Introduction
Since the advent of social media in the late 1900s, its proliferation has unfolded at an unprecedented rate, making it an indispensable constituent of modern life. In two decades, social media has experienced a colossal evolution, shifting from exchanging direct electronic data to retail (e-commerce) to virtual space and one of the unequaled marketing tools of the 21st century. This has been made possible by innovations across the digital technology realm and the human compulsion to communicate, connect, and share opinions, ideas, and information. However, the benefits social media accords its users cannot shadow the significant risks that stem from its widespread usage. Today, it is almost impossible to see a technological, societal, or political event, agenda, or trend that is not pushed in the digital space via social media goings-on and not accompanied by sundry manipulation mechanisms such as misinformation and disinformation. This epitomizes social media manipulation as an emerging critical concern that is taking the globe by storm. Across social media, diverse agents, inclusive of civilians and independent entities immerse and engage themselves with various manipulation forms deliberately or unintentionally, which significantly influence their individual or collective behaviors and opinions. In this respect, social media manipulations pose a critical threat to social harmony, democratic processes, and public health as malicious actors take advantage of social media avenues’ weaknesses and vulnerabilities to propagate deep fakes, spread disinformation and misinformation, foster extremism and polarization, undermine trust and accountability, and sow discord. With the use of bots, coordinated actions, human trolls, manipulated algorithms, and deep fakes, social media has been weaponized to manipulate the masses for political gain and to push actors’ agendas (Ienca 839). The subsequent implication jeopardizes public safety like witnessed during the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic repercussions robbing the global economy of billions of dollars annually.
While the proliferation of social media manipulation seems a global phenomenon with dire consequences, technological innovations offer feasible resolutions for identifying and offsetting this threat. Efforts to limit, prevent, and control social media manipulation need technical, ethical, and regulation approaches inclusive of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence-based algorithms and solutions and media literacy to eliminate phony bot accounts, stamp out trolls, identify sensitive and manipulative content, and build public awareness by educating users on malicious actor’s methods and strategies to ensure a resilient society that is not vulnerable to media manipulation.
Solutions to Social Media Manipulations
Deactivating inauthentic accounts and blocking their creation would come a long way in preventing the abuse of media platforms to perpetuate manipulation. The easy creation of phony media accounts presents a gateway for media platforms to be used for manipulation (Bay 7). Besides, the longer the inauthentic accounts and bots are used in a certain platform, the more the users that are dragged into an illusionary world saturated with misinformation. However, with a thriving fake accounts black market, sellers have devised new means to configure fake accounts using dedicated proxies, IP locations, and various configuration descriptions to prevent fake accounts from being banned. This has resulted in inestimable fake accounts across all social media platforms engaging in false engagement that significantly shapes public opinion and discourse through manipulative content and information (Bay 9). However, several media platforms have tried to establish tools to block the creation of phony accounts. For example, Facebook once required users to capture their faces while registering to verify authenticity. Such mechanisms are, however, not uniformly enforced across other platforms making it unyielding to block fake account creation. However, with the upsurge of machine learning and AI, these technologies present possible solutions to deal with social media manipulation. AI and machine learning data processing practices and algorithms can help to increase transparency across media platforms (Maathuis 227). The technologies combine machine and human analysis to detect and thwart social media manipulation effectively. Notably, these models utilize machine learning processing and AI techniques to evaluate enormous quantities of data and identify patterns revealing manipulation, such as bot usage and coordinated fake accounts activity. This guarantees an improved oversight and verification of accounts which results in fake accounts being removed or blocked. Besides, open-source intelligence tools like Echosec assist social media analysts in monitoring and identifying sources of manipulation by allowing diverse public sources to be easily searchable (Ju 8). Notably, this entails fringe media sites, mainstream media, and alternative tech platforms, which afford analysts a comprehensive assessment of the information landscape, enabling easy detection of any manipulative campaigns and content.
