leaders more in particular in conjunction with a patriotic narrative. This effect is known as the ‘Rally-Round-The-Flag’ effect. However, its impact is subject to media coverage and proliferation of the political narrative that is spun up by the incumbent’s campaign. And Trump as an experienced social media operative stood to benefit from the COVID pandemic: the U.S. economy was in good shape in Q1 2020, the tactical assassination of Qasem Soleimani did not start another war in the Middle East nor did the impeachment proceedings cause any apparent political damage to his reelection campaign. The administration’s track record could have been far worse. Despite these advantages, however, Trump’s often erratic behavior prompted social media platforms to more restrictively apply content policies to public figures and politicians. Twitter started labelling Trump’s tweets as misinformation or removed tweets for violating Twitter’s content policies.

^{Source: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265255835124539392}

The researchers focused on a snapshot of both campaigns by analyzing Twitter data in the months of May and July. To avoid limitations or cognitive biases, the researchers took sample data from all trending topics within the U.S. They found a small number of trends solely focusing on elections while a large number of trends concerned general politics. COVID and the election was found to be a significant topic of discussion. However, the researchers found little evidence for trends directly discussing correlations between COVID and the election. Few example cases demonstrated hyper-partisan, authoritarian labelling to divide an in-group from an out-group. For example, the unrestricted proliferation of baseless conspiracy claims against the Democratic party in conjunction with misinformation, as seen below:

^{Source: https://twitter.com/realjameswoods/status/1264686760509882376}

Other examples appeared to offer evidence but misunderstood it. Therefore shifting responsibilities away from the administration:

^{Source: https://twitter.com/BasedSavannah/status/1265021232392650753}

The majority of these hyper-partisan examples played out on the conservative end of the political spectrum. Democrats were found to capitalise on fewer opportunities to link administration failures to mitigate COVID with the election because Democrats treated finding a scalable policy solution as a serious health issue not to be trifled with. This imbalance between the two political campaigns created a further polarization of the issues: Democrats moving campaign activity online was used by Republicans as further ‘evidence’ for a conspiracy. Social media users reacted to this behavior by retracting support for both candidates. Anti-Biden content dropped as well while Trump remained at a consistent negative level. Trump, however, generated twice as much consistent traffic, which drove more voter attention to his campaign. Despite consistent criticism of the administration’s handling of the pandemic, the negative sentiment towards Trump did not create tangible support for Biden. And visibility can also be an indicator of success in the election. As the incumbent, Trump has the advantage over Biden. The researchers therefore conclude that a hyper-partisan narrative surrounding COVID and elections have been successful in using COVID as a political weapon to undermine the solutions-oriented approach driven by the Democratic party, which further entrenched both political camps at extreme ends making this election even more polarized. In summary, it can be argued that Republicans and Trump utilized COVID as a means for political gains. Democrats on the other side focused more on the issue of crisis management, which was spun by conservatives into a polarised partisan attack outside of scientific realities.

Essential Politics: Watch This Ahead Of The 2020 Election

I put together a list of my favorite political documentaries. The focus is on the upcoming election. It’s not a complete list, it never will be. It’s taking pulse ahead of the conclusion of a polarized campaign year. Maybe it will help you to unwind before you cast your vote (if you haven’t already)!

tl;dr

Make sure to vote on November 3rd. Also make sure to watch The Choice 2020 and Dark Money. Both documentaries offer clear, unfiltered insights into the minds of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Both documentaries are designed to critically reflect on the impact your vote has on the health of our democracy. Lastly, I recommend taking a look at The Circus too. It’s an entertaining yet jaw-dropping show about the inner workings of campaigns. It’s a reminder that as long as not everybody can afford to run for office, our democracy needs to improve.

Get Me Roger Stone (2017)

This 1 ½ hour long documentary film details the rise and fall of Republican political operative, former Nixon-aide, long-time friend of Donald Trump and convicted felon Roger Stone. The life of Roger Stone is marked by political victories without ever becoming successful in politics. A long-time political fixture in Republican politics, Roger Stone was never accepted by the Republican establishment. Stone is the central piece in this film showing his eccentric character in interviews about his journey from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. While the stories told are intriguing in nature, the film allocates too much credit to a marginalized political strategist, who merely deployed shock and awe techniques to stun his opposition without much long-term strategy at play.

Watch on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80114666

Dark Money (2018)

The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC was a landmark ruling to pave the way for political interest groups influencing U.S. elections. Dark Money is a 1 ½ hour long documentary film that follows John S. Adams of the Montana Free Press on his journey to investigate how corporate money is undermining American politics. It is a harrowing contemporary film that should rattle all Americans for it details the existential threat to local journalism in being the last check to properly balance corporate exploitation. This shocking story of intentional deceit of the American voters contributes to a larger debate the U.S. electorate must face about how their democracy is eroded when elections are bought and sold.

