Since the Second World War ended Russia (or the Soviet Union) and the U.S.A have had a tense relationship. Both countries feel the urge to be the most powerful country and take a Hegemony position. Thus it is no surprise that both countries constantly interfere in national politics outside of their territory. However, accusations and evidence have recently mainly been coming from the U.S. and been pointed towards Russia. In this blog post, only the Russian influence on the U.S. will be examined but it still has to be mentioned that the U.S. is also not innocent in this matter. Before looking at the current structure and methods of election of Russian manipulation lets go back in time.
One of the first publicly known election influences occurred in 1968. Back then the Soviet Union was in disagreement of Richard Nixon and tried to back the opposing candidate from the Democratic Party Hubert Humphrey. The Ambassador of the Soviet Union approached Hubert Humphrey and offered to fund his campaign, however, the attempt failed as Humphrey declined. A couple of years later Ronald Reagan took over the office. His policies displeased the Soviet Union, which thus decided to run an open campaign of fear against him. The Soviet theme in 1984 was “Reagan means war”. However, Reagan won the election. The Soviet influence has thus not been very successful in the past, but how does it look like today?
During the 2016 election, the Russian government was reportedly in favor of Donald Trump to win. However, the extent to which the Kremlin has influenced the elections is still not quite clear as recent findings show. Russian hackers are said to have breached DNC servers and leaked private Clinton emails through Wikileaks. This was one of the major unfavorable moments during the campaign for Clinton but that’s not all. Several news sources have recently stated that Google found ad’s relating to spreads of fake news during the campaign place by people in Russia with close ties to the Kremlin. The Ad campaigns were not very big, and mostly only constituted of several thousand euros in order not to be conspicuous.
Furthermore, Facebook has reported similar claims. The Russian government is believed to have spent 100.000 US$ on targeted Facebook ads. Besides Facebook was forced to hand over data of 470 “Russian-linked accounts” to the American Congress. This campaign is believed to have reached around 10 million people in the States. The number is already a bit worrying, however, it gets even worse. A CNN report claimed that the Ad’s and profiles were targeting specific areas in the U.S. such as Michigan and Wisconsin. When considering that Trump got only less than 25 thousand votes more than Clinton in these states one should ask himself how the elections would have turned out otherwise.
This post does not want to infer anything, but rather point out that the extent of Russian influence on the 2016 elections is still not fully known nearly 1 year after the election. Information systems are not only enabling people to access more information, they also serve as a source of manipulation.
Sources used:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/technology/google-russian-ads.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41561882
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/us/politics/russia-facebook-twitter-election.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/technology/twitter-russia-election.html
Hi Jesco,
It’s a very interesting subject. I think a lot of people wonder how much influence Russia had in the elections. I’m also wondering if there were any other countries that might have been involved. Yesterday I learned through a Dutch news agency (https://www.nu.nl/internet/4962110/russen-gebruikten-pokemon-go-bij-poging-beinvloeding-amerikanen.html) that the Russians also used Pokemon Go in order to influence people. Through a promotion they tried to spark more racial tensions. I guess we will never find out how media are being used by opposing countries in order to influence local politics.
If anyone wants to read a bit more about fake news and fake social media campaigns. Bellingcat.com has some very good articles.
Hi Jesco,
Very interesting article on the way Russia tried to influence the American election. I like your example of a similar attempt at manipulation in 1968, because of how clearly it shows that influencing elections by using the internet has become much easier than it was previously in 1968, how it can be even done without explicitly contact the party you’re trying to help and how there seems to be a lack of transparency in advertising.
I think this also relates to the article discussed in the second lecture on the long tail. Because of an increase in the variety of news sources, people are able to tailor their news and advertisers are able to specifically target people with certain ads. Different types of voters can be given different ads and it is much easier to effectively target voters and influence elections this way.
All in all I think the change in technology has led to Russia being able to run ads in the U.S., where this previously would not have been possible like you said, but it has also led to this being able to done very effectively, actually tailoring ads to certain types of voters. I wonder if and how this can be prevented in the future, if there is possibly a lack of regulation on this topic and how to actually regulate such ads.
Hi Jesco,
Thank you for the insightful post. Interesting to see how the influence of Russia in the U.S. has developed over the years. Especially these days it’s interesting to see, since it’s so closely linked to big tech companies. This article also focuses on the role Facebook has played in the past election, and is an interesting read I think based on your post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/facebooks-role-in-trumps-win-is-clear-no-matter-what-mark-zuckerberg-says/2017/09/07/b5006c1c-93c7-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html?utm_term=.158b15497aa0
Zuckerberg said that he thinks it’s a crazy idea that fake news on Facebook would have influenced the elections. But shouldn’t he, instead of trivializing the impact of fake news, ensure that this fake news is constrained to a minimum? Since Facebook is a news source for many people, there is a lot to say for the opinion that they should take their editorial role serious. What is your take on this, do you think they should monitor the spread of this news better? With the popularity of the medium, I think this could make a big difference.
Hey Jesco,
I really enjoyed reading your blog post! In our modern world the influence one can have through targeted social media campaigns or hacks does seem scary sometimes – even more so, when it might affect your own life.
While reading your post I was wondering, whether you have heard anything about the effect Russian propaganda had on recent European elections? Most of the articles I found stated that there was no external influence on the German elections, at least not to the expected degree. There was no data from previous hacks leaked, but only a few more or less biased news reports. (http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/bundestagswahl-und-manipulationen-der-erste-wahlkampf-einer-neuen-zeit-a-1169751.html)
Please let me know, if you came across anything that elaborates a bit more on election manipulation during the German, Austrian, or any other recent European election!
Best of luck for tomorrow’s exam!