When Will Progressives Pick up the Big Guns?
In Mid-December 2018 I read the NY Times article, the Washington Post article, the Axios newsletter. Then I read the actual reports commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
There it is, for all to see.
Incontrovertible evidence of what a distributed group of specialists have been trumpeting for two years; we’ve been bamboozled and brainwashed, multiple times. By “we” I mean the citizens of the United States, from El Paso to Appalachia to Detroit to New York. And it is still happening, right now, as I write this, as you read this.
We have a propaganda problem. It is an old problem that has been turbo-charged by advances in digital communications technology, specifically social media for the masses. It is time to add this to the growing list of societal ills, and yes this is high up among dangers that are harmful to both human civilization and to human individuals. While not as big of a deal as global warming, the mass of disinformation, misinformation and untruths flooding our senses is part of what is keeping us from addressing that looming environmental disaster.
The problem goes by many names: computational propaganda, digital persuasion, fake news, disinformation campaigns, active measures, brainwashing, media sabotage, or just good advertising. Some of the ways in which it harms us? It separates us as a people by exacerbating differences between communities, it makes us elect leaders who do not really represent us, and it leads us to believe things that are simultaneously not true and also destructive to our well-being.
Why is the modern version of propaganda so serious and in need of solutions? Because in today’s connected world, digital communications can be the difference between Hitler and Lincoln. (This comparison is useful because the majority of people will choose Lincoln over Hitler — especially when armed with the information of what each of these leaders represents. If you favor Hitler you aren’t really part of this discussion.)
In order to stem the tide of propaganda and have more control over our own viewpoints and our decisions as citizens we need to accomplish two things: reduce the flow of bad information and counter with good information. It is the second one I’d like to focus on here. First let’s restate the situation.
PROBLEM: Disinformation and digitally efficient propaganda are having a negative impact on our society.
“Their reams of data converged on a breathtaking statistic: Wherever per-person Facebook use rose to one standard deviation above the national average, attacks on refugees increased by about 35 percent.”
This use of propaganda is one-sided.
- Exacerbated by the fact that one group (GOP + Russia + Fossil Fuel + Conservative) is using the latest digital/social media tools with centrally coordinated infrastructure while the other groups (progressives + Democrats + liberal) are fragmented (something we can’t expect to change), are not making use of best practices in digital advertising and are not funding a coordinated infrastructure.
Related to the central infrastructure gap, progressive and Democratic funding for innovative practices is scarce and un-focused. Donors have learned to spend tens of millions of dollars in the months before an election, instead of spreading the same money out over a much longer time period well in advance— which is what is required to actually reach the hearts and minds of U.S. citizens where they are forming their beliefs and perceptions. (a lesson that Vladimir Putin, Brad Parscale and Koch Industries all learned long ago).
SOLUTIONS
Reducing the flow of bad information has to be led by government and the technology platforms. We mention these here for reference but they are not the focus of this post.
REGULATION: There will have to be some regulation to reign in these digital and social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Google), just like there was for broadcast media a few decades ago. This is not just about the Russians, there are experts who believe the domestic fake news networks are much larger.
TECHNOLOGY: The social/digital media platforms must self-regulate, innovate for the common good and build in safeguards for their users.
Mounting a communications counter-response to propaganda with good information is where we see enormous opportunity.
COMMUNICATIONS: It is time to catch up! A counter-response in-kind, using similar tools but transparently, ethically, authentically. No fake accounts, no lies, networks of real people, source disclosures. It’s just good advertising, we do it all day long to sell commercial products. We will leverage state-of-the-art capabilities that address message propagation in networks, multi-variate testing, behavioral and social intelligence tracking, agile content personlization and more. In addition to the tools and tactics, work has to be done with the messaging as well. We can activate the same reptilian part of our brains the opposition is focused on. We will build a shield of information literacy to push back on destructive “fear-mongering” untruths by applying constructive “follow-the-heard” messaging that is carefully aligned with what audiences actually care about. There are good studies around these details of human behavior and our malleable mythologies that can be applied.
