We need a bipartisan discussion about a clear code of ethics for digital campaign staffers, political tech consultancies, and the broader parties, especially in the wake of this story (thread): nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/…
First, these tactics - deception, depressing turnout, deliberate polarization - are not new.
I started my career working on a mayoral race in NYC, and I have seen first hand completely fucked up, underhanded, deceptive, and racial tactics aimed at social division.
However, these tactics can now scale much more easily. And, we have seen three cycles of this (at least). I wrote about the 2008 Obama's campaign's use of what a staffer called "dark arts" of online manipulation: danielkreiss.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/kreiss…
That included dark online influence campaigns, anonymous accounts, the coordinated circulation of anonymous content designed to damage opponents, disseminating information through online influencers with no transparency, and attempts to influence the press.
It fell on deaf ears - both because it was Obama and because social media was seen as this uber-democratic force. But the warning signs of online manipulation were there.
I've spent a decade researching digital politics, and I know firsthand that we have professionals with strong values and ethics on both sides of the aisle. There needs to be a strong condemnation of bald attempts at digital deception and misinformation
As well as a serious and sustained discussion about data and targeting in politics. Joe Turow and I tried to spark this conversation in 2013, and it was a start, but it is even more necessary now: asc.upenn.edu/news-events/ne…
The bottom line to me is - foreign actors are going to try to influence American elections, technology platforms are clearly not up to the task of self-regulating content on their own platforms, and the FEC and Congress will not act.
As a professional community, the people on both sides of the aisle that help candidates get elected can at least work to ensure that their practices foster a healthy electoral democracy, and in a bipartisan way condemn some things as out of bounds.
As a start, the political theorist Nancy Rosenblum offers some suggestions for what she calls an "ethics of partisanship" - including that partisans should expand the electorate, not narrow it: press.princeton.edu/titles/8812.ht…
There were always be gray areas, of course, i.e.: where should we draw a line between legitimate negative ads and actively de-mobilizing members of the electorate? Having a debate over these things is healthy, but the community needs to set guidelines and condemn
tactics such as deception, mis-and dis- information, 'false flag' operations, and the explicit targeting of vulnerable populations for competitive advantage, such as through de-mobilization.
It won't solve all the problems, but it will help. And I know there is a strong professional community here that transcends partisanship and believes in a strong American democracy, and members of it should and can find common ground around the ethical standards of their trade.
