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By Mark A. Jamison
September 22, 2017
Facebook is being understandably cautious in its statements about Russians using the tech company to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. What is publicly known, or at least believed, is that in 2015 and 2016, Russian-linked groups spent $150,000 to purchase about 5,200 ads promoting politically divisive content. The relatively small amount of money used — $150,000 versus $1.4 billion in total digital ad spending during the 2016 election season — suggests that the groups chose their tactics carefully. While Facebook was a good vehicle, it is likely that the Facebook ads were part of a larger social media effort.
The revelation triggered an outcry from politicians and advocacy groups calling for investigations, for Facebook to release everything it has on the matter, and for increased regulation of the company and other social media platforms. Is Facebook little more than a convenient scapegoat for these critics, many of whom benefit from the political divide? Probably.
How did the Russian agents provocateurs use Facebook? Not much is publicly revealed — and I have no inside information — but it appears that the culprits used well-known political marketing tactics: They identified emotionally charged topics, chose words and phrases that trigger confirmation bias and promote tribalism, and targeted influencers — people whose mention of an ad ensures that it will be noticed and forwarded to others.
While the actual impact of the Russian campaign may never be known, understanding how such strategies work will teach us how to address them. The first thing to recognize is that the scheme exploits political divides in which — as the Pew Research Center Center’s “Political Polarization in the American Public” and other studies have shown — each camp has its own truths, vocabularies, and places to live and work. Each faction holds beliefs about others that are not seen as true by the group in question. Actual communication between the camps is rare. The divide is also reflected in news programs. As economists Gregory Martin and Ali Yurukoglu demonstrate in their paper “Bias in Cable News: Persuasion and Polarization,” CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC each echo the divisions.
Something else to understand is that the ads leveraged social media influencers by using a strategy to plant “idea viruses” that are spread by others. According to media reports, the ads were short on substance and emphasized keywords that deepen the perception that people in other camps are ignorant, or somehow lack proper moral fabric.
If the virus metaphor is appropriate, then immunization is the key response. We immunize not by censorship, but by exposing people to ideas in ways that help them critically evaluate these beliefs, seeing their underlying presuppositions, logical fallacies and values. Universities should be primary providers of immunization, though many have become so infected that some faculty now incubate and spread these idea viruses to others. There is hope, nonetheless, as some universities have begun to be aware of the problem: the Heterodox Academy being a good example of an academic effort to encourage thought and dialogue in spaces that have lacked viewpoint diversity.
An academic solution, however, is likely to be too slow, as some faculty members will surely resist. A more immediate change can be fostered, however, by traditional and social media organizations through the greater use of artificial intelligence. Facebook and others already use AI to identify and block groups like the Russians agitators. AI could be used to extract the common elements of what is being discussed in traditional and social media and share it with each political side. Outreach methods could include a discussion of audience takeaways, in-story ads in specifically chosen programs to send messages, and the online insertion of text boxes to challenge rather than reinforce a viewpoint. Ads using variations of the Heineken’s “Worlds Apart” campaign, where people with opposing views end up having a good conversation over a beer, are useful in reinforcing newly found shared values and interests. In addition, the application of game-design elements and game principles to motivate interest and participation would add to the appeal and attract a broader audience.
I am not hopeful that politics, regulations, or the social media police will provide answers. Politics benefits from the divide. Regulatory bureaucrats too often pick political sides and become part of the problem. And social media policing potentially cuts off communication between adversarial groups. New efforts must be made to encourage Americans to learn about ideas different from their own, and a method that bridges our divides, rather than exploits them, is a better approach.
Mark Jamison is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also the director of and Gunter Professor at the Public Utility Research Center, Warrington College of Business, the University of Florida.
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