The growing propaganda through social media and the role of the cyber troops

In a world that is increasingly based on the rapid transfer of information across the planet and mainly through social  media  which give everyone the opportunity to access and create information, it would be impossible for this press technology for the low-cost transmission of information to not attract the attention of states and their Governments for the implementation of all kinds of propaganda in order to manipulate public opinion.

by Thanos S. Chonthrogiannis

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Last week Oxford University published its annual report on online misinformation through social media presenting very interesting conclusions (“The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation” by Phillip Howard & Samantha Bradshaw, https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk).

What is defined as propaganda

Propaganda means the dissemination of a political (usually) view and is achieved by direct presentation of a message in a specific way so that each time the maximum possible result is achieved, which is none other than the service of specific objectives.

These propaganda specific objectives aim to influence and drastically change the views of the public opinion and not just to transmit the information. Propaganda and propagandists are trying to form views with indirect and often fraudulent methods, creating strong feelings for people who become recipients of propaganda.

Propagandists usually try to influence public opinion by making their messages heard in as many places as possible and as often as possible. In this way they achieved:

a) to enhance their ideas through repetition

b) to stifle all alternative ideas.

Fake News and the reasons for the manipulation of public opinion

According to the above recent annual report of the University of Oxford there was a drastic increase of more than 150% (70 countries in 2019, 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries in 2017) in the number of countries and their Governments that make widespread use of social media with the ultimate aim of manipulating public opinion both within their own country and globally.

The reasons for the manipulation of public opinion through online propaganda have specific objectives:

1. to neutralize-through the smear-of political opponents,
2. to control of information (to control public opinion within the country);
3. the “disappearance” of any contrary view to the Government position,
4. the elimination of any data on the smooth and correct constitutional democratic governance of a country.
5. the suppression of human rights,
6. the creation of a favourable climate and an “attractive” image in favour of their country in various fields.

The countries that mainly use social media to implement propaganda and for all the reasons are China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Cuba, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, Egypt, North Korea, etc. Essentially China is considered a “champion” in international misinformation through social media.

A social media platform can be classified as a vehicle of disinformation depending on the number of organised political campaigns held on the social media platform in the country concerned. The aim of these political campaigns is mainly to counteract the opposition.

The Cyber troops and their role

As cyber troops are named all those employees who work with the status of full or part-time employment on behalf of Governments and political parties (parliamentarians or not) with a view to influencing public opinion every time in favour of their employers’ positions.

This influence and manipulation of public opinion is achieved through coordinated and repetitive content of the same or similar number of posts within certain time intervals in order to create saturation in the information aimed at either protecting their “employers” from the evolution of real events or transferring public opinion attention to other issues.

The contents of their posts in social media does not mean that everything is a lie. Usually, they are based on some plausible events by channeling in them the lie and the distortion of the truth. 

At the same time, because these “propaganda and disinformation attacks” through posts in social media are fully controlled, built and coordinated, they could measure “the impact” of each attack on public opinion (e.g. based on the likes in each post).

In order to achieve these coordinated “propaganda and disinformation attacks” in social media, four ways are used:

1. from real people-user accounts
2. from automated accounts enabled via algorithms (bots)
3. by Cyborg accounts
4. by hacked or stolen accounts

Examples of massive “propaganda and disinformation attacks” through social media emerged during the 2016 elections in the United States and the Brexit referendum in the UK.

In addition, mercenary internet troops are not only limited to propaganda and disinformation attacks but use social media for harassment and intimidation.

With their intimidating behaviour (social media bullying) they try to silence or force users who express the opposite view to them and their employers to delete their posts even to erase their accounts in social media.

The funds spent annually on the technological equipment and payroll of all these cyber troops depend on the size of the country and on which it aims to focus its propaganda efforts.

But the more authoritarian is the “democratic regime” that governs the country under consideration, the greater the cyber troops population in it, and the more funds spent on their maintenance.

The quality of information in social media

Given the framework for the free movement of information, it is not possible to apply censorship to social media. In the same way it is not easy to control the quality of information in social media. No matter how much effort is made to control the information that is being handled on the social media, it will not work.

The “filtering” of the correctness of an opinion is made individually by each user and since the user in social media has developed his critical thinking which means the possession of greater and qualitative education on the part of the user of social media.