The number of countries waging disinformation campaigns has more than doubled since 2017. And for most of them, the weapon of choice remains Facebook.
A new study, "The Global Disinformation Order" [PDF], from researchers at Oxford University, says that the number of countries pulling off disinformation campaigns increased from 28 in 2017 to 48 in 2018. That number jumped to 70 in 2019.
And, according to the report, Facebook "remains the platform of choice for social media manipulation." Evidence of propaganda campaigns operating via Mark Zuckerberg's creation were found in 56 countries.
In the wake of incidents like Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and violence in Myanmar, Facebook announced a number of measures designed to fight propaganda and fake news across its platform as well as Instagram and WhatsApp. But Facebook continues to be plagued by reports of loopholes, work-arounds, and, sometimes, self-inflicted wounds in the fight against misinformation.
And on Wednesday, Facebook announced it will make politicians' statements exempt from its usual community standards because it considers such speech "newsworthy content." (YouTube announced a similar policy on Thursday.) This seems to leave a big loophole for, say, a president that encourages his followers to be violent.
In response to the study, a spokesperson for Facebook told Mashable via email:
“Helping show people accurate information and protecting against harm is a major priority for us. We’ve developed smarter tools, greater transparency, and stronger partnerships to better identify emerging threats, stop bad actors, and reduce the spread of misinformation on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. We also know that this work is never finished and we can’t do this alone. That’s why we are working with policymakers, academics, and outside experts to make sure we continue to improve.”
Not that Facebook is alone in all of this. Twitter has been battling the same issues for years and is still struggling to keep things under control on its platform.
Other tidbits from the study include:
Authoritarian regimes in 26 countries are leveraging social media as a means to spread propaganda
Seven countries —China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela— have used Facebook and Twitter to influence activities in other countries.
China is now a major player in this space, as its actions in regard to recent protests in Hong Kong have shown
Also, it's worth noting that, yes, of course the United States is one of the countries involved in using social media to spread propaganda. The report lists the U.S. under the "High Capacity" category when it comes to "cyber troop capacity" alongside the usual suspects like China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
And while the study doesn't go into specific actors, it claims it found that "three or more organizations" in both the "government agency" and "private contractor" categories carry out disinformation campaigns in the U.S. In the "politician and political parties" category, the report claims to have two organizations doing so in the U.S.
That this report dropped while Trump is mired in a scandal for alleged attempts to solicit help from Ukraine to meddle in the 2020 U.S. presidential election is purely kismet.
