Patriotic trolling, digital propaganda

Bloomberg has a post explaining how Facebook's political unit enables the dark art of digital propaganda.

...In April, Vietnamese officials bragged that Facebook would build a dedicated channel to prioritize takedown requests for content that offended authorities. The company generally routes requests from governments through a separate channel, and takes the content down if it violates community standards. If it violates local law, it’ll only be unavailable in the relevant country.

“They’re too cozy with power,” said Mark Crispin Miller, a media and culture professor at New York University.

That problem is exacerbated when Facebook’s engine of democracy is deployed in an undemocratic fashion. A November report by Freedom House, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advocates for political and human rights, found that a growing number of countries are “manipulating social media to undermine democracy.” One aspect of that involves “patriotic trolling,” or the use of government-backed harassment and propaganda meant to control the narrative, silence dissidents and consolidate power.

...In retrospect, the nexus of power and data at Facebook seems inevitable. In 2007, Facebook opened its first office in Washington. The presidential election the following year saw the rise of the world’s first “Facebook President” in Barack Obama, who with the platform’s help was able to reach millions of voters in the weeks before the election.

...The company’s relationship with governments remains complicated. Facebook has come under fire in the European Union, including for the spread of Islamic extremism on its network.

Read more here.