FALLING BEHIND, HOW SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES ARE FAILING TO COMBAT INAUTHENTIC BEHAVIOUR ONLINE - Bay, Sebastian; Fredheim, Rolf; Reynolds, Anna (NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, 2019)
From the 2014 invasion of Ukraine to more recent attempts to interfere in democratic elections, antagonists seeking to influence their adversaries have turned to social media manipulation. At the heart of this practice is a flourishing market dominated by Manipulation Service Providers (MSPs) based in Russia. Buyers range from individuals to companies to state-level actors. Typically, these service providers sell social media engagement in the form of comments, clicks, likes, and shares. Since its foundation, the NATO Strategic Communication Centre of Excellence in Riga has studied social media manipulation as an important and integral part of the influence campaigns malicious state and non-state actors direct against the Alliance and its partners
Keywords: Media studies; Politics and communication; Behaviorism; ICT Information and Communications Technologies