More infos: https://www.darkmoneyfilm.com

Knock Down The House (2019)

This 1 ½ hour long documentary film follows four female democratic candidates in their 2018 midterm election campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives. The candidates are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Amy Vilela (Nevada), Cori Bush (Missouri), Paula Jean Swearengin (West Virginia) each facing a long-term democratic incumbent in their respective campaigns that hasn’t been challenged in decades. The film is a gripping story about the absurdity of election campaigning in American politics. But more importantly, it tells the stories of four women, who not only face a long-term incumbent with years of political experience and a large donor base, but the challenge of overcoming the stigma that a woman can be a leader in an executive role. With the documentary following four candidates, I found too much screen time focusing on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has a polarizing nature but really is only one fourth of this larger, systemic issue. Nevertheless, this documentary is a must-see to get an understanding of the critical failures in diversity and equality that America has turned a blind on.

More infos: https://knockdownthehouse.com

Hillary (2020)

Across four episodes, this 4 ½ hour long documentary series about Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign is chronicling the roller coaster emotions of running a national campaign. It reveals an unseen personal side of Hillary Clinton by looking at milestones in her career and personal life that shaped her thinking as a woman, mother and politician. Archival footage is seamlessly interlaced with contemporary interviews. This documentary delivers a perfect balance of Hillary Clinton’s extraordinary intellectual breadth and impact on foreign and domestic political affairs while keeping it captivating and worth your while.

Watch on hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/hillary-793891ec-5bb7-4200-ba93-e3629532d670

The Circus: Inside The Craziest Campaign On Earth, Season 5 (2020)

I am not sure if The Circus needs any introduction. Running for five seasons with currently 84 individual episodes each 30 minutes and longer, this epic TV documentary series is a real-time political insider show you simply cannot miss out on. In season 5, the show begins in the aftermath of the impeachment trial against Donald Trump quickly transitioning to the first primary elections for the 2020 U.S. presidential elections in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Then COVID-19 hit the country. The restrictions and nationwide lockdown measures changed this election like it has never seen before in history. After episode 8 in March 2020, the show stops due to the lockdown measures only to resume “The New Abnormal” with episode 9 in August 2020. The long break changed everything yet it didn’t change the tension and excitement that is a run for the highest office in the land of the free. The hosts of the Circus John Heilemann, Mark McKinnon, and Alex Wagner are doing a stellar job in observing the candidates’ campaigns and asking the hard questions while reflecting on the bizarre experience it is to run for president during a pandemic.

Watch on Showtime: https://www.sho.com/the-circus-inside-the-greatest-political-show-on-earth/season/5

The Swamp (2020)

This 1 ½ hour long documentary film follows three Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz (Florida), Thomas Massie (Kentucky), and Ken Buck (Colorado) in their efforts to leave a mark on the American political landscape. It details the need for fundraising and donations that are at liberty of interest groups and lobbyists. It is another concerning picture of American politics chained to corporate interests. The documentary is hosted by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig, who founded “Rootstrikers” to reduce the corrosive influence of corporate money in the American democracy.

Watch on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-swamp

The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden (2020)

The name is the game of this 2 hour long documentary film by Frontline. Ahead of the most polarized elections in U.S. history, the film focuses on interviews with family, friends and foes of both candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It chronicles how both Biden and Trump handled themselves during times of crisis and how they responded to adversity. It’s about who these men are that are asking for your vote.

Watch on PBS: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2020-trump-vs-biden/

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Make sure to vote on November 3rd

2020-11-03T18:00:00

days

hours minutes seconds

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2020 U.S. Presidential Election

_{More infos here: https://www.usa.gov/voting}

How Political Bots Worsen Polarization

Do you always know who you are dealing with? Probably not. Do you always recognize when you are influenced? Unlikely. I found it hard to pick up on human signals without succumbing to my own predisposed biases. In other words maintaining “an open mindset” is easier said than done. A recent study found this to be true in particular for dealing with political bots.

tl;dr

Political bots are social media algorithms that impersonate political actors and interact with other users, aiming to influence public opinion. This research investigates the ability to differentiate bots with partisan personas from humans on Twitter. This online experiment (N = 656) explores how various characteristics of the participants and of the stimulus profiles bias recognition accuracy. The analysis reveals asymmetrical partisan-motivated reasoning, in that conservative profiles appear to be more confusing and Republican participants perform less well in the recognition task. Moreover, Republican users are more likely to confuse conservative bots with humans, whereas Democratic users are more likely to confuse conservative human users with bots. The research discusses implications for how partisan identities affect motivated reasoning and how political bots exacerbate political polarization.

