Imagine browsing on Facebook, and every 10 posts you receive an ad telling you how bad Biden really is. You start with a video talking about his age and memory, auto-play will then show you a video talking about him laundering money and an hour later you are watching videos incriminating him of sexual harassment. Could this influence your vote during the next election? Most likely, it can (Bovet, 2019).
Social media platforms have gathered a lot of data about their users, this data provides these platforms and advertisers with a lot of power (Scott, 2018). Ad companies can use data to detect how they can manipulate you into voting for them. They can use for example your emotions to select the perfect ad for you which can trigger your emotions, and thus potentially make you vote for them (Scott, 2018). One of the scandals during the last election was with the company Cambridge Analytica, a company which retrieved data of over 50 million Facebook users (Lomas, 2020). This company not only claimed to have made Trump win in 2016, they also report using personal data and psychological reports to influence media in over 65 countries (Lomas, 2020).
Social media election manipulation is not only done by the American politicians, there can also be influences from other countries, for example with the Cambridge Analytica scandal with the Russian influence on the 2016 elections (Lomas, 2020). Despite the reports from Facebook that they are attempting to exclude external and fake political news from their platform, journalists have shown that it is still easy to utilize fake news to manipulate voters in other countries (Martins, 2019)
With over 70% of the Americans using Facebook, the company can reach the majority of the American people, and Facebook can control everything they see. Decisions on what users see – or cannot see – are not just made by ad companies, a major part of these decisions are also made by Facebook (Rhodes, 2020). If wanted, social media companies could also utilize this functionality to push their opinions onto their users, for example by only showing them videos which are positive about their preferred candidate.
Social media can be used to manipulate elections in many ways, the rise of data will potentially allow for even more direct types of manipulation. Who will be deciding this election? Nobody knows. But will people attempt to manipulate voters? Definitely.
Bovet, A., & Makse, H. A. (2019). Influence of fake news in Twitter during the 2016 US presidential election. Nature communications, 10(1), 1-14.
https://time.com/5197255/facebook-cambridge-analytica-donald-trump-ads-data/
Scott, B. (2018). Facebook’s New Controversy Shows How Easily Online Political Ads Can Manipulate You. [online] Time. Available at: https://time.com/5197255/facebook-cambridge-analytica-donald-trump-ads-data/.
Rhodes , L (Producer). (2020). The Social Dilemma [Netflix documentary]. Retrieved from https://www.netflix.com/
Lomas, N. (2020). Facebook data misuse and voter manipulation back in the frame with latest Cambridge Analytica leaks. [online] TechCrunch. Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/06/facebook-data-misuse-and-voter-manipulation-back-in-the-frame-with-latest-cambridge-analytica-leaks/.
Martins, F. (2019). Facebook lies to Dutch Parliament about election manipulation. [online] Available at: https://www.bitsoffreedom.nl/2019/05/21/facebook-lies-to-dutch-parliament-about-election-manipulation/ [Accessed 24 Sep. 2020].
Image: https://lectrr.be/en/cartoon/2018_03_19_Verkiezingsmanipulatie_Manipulation_electorale_Election_manipulation
Dear Jeroen,
I think you found a very polarizing topic to talk about. I enjoyed the insights you gave into the manipulations happening in social media.
I would have loved had you gone a bit more into detail about facebooks policies and what they say is their responsibility. Overall it is a polarizing topic, sparking many conversations about the ethics and responsibilities of social media platforms. Zuckerberg is defending facebooks lack of action against many fake news saying they support freedom of speech. Highly controversial and in my eyes a very simplified answer of why facebook is taking such little action.
Thanks for this interesting post!
A very important topic is addressed here. We live in a world where everything revolves around data and nothing can be fully controlled anymore. Voting has always been truly about the president program and the preference of the particular citizen. But crazy how now we can be manipulated by anyone (people from your own country or not) and you could be fed with fake news and make you vote for someone you wouldn’t have in the beginning. This is dangerous as not everyone is aware of the high number of fake news and how easily it is to be influenced by them. Awareness should be spread about that and methods to detect fake news should also be advertised by big social media like facebook.
Great and concise explanation of how companies like Cambridge Analytica are influencing our perception of the truth, and how that will impact the choices we make. This is of course, not limited to our political choices, but it surely is one of the scariest ways in which we are being influenced. The whole idea of democracy and the freedom we associate with it are at risk.
Your question: Who will be deciding this election? And the fact that we do not know, surely is something to worry about. Even scarier might be the fact that there is a chance that the person in power will not leave the office even if the election is decided against him.