How govts across the world use cyber troops to manipulate public opinion

Social media's importance can be gauged by the fact that Facebook now has a market capitalisation of $ 472 billion and has more than 2 billion users on the platform. There is Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and YouTube which also have a large number of users sharing content and views, discussing, debating or just consuming content every morning. Globally, social media exercises the highest influence on public discourse. It is this function which makes it important for governments across the world to register their presence on social media. But do governments restrict themselves to only having a presence on social media or do they go beyond it?

The Oxford Institute at the University of Oxford is trying to study this under the Computational Propaganda Research Project. A working paper titled "Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation" studies how governments across the world, use organised teams to manipulate public opinion on social media.

According to the report, social media has also become a tool of social control. Governments now deploy significant resources on social media "to generate content, direct opinion and engage with foreign and domestic audiences".

The paper discusses strategies, tools and techniques used for social media manipulation, how these teams are organised and their behaviour & capacity.

Cyber troops

Cyber troops are defined as government, military or political-party teams committed to manipulating public opinion over social media. The report discusses how these cyber troops are deployed on social media for propaganda purposes.

How cyber troops are deployed

The earliest reports of organized social media manipulation emerged in 2010, and by 2017 there are details on such organizations in 28 countries. In authoritarian countries, these campaigns target only domestic audiences while in democracies, they target foreign audiences. Political parties tend to focus on domestic audiences in democracies. Authoritarian regimes are not the only or even the best at organized social media manipulation, as per the report. The earliest reports of cyber troops deployment come from democracies while innovations often come from political parties. 

The practice has evolved from involving military troops as cyber troops to hiring strategic communication firms that take contracts from governments.

What are the tactics used by cyber troops to manipulate opinion

1. Commenting: These teams actively engage with social media users the world over through comments on various topics or posts and these comments can be positive comments, Negative comments that involve verbal abuse, harassment or trolling. These comments can also be in the form of fact-check information being shared (as done in Czech Republic). This can also be in the form of what is known as Hashtag poisoning which includes spamming trending hashtags to disrupt criticism or unwanted conversations through a flood of unrelated tweets. Hashtag poisoning is used by cyber troops in Saudi Arabia, as per the paper.
2. Individual targeting: Opinion leaders, including prominent bloggers, journalists and activists, are selected and engaged to convince them of a particular point of view. Often these individuals can also be the targets of harassment that includes verbal abuse, hate speech, trolling etc and this spans a longer duration. The report quotes that "in South Korea, employees from the National Intelligence Service launched a series of smear campaigns against South Korean opposition parties in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election"
3. Government sponsored accounts: Many governemnts across the world have multiple accounts, websites and applications that help them spread propaganda. "Israel has more than 350 accounts official government social media accounts, covering the full range of online platforms, from Twitter to Instagram, and operating in three languages: Hebrew, Arabic and English", says the report. Ukraine has an "i?Army", also known as “the army of truth”, which operates a website where citizens and volunteers can access and share “truthful” information on social media.
4. Fake accounts, bots: In addition to official accounts, many cyber troop teams also run fake accounts to mask their identity. They may use "astroturfing" to make it seem as if the sponsor or organisation is involved in grassroot activism. They also use bots (bits of code) to interact with and mimic human users. In North Korea stolen South Korean accounts—as opposed to fake identities—are used to spread political propaganda.
5. Content creation: Cyber troop teams also create substantive content to push political messages. This could be in the form of a blog posts, videos, fake news stories etc. 

How are cyber troops organised

Cyber troops could be organised in various ways. They could be government?based cyber troops. These would  be public servants tasked with influencing public opinion. They can work across ministries. "In China, the public administration behind cyber troop activities is incredibly vast. There are many local offices that coordinate with their regional and national counterparts to create and disseminate a common narrative of events across the country.", says the report.

They could also be organised by political parties or politicians who are interested  in shaping public opinion in their favour. This is not the same as digital campaign strategy which is largely focused on information dissemination. Often, troops hired during campaigns can continue to spread the propaganda when a politician or party assume power as seen in Phillipines.

Some times, the cyber troops could also be private contractors hired by the government. They may come to fulfill a particular role or mission. The report gives the example of Russia where Internet Research Agency, a private company, sometimes coordinates some of the Kremlin’s social media campaigns.

Cyber troops can also be a band of volunteer groups that work to spread political messages on social media. They might come together thanks to a particular ideology or objective. They can also be paid citizens hired by government. In this case they are neither public servants, nor hired by private contractors for a mission but individuals hired to work on social media strategy.

Organisational behaviour 

The report identifies organisational practices of cyber troop teams. These are

1. a clear hierarchy and reporting structure

2. content review by superiors 

3. strong coordination across agencies or team 

4. weak coordination across agencies or teams, and 

5. liminal teams 

The report also gives examples of how capacity building is done in various countries to strengthen these teams. In Russia, English teachers are hired to teach proper grammar to communicate with Western audiences. Other training measures focus on “politology”, which aims to outline the Russian perspective on current events. In North Korea, young computer experts are trained by the government, and top performers are selected to join the military university, as per the report.

Twitter: @bhayankur