This article is deep in “no shit” territory - we’ve seen lots of chatter about online interference since Trump’s first election. The part that’s interesting is the call to action
Digital platforms provide unreliable or narrow data on inauthentic behaviour, and they’re not currently required to share any public-interest data with Canadian policy-makers or civil society; combatting online astroturfing will require both increased transparency and platform accountability. Canada should require that these platforms share data with researchers so that the public can understand the prevalence of information threats, and so that policy-makers and civil society can effectively advocate for better digital regulation and platform design.
And the effect of small numbers of users:
We’ve found evidence that very small groups of users are having an outsized impact in online discussions about Canadian elections. In the 2023 Alberta election, just 200 users published 12 per cent of all tweets sent to candidates and political parties. In both the Alberta election and the Toronto mayoral by-election that same year, 50 or fewer users generated over 10 per cent of all abusive content we monitored. These highly active power users (or power abusers) could include high proportions of astroturfers. Regardless of their intentions, granting outsized influence to any very small group of users skews our perceptions of public opinion.
Regardless of their intentions, granting outsized influence to any very small group of users skews our perceptions of public opinion.
As we know, anyone whose opinion about it is featured in the Globe and Mail has just the right amount of influence.
There is of course “astroturfing” on lemmy as well. But in such a human-scale social media environment it’s harder for it to hide, easier for it to be seen for what it is. Many parts of the larger fediverse are slowly developing a culture of just blocking the accounts which appear to be there only to troll, mislead, discourage, and argue in bad faith. Instances that host too many of them get blocked themselves. There is no secret algorithm magically boosting outrage fuel to drive engagement. There is no censorship or manipulation of the discussion motivated by the interests of advertisers. There is no financial motive to tolerate everything that doesn’t conflict with those interests. There is no way to buy the power to control the users.
With Bill C-63 Canada had the opportunity to enact an enormous bureaucracy with the power to disrupt our network, impose on it laws designed with the interests of giant corporate behemoths in mind, impose non-solutions to problems we don’t have, create regulatory barriers to entry that protect the corporate social media platform mafia, and follow other countries down a blind alley we’ve been steered into by “big tech” lobbyists. It’s a good thing it didn’t pass, and I hope they don’t try to revive it in anything like its previous form.
If the government of Canada wishes to begin fostering a healthier digital media landscape, let it first join the Fediverse. That will be a sign that there is some hope of it having the ability to make good decisions in this domain.
Who can even tell anymore? As a long time lurker of various piracy threads on various platforms, I consider every post about “resistance” to be false flag operation. Nice try, FBI ! To be sure, there is much to be outraged about, but dis- and mis-information abounds.
I get that vibe whenever I browse r/all on Reddit. It seems like dueling astroturf attempts.
