There’s much talk today about “threats to our democracy.” Yet do you know that foreign entities such as China, Russia, and Iran are feeding mis- and dis-information to the American electorate in order to influence our political outcomes? When the USSR did this (without having social media as vehicles), it was called it “subversion” or, as the Soviets put it, “active measures.”
Add to this how a study found that mainstream media bias increases the Democratic presidential candidate’s vote share by eight to 10 points every election. Also add how another study found that Big Tech bias can shift up to 15 million votes toward a favored presidential candidate. It all raises a question.
Whatever the outcome in November, will it really represent the American people’s “will”? Or will it be as with a patient who desperately wants better health, but is lied to by his physician? Sure, he “chooses” a certain supposed “cure.” But if it’s based on a false diagnosis and prescription, does it reflect his desires? He sure wouldn’t knowingly choose therapeutic futility or, even, increased sickness, after all.
The Purveyors of Political Poison
Professor Liberty Vittert, a professor of data science at Washington University in St. Louis, knows where she stands. And about the foreign meddling, she puts it in no uncertain terms. “They are rigging the US election,” she wrote Sunday — and we’re letting them get away with it.”
Vittert begins with a simple point. She asks, have you ever met Donald Trump? Many people (Vittert says “most”) have never even seen the candidates. Rather, the media — conventional and now social, too — are our conduit of information. We only know the Ukraine war is raging because of it, for example. And the media shape Americans’ (mis)understanding of the war. Likewise, points out Vittert, these “third parties” mold public opinion on the election.
She begins with TikTok, the app used by 170 million Americans — and which is tied to China’s fascistic regime. It’s clear, Vittert writes, that China is using the platform to spread disinformation, including anti-American propaganda. As an example, she writes:
Do you think it was a coincidence that Osama bin Laden’s “letter to America” went viral on TikTok shortly after the October 7 massacre of Jews by Hamas, and the day after President Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the subject?
In fact, TikTok is America’s single greatest disseminator of misinformation, Vittert asserts. Don’t expect the Democrats, however, to rein in this platform controlled by our main geopolitical adversary. And never mind, the professor states, that it spread disinformation to hundreds of thousands of Americans in 2020 (or was it millions?). After all, it is invaluable for reaching young voters — and its bias doesn’t exactly favor the Republicans.
Not Just Foreigners Who Are Foreign
Moreover, American tech behemoths also facilitate foreign interference. As Vittert relates, in profit’s name, Apple
has allowed innumerable apps that are little more than tools owned and created by Russia, China and Iran to infiltrate the American public. For example, FaceApp (the social media app that ages you) had about over 80 million downloads by American citizens, with the terms and conditions saying that the Russian-owned company, with connections to Vladimir Putin’s regime, could use their uploaded images “in perpetuity.” In other words, you can expect a few million Twitter bots at least, using real Americans’ faces and names, coming at you in the election disinformation cycle.
Grindr, a gay dating app, was sold to a Chinese tech firm in 2018. The U.S. is now forcing it to be sold back, citing a national security risk.
Why, though, would the Chinese, whose government banned “sissy men” on TV in 2021, be interested in a homosexual app?
Vittert has a theory. Grindr users “input their locations and even HIV status,” she states. Now the Chinese regime has that information — “a perfect recipe for blackmail against U.S. civilian and military leaders.”
The professor then continues:
The New York Times reported that Facebook gave access to more than 150 companies, a fact that Zuckerberg previously did not disclose, including giving Microsoft’s search engine Bing access to your data without consent and allowing companies such as Spotify and Netflix to read private messages.
At the top of the list is Yandex, the company behind what is essentially the Russian version of Google’s search engine. All that very private information (of millions of Americans) going directly to the Kremlin scares me. But what scares me more is that Facebook is defending this activity, citing “no evidence of abuse by its partners.”
Really?
The Big Picture
In the U.S., Facebook has 200 million-plus users, Instagram 100 million-plus, and X has approximately 70 million, Vittert states. Of course, there is some overlap there. Even so, it means that about 60 percent of our population has likely imbibed foreign propaganda.
Oh, it’s not that “American” Big Tech tolerates it, either — it might, in fact, relish it. First, these foreign associations are money makers. But then there’s this: The foreign agenda and Big Tech’s greatly overlap. That is, many of our geopolitical enemies may favor the Democrats, and so does Big Tech. Vittert mentions, for example, how Facebook pushes leftist content while censoring conservatives. (I experience this firsthand, having been victimized by it.)
One more point: X (Twitter) shouldn’t be conflated with the other tech giants. MDS aside — that is, Musk Derangement Syndrome — X is true informational democracy in action. It is actual social media, vox populi, in that it is largely an open forum. This is reflected in its “community notes.” This is when users, en masse, identify falsehoods, causing a corrective note to be attached to misinformation-containing tweets. The system works remarkably well. In fact, I’ve yet to see an incorrect community note.
This just underlines how the best way to combat false speech is with more speech — not with censorship by disinformation-spewing governments.
