Tag: AstroTurf

Read more predictions about the Future of Fact. It’s hard to imagine today’s major social media companies like Facebook and Twitter continuing their roles as our digital linchpins. Computational propaganda will be the fake news of the future. Computational propaganda is the attempt to manipulate public opinion through automation and algorithmic systems. During the recent Mexican election, for instance, political bots in the form of automated fake profiles were used to impair communication between activists. It seems that every week Twitter, Google, or Facebook are implicated in a new propaganda scandal. They will effectively be publicly regulated, if not by governments then by public opinion. Companies’ PR campaigns about what they are doing to address disinformation will continue to grow, and they will become more transparent about the groups working to manipulate their platforms and the algorithms that allow for said manipulation. Some groups are already working on ideas. In order for this to happen, however, they themselves must not get sucked into the vacuum of conspiracy and confusion.