Make sure to read the full paper titled Asymmetrical Perceptions of Partisan Political Bots by Harry Yaojun Yan, Kai-Cheng Yang, Filippo Menczer, James Shanahan at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444820942744

The modern democratic process is technological information warfare. Voters need to be enticed to engage with information about a candidate and election campaigns need to ensure accurate information is presented to build and expand an audience, or a voter base. Assurances for the integrity of information do not exist. And campaigns are incentivised to undercut the opponent’s narrative while amplifying its own candidates message. Advertisements are a potent weapon in any election campaign. Ad spending on social media for the 2020 U.S. presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is already at a high with a projected, total bill of $10.8 billion driven by both campaigns. Grassroots campaigns are another potent weapon to decentralize a campaign, mobilize local leaders and impact a particular (untapped) electorate. While the impact of the coronoavirus on grassroots efficacy is yet to be determined, these campaigns are critical to solicit game-changing votes.

Which brings me to the central theme of this post and the paper: bots. When ad dollars or a human movement are out of reach bots are the cheap, fast and impactful alternative. Bots are algorithms to produce a programmed result automatically or human induced with the objective to copy and create the impression of human behavior. We have all seen or interacted with bots on social media after reaching out to customer service. We have all heard or received messages from bots trying to set us up with “the chance of a lifetime”. But do we always know when we’re interacting with bots? Are there ways of telling an algorithm apart from a human?

Researchers from Indiana University of Bloomington took on these important questions in their paper titled Asymmetrical Perceptions of Partisan Political Bots. It explains the psychological factors that impact our perception and decisioning when interacting with partisan political bots on social media. Political bots are used to impersonate political actors and interact with other users in an effort to influence public opinion. Bots have been known to facilitate the spread of spam mail and fake news. They have been used and abused to amplify conspiracy theories. Usage leads to improvement. In conjunction with enhanced algorithms and coding this poses three problems:

(1) social media users become vulnerable to misreading a bot’s actions as human.
(2) A partisan message, campaign success or sensitive information can be scaled up through networking effects and coordination of automation. A certainly frightening example would be the use of bots to declare to have won the election while voters are still casting their ballot. And
(3) political bots are by virtue partisan. A highly polarized media landscape, offers fertile ground for political bots to exploit biases and overcome political misconceptions. That means becoming vulnerable isn’t really necessary; a mere exposure to a partisan political bot can lay the groundwork for later manipulation or influence of opinion.

Examples of low-ambiguity liberal (left), low-ambiguity conservative (right) profiles used as stimuli. Identifiable information is blurred.

The research is focused on whether certain individuals or groups are easier to be influenced by partisan political bots than others. This recognition task depends on how skillful certain individuals or groups can detect a partisan narrative, recognize their own partisan bias and either navigate through motivated reasoning or drown in it. Motivated reasoning can be seen as in-group favoritism and out-group hostility, i.e. conservatives favor Republicans and displease democrats. Contemporary detection methods include (1) network-based, i.e. bots are presumed to be inter-connected – detecting one exposes connections to other bots. (2) Crowdsourcing, i.e. engaging experts in the manual detection of bots. And (3) feature-based, i.e. a supervised machine-learning classifier is trained with categorization statistics of political accounts and is constantly matching against inauthentic metrics. These methods can be combined to increase detection rates. At this interesting point in history, it is an arms race between writing code for better bots against building systems to better identify novel algorithms at scale. This arms race, however, is severely detrimental for democratic processes as they are potent enough to deter or at least undermine confidence of participants at the opposing end of the political spectrum.

Examples high-ambiguity liberal (left), and high-ambiguity conservative (right) profiles used as stimuli. Identifiable information is blurred.

The researchers found that knowingly interacting with partisan political bots only magnifies polarization eroding trust in the opposing party’s intentions. However, a regular user will presumably struggle to discern a political bot from a politically motivated (real) user. It leaves the potential voter base vulnerable to automated manipulation. To overcome this manipulation, the researchers focused on identifying the factors that make up the human perception when it comes to ambiguity between real user and political bot as well as recognition of the coded partisanship of the bot. Active users of social media were more likely to establish a mutual following with a political bot. These users happened to be more conservative while the political bots they chose to interact were likely conservative too. Time played a role insofar as active users who took more time to investigate and understand the political bot, which they only saw as a regular-looking, partisan social media account, were less likely to accurately discern real user from political bot. In their results, this demonstrated (1) a higher chance for conservative users to be deceived by conservative political bots and (2) a higher chance for liberal users to misidentify conservative (real) users for political bots. The researchers conclude that

users have a moderate capability to identify political bots, but such a capability is also limited due to cognitive biases. In particular, bots with explicit political personas activate the partisan bias of users. ML algorithms to detect social bots provide one of the main countermeasures to malicious manipulation of social media. While adopting third-party bot detection methods is still advisable, our findings also suggest possible bias in human-annotated data used for training these ML models. This also calls for careful consideration of algorithmic bias in future development of artificial intelligence tools for political bot detection.

