i Computational Propaganda ii Oxford Studies in Digital Politics Series Editor: Andrew Chadwick, Professor of Political Communication in the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture and the Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University Using Technology, Building Democracy: Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Digital Campaigning and the Construction of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Citizenship Barack Obama Jessica Baldwin-Philippi Daniel Kreiss Expect Us: Online Communities and Political Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era: The Mobilization Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong Jessica L. Beyer Francis L.F. Lee and Joseph M. Chan If . Then: Algorithmic Power and Politics Bits and Atoms: Information and Communication Taina Bucher Technology in Areas of Limited Statehood Steven Livingston and Gregor Walter- Drop The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Andrew Chadwick Opportunity Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, and The Only Constant Is Change: Technology, William W. Franko Political Communication, and Innovation Over Time Revolution Stalled: The Political Limits of the Ben Epstein Internet in the Post- Soviet Sphere Sarah Oates Tweeting to Power: The Social Media Revolution in American Politics Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Jason Gainous and Kevin M. Wagner Digital Age Taylor Owen Risk and Hyperconnectivity: Media and Memories of Neoliberalism Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics Andrew Hoskins and John Tulloch Zizi Papacharissi Democracy’s Fourth Wave?: Digital Media The Citizen Marketer: Promoting Political Opinion and the Arab Spring in the Social Media Age Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain Joel Penney The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and China’s Digital Nationalism Democracy: Information Technology Florian Schneider and Political Islam Philip N. Howard Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age Jennifer Stromer- Galley Analytic Activism: Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy News on the Internet: Information and Citizenship David Karpf in the 21st Century David Tewksbury and Jason Rittenberg The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political The Civic Organization and the Digital Citizen: Advocacy Communicating Engagement in a Networked Age David Karpf Chris Wells Prototype Politics: Technology- Intensive Networked Publics and Digital Contention: The Campaigning and the Data of Democracy Politics of Everyday Life in Tunisia Daniel Kreiss Mohamed Zayani iii Computational Propaganda POLITICAL PARTIES, POLITICIANS, AND POLITICAL MANIPULATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA EDITED BY SAMUEL C. WOOLLEY AND PHILIP N. HOWARD 1 iv 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Samuel C. Woolley and Philip N. Howard 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978– 0– 19– 093141– 4 (pbk.) ISBN 978–0–19–093140–7 (hbk.) 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America v Contents Part I THEORETICAL INTRODUCTION AND ANALYTICAL FRAME Introduction: Computational Propaganda Worldwide 3 SAMUEL C. WOOLLEY AND PHILIP N. HOWARD Part II COUNTRY- SPECIFIC CASE STUDIES 1. Russia: The Origins of Digital Misinformation 21 SERGEY SANOVICH 2. Ukraine: External Threats and Internal Challenges 41 MARIIA ZHDANOVA AND DARIYA ORLOVA 3. Canada: Building Bot Typologies 64 ELIZABETH DUBOIS AND FENWICK MCKELVEY 4. Poland: Unpacking the Ecosystem of Social Media Manipulation 86 ROBERT GORWA 5. Taiwan: Digital Democracy Meets Automated Autocracy 104 NICHOLAS J. MONACO 6. Brazil: Political Bot Intervention During Pivotal Events 128 DAN ARNAUDO vi vi Contents 7. Germany: A Cautionary Tale 153 LISA- MARIA N. NEUDERT 8. United States: Manufacturing Consensus Online 185 SAMUEL C. WOOLLEY AND DOUGLAS GUILBEAULT 9. China: An Alternative Model of a Widespread Practice 212 GILLIAN BOLSOVER Part III CONCLUSIONS Conclusion: Political Parties, Politicians, and Computational Propaganda 241 SAMUEL C. WOOLLEY AND PHILIP N. HOWARD Author Bios 249 Index 253 vii Computational Propaganda viii 1 Part I THEORETICAL INTRODUCTION AND ANALYTICAL FRAME 2 3 Introduction Computational Propaganda Worldwide SAMUEL C. WOOLLEY AND PHILIP N. HOWARD What Is Computational Propaganda? Digital technologies hold great promise for democracy. Social media tools and the wider resources of the Internet offer tremendous access to data, knowledge, social networks, and collective engagement opportunities, and can help us to build better democracies (Howard, 2015; Margetts et al., 2015). Unwelcome obstacles are, however, disrupting the creative democratic applications of in- formation technologies (Woolley, 2016; Gallacher et al., 2017; Vosoughi, Roy, & Aral, 2018). Massive social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are struggling to come to grips with the ways their creations can be used for polit- ical control. Social media algorithms may be creating echo chambers in which public conversations get polluted and polarized. Surveillance capabilities are outstripping civil protections. Political “bots” (software agents used to generate simple messages and “conversations” on social media) are masquerading as gen- uine grassroots movements to manipulate public opinion. Online hate speech is gaining currency. Malicious actors and digital marketers run junk news factories that disseminate misinformation to harm opponents or earn click- through ad- vertising revenue. It is no exaggeration to say that coordinated efforts are even now working to seed chaos in many political systems worldwide. Some militaries and intelli- gence agencies are making use of social media as conduits to undermine demo- cratic processes and bring down democratic institutions altogether (Bradshaw & Howard, 2017). Most democratic governments are preparing their legal and regulatory responses. But unintended consequences from over- regulation, or 3 4 4 THEORETICAL INTRODUCTION AND ANALYTICAL FRAME regulation uninformed by systematic research, may be as damaging to demo- cratic systems as the threats themselves. We live in a time of extraordinary political upheaval and change, with political movements and parties rising and declining rapidly (Kreiss, 2016; Anstead, 2017). In this fluctuating political environment, digital technologies provide the platform for a great deal of contemporary civic engagement and political action (Vaccari, 2017). Indeed, a large amount of research has shown that social media play an important role in the circulation of ideas and conversation about politics and public policy. Increasingly, however, social media platforms are also vehicles for manipulative disinformation campaigns. Political campaigns, governments, and regular citizens around the world are employing combinations of people and bots—automated software built to mimic real users— in an attempt to artificially shape public life (Woolley, 2016; Gallacher et al., 2017). But there are still open, and difficult to answer, questions about the specific mechanisms of influence for particular voters, and how governments, news organizations, and civil society groups should respond. How do new forms of civic engagement affect political outcomes? To what extent do online echo chambers and selective exposure to informa- tion promote political extremism? How can civil activists respond effectively to “trolling” by hostile political agents? Computational propaganda is a term that neatly encapsulates this recent phenomenon— and emerging field of study— of digital misinformation and manipulation. As a communicative practice, computational propaganda describes the use of algorithms, automation, and human curation to purpose- fully manage and distribute misleading information over social media networks (Woolley & Howard, 2016a). As part of the process, coders and their auto- mated software products (including bots) will learn from and imitate legiti- mate social media users in order to manipulate public opinion across a diverse range of platforms and device networks. These bots are built to behave like real people (for example, automatically generating and responding to conversations online) and then let loose over social media sites in order to amplify or suppress particular political messages. These “automated social actors” can be used to bolster particular politicians and policy positions— supporting them actively and enthusiastically, while simultaneously drowning out any dissenting voices (Abokhodair, Yoo, & McDonald, 2015).