Bad News Bots: How Civil Society Can Combat Automated Online Propaganda
BY Sam Woolley and Phil Howard | Wednesday, December 10 2014
Clever Script Kiddies (by DeNovo Broome, CC BY 2.0)
t’s no secret that governments and political actors now make use of social robots or bots—automated scripts that produce content and mimic real users. Faux social media accounts now spread pro-governmental messages, beef up web site follower numbers, and causeartificial trends. Bot-generated propaganda and misdirection has become a worldwide political strategy. In this guest post, Sam Woolley and Phil Howard suggest some ways to fight back. Read More
Hoping to Help Curb Corruption in Morocco by Mapping It Online
BY Hanna Sistek | Wednesday, May 30 2012
Tarik Nesh-Nash conceived of and became part of the team that built Mamdawrinch, a just-launched site to map incidents of bribery in Morocco. Built with Transparency Maroc, the Moroccan chapter of Transparency International, the site tackles what Nesh-Nash says is an "endemic" problem in the North African country. Transparency International ranks perception of corruption in Morocco as about as bad as it is in Greece and Columbia, but slightly better than in India. ("Mamdawrinch" means "we will not bribe" in Moroccan dialect.) The focus, says Nesh-Nash, is on the petty corruption that has become part of everyday life in Morocco. "I wanted to open up the debate on the topic," says Nesh-Nash. Read More
Where Next for the Arab Spring? Look At Networked Middle Classes Without Oil
BY Micah L. Sifry | Monday, March 21 2011
Philip Howard adds one more crucial variable to the discussion of the factors affecting the Arab Spring (see my "Egypt, Tunisia: Generation TXT Comes of Age?"): oil, or the degree to which a country's economy has or ... Read More