We must understand Russia’s manipulative attack during last year’s presidential elections in a broader context: as a relatively traditional propaganda operation that achieved unprecedented reach because social media companies are either unable or choose not to defend themselves.
Every time our society falls victim to an information attack, we blame the attacker, but not their weapons. It’s hard to accept that the platforms we use to chat with friends and share baby photos can have such a powerful impact in shaping democracy. Platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have fundamental flaws that must be fixed if we’re going to protect ourselves in the future.
At its peak in 2013, ISIS mobilized tens of thousands of social media accounts to spread their message and radicalize Americans. They created horrific but compelling content, and used their social bot armies to force that content into the mainstream. They were manipulating the underlying mechanics of social media, tricking platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube into amplifying their message to the widest possible audience.
These information attacks continue because manipulating these platforms is cheap and easy. Media platforms like Google, Twitter, and Facebook rely on trust. If enough people trust that a piece of information is valuable, it is promoted to more users. It doesn’t matter where the information was published, who authored it, or what it contains.
At one time, this kind of democratic sharing of ideas was the great promise of the internet, where information flowed freely, unconstrained by traditional gatekeepers like government or media companies.
However the internet is not a democracy. Information is controlled by a cartel of media companies, who are not motivated to help their users share information, but rather to profit off of their attention. Google, Facebook, and Twitter know that their businesses profit by deeply understanding their users, and the type of content that captures each individual user’s attention.
Their algorithms learn what information attracts attention, then in turn promote that content to exactly the users who are most likely to consume and share it, which in turn gives that content more attention, and generates more profit. As a society, we communicate with each other using products that aren’t designed to help us communicate — they’re designed to keep us watching.
The flaws in this system are baked into its design. These flaws have been repeatedly exploited, and we’re still vulnerable. We’re vulnerable to content that grabs our attention, regardless of its veracity or substance. We’re vulnerable to targeting systems that understand our preferences, our beliefs, and our politics, and can show attention-grabbing, influential content to exactly the people most likely to be manipulated by it. And we’re vulnerable to automation — fake accounts that invent, share, and amplify information to fool tech company algorithms into believing information will be valuable in capturing their users’ attention.
Addressing these complex problems will require significant investment from tech companies, who need to rethink how information is shared and promoted on their platforms. They need new models for promoting content that assess the quality, not just quantity, of user engagement.
In the short term, they need to follow through on promises to flag false or misleading information, and commit to labeling automated accounts so users can distinguish between what real humans believe, and what bots want us to believe.
Most importantly, tech companies need to accept that they don’t operate in a vacuum — Facebook and Google have revolutionized how we communicate as a society. These platforms are where Americans engage in public discourse, and are therefore fundamental to our modern democracy. Every tech worker and executive has an ethical responsibility to protect our democratic ideals.
It’s also time for a sober conversation about government regulation. As a society, we need to decide whether a small number of giant tech companies should be restricted in mining the data they collect about every aspect of lives. We need to decide if we trust these companies to control the information we consume, even when that gives them the control to shape our elections.
Together, the tech industry and government need to deal with the structural problems in our media platforms. Otherwise we can expect to be victims again.
