Expert Says: "Bots Are Poised to Wreak Havoc in the 2018 Midterm Elections"

Bots: A huge part of Malware havoc all over the Internet

(Bots: "Robots" that plant Malware)

American democracy still has a glaring propaganda problem, e.g., automated Bot accounts that spread disinformation and sowed disgust and confusion among voters during the 2016 presidential election are poised to wreak havoc again in this year’s midterm elections, according to a leading expert, Samuel Woolley, Research Director of the DigIntel Lab at the Institute for the Future.

His assessment follows in his own words and concerns and his and simple message alert to the country is: “Time to wake up folks.”

(Note: Mr. Woolley has studied the rise of Bot (now classified  as “Malware” in general) accounts and the “Fake News” that they generate for the past six years, focusing on how that propaganda affects our elections).

Note on Bots from the great Norton article: Malware 101 seen here – an excellent study guide. Bots, or Robots, are an application that carries out automated tasks on the users’ computer, such as attacks on other machines in order to create a Botnet. 

Once a Bot infects a computer, that computer is often referred to as a “Zombie” as it is now under control of the hacker. Botnets can be used for distributing spam, injecting adware onto other computers, recruiting other computers for Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and more.

Mr. Woolley’s report: “I think that it’s too late for 2018. I hate to be a pessimist. It’s good that we’re seeing some action around this stuff, but I don’t think we have our arms around the problem in any significant way. I can conclusively say that Bots changed the flow of information during the 2016 election absolutely, a hundred percent.”

“These Bots had an absolute effect upon the conversation in American politics. When you have the president of the United States re-tweeting or re-messaging or interacting with Bot accounts that affect public opinion. That affects communication. You can almost look to any contested race going on in 2018 and see some degree of computational propaganda.”

“One of the things I’ve been looking at lately is the way that propaganda is getting used against some of the most pivotal, contested elections in 2018. One of them is the election for the Senator Jeff Flake Senate seat in AZ.  We’ve seen disinformation circulating about Joe Arpaio. There is some that gets used to knock him down or attack him, but the vast majority is used to build him up or build up the platform surrounding him as a candidate. It’s amplification.”

Woolley’s conclusion: He says Bots are already being employed in races across the country, and he believes that the goal of most bot accounts is to “subtly manipulate public opinion and to confuse voters, as was the case with accounts in 2016 that promoted the falsehood to Hillary Clinton supporters that people could vote via text message.” 

While some of the automated accounts have been tracked to Russia, Woolley says the bulk of the disinformation that continues to be spread on platforms like Facebook and Twitter originates from within our borders, and he adds: “A tremendous amount of the propaganda and disinformation that we see in the United States is homegrown. It comes from people within the United States who are savvy computer users. There’s a lot of people that know how to build Bots.”

While Woolley is hopeful that better tools can be built to help identify and weed out Bot accounts to dull their impact on the 2020 election, he said it is all but certain they will influence this year’s races, then he concludes:  “In 2018, what I’m most concerned with is, sort of, this underlying issue of the way that propaganda consistently seems to be [used] to exacerbate what is already terrible polarization in this country between both Republicans and Democrats.”

My 2 Cents: This is a mandatory lesson for everyone – please help pass the word.

It is critical that people know what is coming and possibly how to help head it off since a lot is at stake, like you know, our very basic foundation of the country, and yes, our future this great American democratic system that we all profess to care deeply about.

So, do what you can – whatever or however small that may seem to be – every little bit can be helpful since education of the public on this is key. 

We must not never if humanly possible have a repeat of the 2016 election cycle. That was madness and we see the result still today.

It could be worse in this 2018 midterm by many assessments like the one above. 

Like any good Boy Scout says: “Always be prepared.” I would add stay alert and vigilant.

Thanks for stopping by.