Malicious Bots

Invite: Thur, Nov 9th - Protecting Our Elections and Politics from Interference

The very openness of American society is being exploited by foreign actors to further their own political ends. To offer up some ideas on what can be done we will hold an event next Thursday, November 9th in the Rayburn House Office Building. Headlining the conversation will be Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, and primary author of a bill designed to counter Russia’s rising global ambitions, the “Fostering Unity Against Russian Aggression Act of 2017.”

In addition, we have assembled a trio of thought leaders in this emerging space for what will be a spirited discussion. Joining us are:

Amb. Karen Kornbluh, Clinton/Obama Administrations – Karen will talk about the new information landscape facing modern democracies (bio).

Tim Chambers, Dewey Digital – Tim will also talk about the new information landscape but with a particular focus on tackling the challenge of malicious social media bots (bio).

Greg Miller, OSET Institute – Greg will discuss ways we can fortify and modernize our elections infrastructure (bio).

Simon Rosenberg, NDN – Simon will moderate and offer closing remarks (bio).

This important conversation will take place on Thursday, November 9th in Rayburn House Office Building Room 2456 and run from 10:30 to noon. You can RSVP here.

This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome. Feel free to send this invitation on to others you think might be interested. Seating is limited and first come, first served.

Further Readings

As background reading for the event, be sure to check out the following:

Bringing Transparency and Accountability to Online Political Ads, Karen Kornbluh, Council on Foreign Affairs, 10/30/17. The internet makes it easy for political ad buyers to obfuscate their donors and handlers. Despite the challenges, there are significant steps that Congress and social media platforms can take to improve transparency.

A Primer on Social Media Bots And Their Malicious Use In U.S. Politics, Tim Chambers, 9/13/17. This new, compelling paper by long time NDN collaborator Tim Chambers explains what bots are, looks at their malicious use in US politics and offers some ideas on what to do about it in the days ahead. 

Critical Democracy Infrastructure, OSET Institute, September 2017. OSET addresses the criticality of the technology infrastructure of election administration and operation.

A Primer on Social Media Bots And Their Malicious Use In U.S. Politics

This full paper is in PDF format, and can be found through the links in the text below or at the bottom of the page. 

Tens of millions of malicious bots – automated accounts programmed to tweet or post in a manner masquerading as humans – infest our social media platforms, and many are being used deceptively for political purposes. These “computational propaganda” accounts fake petition signatures, skew poll results, sow discord and spread falsehoods. In doing so, they pose a serious danger to democracy.

They’ve been deployed by Russia and others to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Brexit vote, the 2017 French election and more. As America approaches the 2018 and 2020 election seasons, the threat will only grow – weaponized social bots will become more convincing and harder to detect.

To help those in the political arena better understand this new phenomenon, NDN is proud to release a new paper, "A Primer on Social Media Bots and Their Malicious Use in US Politics." Written by our long time collaborator Tim Chambers, this paper lays out in plain, simple English what bots are, how they are being used, and some ways we can together combat their impact in the days ahead.

Especially as we approach the 2018 and 2020 elections, it is critical that we understand and counteract this threat now, or we will lose this new form of information war. We must develop more and better technological defenses. We must demand that our social networks build for the good of the countries they act in, not just for their own profits. And we must adopt laws and policies that protect our democracy while safeguarding social media’s enormous potential to enhance the democratic process. This compelling new paper offers some early thinking on how we may want to approach taking on the bots. Please let us know what you think of it, and feel free to share with others you think might be interested.

Update: Since publication of the paper, Simon and Tim were quoted in this Yahoo Finance piece, "Maybe Facebook and Twitter should be regulated like TV".

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