WHAT IS MISSING? (hint, it’s just good advertising…)
A long-horizon messaging engine that micro-targets audiences at scale across multiple channels with consistent, repetitive and authentic messages,at the touch points where people are forming their beliefs and perceptions.
By not mounting a counter-response to propaganda, progressives are abdicating their responsibility to U.S. citizens in an uncontested landgrab for hearts and minds, emotions and votes.
Seriously, if we are not going to shut down these powerful digital communications platforms then for god sakes pick up the tools of the trade and start playing on the same field. Un-tapped opportunities to poke holes in echo chambers, to build bridges to new audiences and to re-program how micro-populations in the electorate think about specific topics — all these and more are available for those organized enough to act.
How will we know we are doing the right thing? For our measure of success we need look no further than Abraham Lincoln. Is our long-horizon micro-targeted communications program shielding us from propaganda and resulting in a more representative government? Is our emotionally targeted messaging approach dedicated to the proposition that all humans are created equal?
The big idea here amounts to a New Contract with America: to arm the citizens of this country with knowledge that helps them be more discerning with the content they consume, to be more involved in their own government, and be less susceptible to lies that convince them not to vote.
A PLACE TO START
But how to get started, and why hasn’t it happened already? The critical transformation needed hasn’t happened yet due to,
- the fragmentation of progressive and democratic circles,
- the lack of a central infrastructure, and
- the tendency for difference-making large funders to focus on traditional broadcast spends in the months before an election.
The fragmentation mentioned above is a key part of the challenge. There is an urgent need to accelerate the knowledge sharing amongst the leaders in advanced digital communications. The progressive communications effort needs a common vision statement not unlike Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez’s New Green Deal or JFK’s “We will get to the moon in this decade.” The ingredients are there — but 2020 is fast approaching and there is much work to do.
We are early on, but things are happening. There are the beginnings of an eco-system, and innovative companies are working on bits and pieces. Vendors like Catalist, GrowProgress, Avalanche Strategies, Civis Analytics are focused on advanced modeling of audience segments to drive micro-targeting and personalized content creation. Swayable and Civis are building content testing mechanisms. Media buying agency Bully Pulpit Interactive is doing very important work in expanding multi-variate testing and measurement (with Bloomberg Philanthropies for instance). DSPolitical is trying to make programmatic media buying cheaper and more accessible for down ballot candidates. And highly visible change-makers like Forward Majority, House Majority PAC, Priorities USA, the Progressive TurnoutPAC spent significant time and money on experimenting with advanced precision digital strategies in 2018 (both online and offline).
WE NEED A HUDDLE
What is needed right now is collaboration; a conscious, collective sharing of the learnings and energy among the existing players in progressive digital marketing. We need, in Q1 of 2019, to achieve consensus about standard systems and practices to use in public sector communications.
Progressives have a chance to leapfrog the impressive conservative digital media infrastructure as they roll into 2020. This is a nascent space that is starting to wake up. Looking ahead to a post-Trump world, the need to become better communicators only increases. A proactive intra-communications effort across the progressive sector will accelerate capabilities to connect with citizens at the digital touchpoints where they are forming their malleable beliefs and perceptions.
This will not be one meeting — it is a series of brainstorms and workshops resulting in a roadmap. To put some specific ideas on the table, here a few of the issues we would put on the agenda: kill digital “departments” to remove silos, shift media dollars from broadcast to narrowcast, test everything all the time, personalize content, listen better, develop linguistic frameworks, build robust influence networks, measure results not vanity metrics.
A PLAYBOOK ALREADY EXISTS
There have been huge digital transformations in the commercial sector over the last 5 years, driven by connected consumers and resulting in business growth. Now it’s the public sector’s turn. Already in 2018 many organizations and agencies have staffed up their internal data science teams. The entire progressive community is about to go through a transformation. There will be leaders and laggers, vendors who fall by the wayside, large organizations who struggle with the new paradigms.
Let’s reduce the flow of bad information, and let’s counter it with good information.
And just like corporate examples Unilever, American Express and Zappos, the philanthropic, political and cause-related organizations who nail this early will reap the rewards in their noble efforts to make the world a better place.
