Christian Schwieter

Nov 19, 2019

Online manipulation practices: astroturfing

Bad-faith actors use a variety of online manipulation practices to disrupt elections or damage the reputation of public figures. Some of these practices rely on traditional paid-for advertising. Yet, using the services of Google and Co. can be notoriously expensive. Services like AdSense or Facebook Pixel also leave an easily…

Politics

5 min read

Online manipulation practices: astroturfing

Nov 17, 2019

Jack’s decision is bold — but Twitter has bigger problems than paid-for political ads

The political sphere has been abuzz over the last weeks with the announcement by Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey that his platform would no longer accept political advertisements. The policy change will take full effect on 22 November, just in time for the UK General Election in December. It…

Politics

5 min read

Twitter’s decision is bold — but political ads are not its biggest problem

Nov 16, 2019

Are some electoral systems more vulnerable to disinformation campaigns?

Disinformation campaigns are being used everywhere to undermine democracy. Yet, most accounts of online disinformation swaying elections come out of the US and the UK. …

Politics

4 min read

Are winner-takes-it-all systems more vulnerable to disinformation campaigns?