Regulatory oversight from the government and other governing entities would play a significant role in mitigating media manipulation risks by enacting stringent laws and fully enforcing them to destabilize disinformation and misinformation. By imposing legal responsibilities on social media entities, the companies would strive to eliminate illegal and manipulative contexts in a given time or face hefty penalties or fines. Besides, regulations would see social media entities disclose their core functions and algorithms to ensure accountability and transparency (Ienca 841). An excellent example of regulatory oversight is the 2021 EU AI Act. By protecting how users’ data are used and shared, user privacy can be enhanced preventing malicious actors from exploiting vulnerable audiences by spreading propaganda and misinformation. With respect to regulatory interventions, media entities can be mandated to design ethical platforms that aim to moderate likely manipulation. This could entail designing user interfaces as well as algorithms that ultimately prioritize users’ privacy and liberty and foil manipulative tactics (Ienca 841). Notably, this would enable users to be aware of the content they see and have control over their data reducing the probability of manipulations.
Another focal solution is certainly digital literacy and user education. Despite the prevalence of social media manipulation, human critical thinking competencies and vigilance remain crucial in identifying and refuting disinformation. Training on cybersecurity and enlightening civilians on social engineering strategies can help people identify signs of media manipulation and become cautious of what they consume from media platforms (Palmer para. 6). By making them identify the bot activity signs, comprehend the intention behind deep fakes and disinformation campaigns, and understand how to substantiate if online content is authentic, users will be better positioned to consume authentic content free from manipulation (Ienca 841). This would frustrate any efforts by malicious actors to propagate fake information. Besides, by teaching the public fact-checking, individuals will be more sensitive to online content, checking the integrity of the content, and validating claims before trusting them as factual or sharing them (Palmer para. 7). Also, educating citizens on identifying their personal biases and addressing them help individuals on not being influenced by online content and have strong stances on their beliefs and confront biases. This helps people make objective evaluations of online information they encounter reducing their vulnerability to media manipulation.
However, these proposed solutions are not flawless. AI and machine learning applications seem double-edged, capable of presenting malicious actors with techniques to propagate social manipulation to a larger audience by creating content that seems genuine (Ienca 839). Regulations have their limitations and challenges too. It becomes challenging to enforce regulations due to varying legal systems and jurisdictions particularly when targeting transnational actors and platforms. Besides, regulations at times may infringe on users’ freedom and rights such as the freedom to access information. Even establishing alternative platforms, such as community media and cooperative media, would still face challenges in solving media manipulation issues. Competing with already established platforms with influence, reach, and resources would make alternative platforms ineffective. Besides, they are not perfectly immune from infiltration and manipulation from malicious actors.
Conclusion
Social media manipulation stands to be a serious menace to the society and democracy. It is evident that media manipulation is compromising the integrity of information, erodes accountability and trust in democratic courses, threatens social harmony and public health, and prompts extremism and polarization. Malicious actors are evolving to fully exploit the weaknesses of media platforms which demands collective actions to frustrate media manipulation endeavors. Even though alternative platforms, technological solutions, and regulation can help reduce the adverse implications of social media manipulation, they may fall short of effectively addressing systemic issues and underlying causes of media manipulation. More efforts should be directed toward civic education, media literacy as well as ethical designs to offset social media manipulation and reestablish public trust in mainstream media. More research is needed to establish the best models and practices for curtailing media manipulation across different settings and contexts.
Works Cited
Bay, Sebastian, et al. “Social media manipulation 2022/2023: Assessing the Ability of Social Media Companies to Combat Platform Manipulation.” NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence: Riga, Latvia (2023). https://stratcomcoe.org/pdfjs/?file=/publications/download/Social-Media-Manipulation-2022-2023-DIGITAL.pdf?zoom=page-fit. Accessed 12 Feb. 2024.
Ienca, Marcello. “On Artificial Intelligence and Manipulation.” Topoi (2023): 1-10.
Ju, Y., et al. “Study on application of open source intelligence from social media in the military.” Journal of Physics: Conference Series. Vol. 1507. No. 5. IOP Publishing, 2020.
Maathuis, Clara, and Iddo Kerkhof. “Social Media Manipulation Awareness through Deep Learning based Disinformation Generation.” International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security. Vol. 18. No. 1. 2023.
Palmer, Charis. “Misinformation Won’t Go Away, but Media Literacy Can Help Fight It.” 360, 14 Feb. 2022, 360info.org/misinformation-wont-go-away-but-media-literacy-can-help-fight-it/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2024.
write