I have been intrigued with these findings. Humans tend to struggle to establish trust online. It’s surprising and concerning that conservative bots may be perceived as conservative humans by Republicans and conservative humans may be perceived as bots by Democrats. The potential to sow distrust to polarize public opinion is nearly limitless for a motivated interest group. While policymakers and technology companies are beginning to address these issues with targeted legislation, it will take a concerted multi-stakeholder approach to mitigated and reverse polarization spread by political bots.

The Influence of Technology on Presidential Primary Campaigns

Without social media, there would not be a President Trump. We all felt the Bern in 2016. And let’s not forget “pizzagate” or “Yes we can”. The power of technology has undeniably impacted elections for political office, but how does it influence voters’ decisions on election day? Is social media the lone culprit undermining the integrity of our democracy or does history offer insights of sobering nature? These and other questions are subject to analysis by Anthony J. Gaughan with Drake University. Here’s a rundown of his paper “The Influence of Technology on Presidential Primary Campaigns”

The paper examines technological innovations impacting Presidential primary campaigns. Supreme Court decisions Buckley v. Valeo or Citizens United v. FEC appear to have paved the regulatory playing field towards unrestricted campaign spending. Contrary to popular belief, Presidential primary campaigns are not skewed to the wealthiest of candidates. They simply favor the Presidential candidate who is most savvy of current technology to leverage his audience for the benefit of the campaign.

Gaughan starts his analysis as early as 1912 when Presidential primary campaigns relied on the rail network to expose the candidate to crucial constituents. The radio would bring about change by offering a low cost, easy and broad access medium available to the general public. It would demonstrate that a candidate with an ability to make his audience feel they know him like nobody else could overcome other limitations of his persona. By the early 1950s, television would enter the scene to influence voters. The Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy overcame incredible odds of winning the Protestant state of West Virginia despite being of Catholic belief by leveraging TV ads displaying himself as a handsome, professional leader who “would not take orders from any Pope, Cardinal, Bishop or Priest”. Television gave rise to Roger Ailes and others who would reshape the appearance of political candidates for public office. Most notable in the 1968 Presidential primary campaign of Richard Nixon. Nixon’s “funny-looking” appearance would be carefully marketed by only distributing selected shots, accompanied by strong sound tracks and professional flattery – in the process beating Nelson Rockefeller and former president Ronald Regan.

Gaughan concludes his analysis with the emergence of the internet. Senator Barack Obama managed to outfox Senator Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Presidential primary campaign by leveraging social media that allowed his campaign to build a volunteer network that utilized data analytics to identify potential voters and could eventually outperform the Clinton campaign in the majority of voting metrics. The internet also offered a platform to establish direct communication with his constituents. Obama’s success, however, inspired a real-estate business man and reality TV-celebrity from the other end of the political spectrum. It gave rise to Donald J. Trump. Trump took the Regan playbook of celebrity fame gone politics and merged it with 21st century innovations. On Twitter and Facebook, the Trump campaign selectively spent ads in crucial swing states to gain political momentum with polarizing memes and divisive content. His existing television fame helped with national recognition, but the free coverage generated through the power of social networks put him over the edge to beat established Republican candidates, front and center of the voter.

The paper concludes that the 2016 Presidential primary campaign was a harbinger of things to come. It is not far-fetched to reason that internet communication will continue to boost political speech across new platforms like TikTok or through new mediums such as virtual or augmented realities. Political candidates entering a primary race can leverage these tools by hiring campaign staff who are native in social media communications, possess the ability to detect the pulse of not only millennial and adolescent voters but the party’s voter base beyond retirement age and everybody in between. New tools to analyze, scale and engage audiences that most platforms offer as part of the advertisement deal have the power to enable political novices to make a bid for office. From a regulatory point of view, legislators must revisit campaign spending to level the playing field for networking effects that come with social media. In the interest of the voter, fair and democratic elections, it might be advised to not focus future legislation on campaign spending in the sense of financial assets but the actual reach of audience including the means to facilitate the reach.