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I'd like to recap a talk I gave last night about #propaganda @theuxcrunch. This will be a tour of the strategies, tactics, tools, and channels used by bad actors, trolls, and other assholes to spread hate, disinformation, and terror. I'll end with some ways to fix this shit too. 
Before I get into detail though I'd like to give a shout out to the amazing @tashwillcocks for illustrating the big picture in one brilliant go. Ok… buckle up. This is going to be a bumpy ride.
As with many horrible things in the world today, a lot of this shit starts with elder statesmen and war criminal, Henry Kissinger. He used "constructive ambiguity" as a policy construct. And much of his policies lit the fuse of what we see in Syria today en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construct…
Reagan used "perception management" to get buy-in for aggressive foreign action from an American electorate that was weary from Vietnam. Rather than solve real problems with unpredictable outcomes, Reagan fabricated "rogue states" with cartoonish leaders from whole cloth.
Karl Rove is a complete scumbag. He was instrumental in shoving the Overton Window further right in the early 00s. By doing so, he helped create the conditions for the Tea Party to take shape. Check out his idea of "reality based communities." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-b…
Vladislav Surkov, Putin's Rasputin, created non-linear war. Journalist Peter Pomerantsev describes it as "a strategy of power that keeps any opposition constantly confused. A ceaseless shapeshifting that is unstoppable because it's indefinable."
Every one of us is all too familiar with how much Trump and Brexit are exemplars of "post-truth politics." The more outrageous the lie the greater the coverage. Obama stated that the new media ecosystem "means everything is true and nothing is true."
Derision of Experts was at the heart of Karl Rove's "reality-based communities" concept. It's become a key component of modern propaganda since. "People in this country have had enough of experts" is an example from shit-weasel, Michael Gove.
Repetition remains a powerful tactic for propagandists. They repeat their claims even after proven wrong. Vote Leave continued making their bullshit claim of giving the NHS £350 million a week if Brexit happened UNTIL the very day after the referendum.
Another tactic is feigned rejection of partisanship. Geriatric Mutant Pedo Turtle, Mitch McConnell has made a career out of this horse-shit. Under his leadership the GoP has enforced strict party discipline while lying about being more bipartisan than the Democrats.
All roads lead back to this god damned bus. Propagandists run on utopian campaigns now. They make egregious promises, based on lies, that they have no intent to deliver on. They've spent so much time trading on fear that they're trying their hand at optimism instead...
...but they haven't stopped peddling fear. Conspiracism is at an all time high. Birtherism, QANON, Pizzagate, etc. They are purpose-built to radicalise people and drive them to stochastic terrorism. Lest we forget a man shot up Comet Ping Pong pizzeria with an AR-15 rifle.
The original sin of social media is programmatic advertising. Propagandists are able to micro-target their lies for maximum impact / minimal cost. The Internet Research Agency only spent $100,000 on their election influence campaign. Their use micro-targeting is sophisticated...
The IRA crafted messages that were fixated on racial tensions in general and Black Lives Matter in particular. These fake ads and groups leveraged REAL concerns to their own ends. In effect, they weaponised dissent -- our most fundamental and important aspect of democracy!
And finally, propagandists have weaponised objectivity. Nigel Farage has appeared on the BBC more in recent years than most any other politician. The NYT, CNN, etc. have hired far right extremists, neo-nazis and climate change deniers. This is a cash grab masked as "fairness."
So how does this all come together in the hands of bad actors? There are a lot of tricks and tools used by Internet trolls but I want to shine a light on two that are particularly distressing in light of recent events. Redpilling and shitposting. bellingcat.com/news/rest-of-w…
Everything we've talked about is single boosted by social media. The biz model of these platforms is advertising. And that revenue is based on DAU. We click more when we're angry. We no longer live in an attention economy but rather an outrage economy. medium.com/@dancharvey/th…
The Christchurch attack was live-streamed on Facebook, broadcast to YouTube, shared along with his manifesto on Reddit, 4Chan, 8Chan, & The Daily Mail. His media strategy was so complete and so expedient that unlike similar attacks there was no gap for copycat content to emerge.
So what can we do as consumers, creators, and a society to fix all this shit? Because we have to fix it. We can't throw in the towel like Facebook has done with their disingenuous "pivot to privacy."
As individuals we can take steps to break the news cycle. We need to acknowledge there's a difference between "right" and "right now." How can we find slower, more responsible ways to consume the news? Step 1 - turn all your notifications right the fuck off.
As a society we need media literacy programs to teach critical thinking and analysis. ML helps people understand the power structures that shape media representations and the ways in which audiences and producers derive and create meaning. It teaches us to ask "who benefits?"
Media literacy alone isn't enough though. We need to start teaching algorithmic literacy too. Why are these systems making the recommendations they are making for us? Why are they serving us the content they are? And we need to start making these systems more transparent too.
As designers & technologists we can acknowledge that hate speech is not free speech: we can use use the same approaches to erasing white radical extremist content that the platforms use to censor ISIS, we can better protect at risk groups, and protect real dissent from the fake
We need to create new networks with new business models. That starts by challenging assumptions that advertising should be the model for everything and that all networks have to be big & addictive. It just make good business sense to diversify your revenue away from propaganda.
Thank you for your time and attention. I hope you found this recap worth your while. I'll post a full transcript to Medium with tons of links shortly. And the folks at @theuxcrunch should share video of the talk soon too. Cheers!
A few photos from my #propaganda talk at @theuxcrunch last week. Full transcript and video coming soon. Thanks again for all the time interest.
Video from my recent @theuxcrunch talk on #propaganda. First time giving the talk so more pause words than I like but I think still an important topic and worth your time.
