Jesco Colsman

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Donald Trump has made the term “Fake News” one of the most discussed topics during the 2016 presidential campaign. At the time most people just saw it as a weapon in the fight against journalists and media. Personally, I do not agree with most of Trumps political views, nor do I like him. However, in lights of recent events fake news is something we should not write-off as political humbug.

The latest moment of horror – the shooting in Las Vegas – was again subject to several spreads of fake news. Reports that there have been several shooters or a wrong name of the shooter have made the rounds. Other reports on Facebook and Google claimed that the shooter was a Democrat and did this as an act of opposition against Trump. But do we know where this inflow of wrong information comes from?

In some cases like this one we do, however in most cases it is not exactly clear. 4Chan, a site on which everyone can anonymously post threads or articles, was the source of confusion in this occasion. According to some sources the post on 4Chan has received the legitimacy to make the rounds from Google. The article including the wrong name of the shooter has mistakenly been admitted to Google’s news page. This mistake should not have happened in today’s age of information technology, however is not the only problem.

We live in a time, in which social media channels have shaped most people to share, report and thus spread topics through a couple of clicks. Especially in the wake of a terror incident people tend to react quickly. But before Retweeting or pressing “share” on Facebook we should ask ourselves whether that is a good idea. One of the reasons for this is obviously to reduce the number of wrong reports in such incidents. However, it’s not the only argument for it. By for spreading news such as the involvement of a terrorist group in such an incident only glorifies the terrorists and spreads nothing but fear. Furthermore, we live in a time of sensationalist reporting. Everything that happens has to be turned into an enormous story or headline.

Personally, I am not a big fan of sensationalists reporting and would like to go back to an era where journalists were rewarded for honest and objective articles. So next time when you feel the urge to share a sensational headline think about it. Social Media is an enabler for spreading – whatever information it is. So at least take your time, evaluate the source and think about sharing this is really necessary.

Sources:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/0/fake-news-origins-grew-2016/

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3y94z/the-vegas-shooting-generated-boatloads-of-fake-news

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/02/las-vegas-shooting-facebook-google-fake-news-shooter

https://www.wired.com/2017/05/think-tweet-wake-attack/

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/google-admits-citing-4chan-to-spread-fake-vegas-shooter-news/

https://lifehacker.com/suspicious-of-fake-news-on-facebook-use-the-new-contex-1819217472

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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:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/11/opinions/the-making-of-a-russian-disinformation-campaign-opinion-weiss/index.html

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

https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21711908-interference-behalf-donald-trump-probably-didnt-change-result-russian

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/13/the-long-history-of-the-u-s-interfering-with-elections-elsewhere/?utm_term=.098b1e2c0047

http://www.politifact.com/north-carolina/statements/2017/jun/20/richard-burr/heres-every-time-russian-or-soviet-spies-tried-int/