[ecrea] New report: Architects of Networked Disinformation

New Report Launched:
*Architects of Networked Disinformation: Behind the Scenes of Troll 
Accounts and Fake News Production in the Philippines*
*By Jonathan Corpus Ong (U of Massachusetts) and Jason Vincent Cabanes 
(U of Leeds)*

This 82-page report is produced by a British Council-funded ethnographic 
project that gained unprecedented access to the shadow industry of 
political trolling in the Philippines. Based on one year of interviews 
and observation of high-level strategists and fake news authors, we 
mapped out a highly organized and professionalized hierarchy—what we 
call the “architecture of networked disinformation”. While online 
trolling in the Philippines has been attributed to high-profile bloggers 
who support President Rodrigo Duterte and amplify his offensive and 
misogynist speech, the real "chief architects of disinformation" hide in 
plain sight. Holding respectable day jobs as top executives in ad and PR 
agencies, their political side hustles—undisclosed and unregulated—are 
an industry open secret.

The study sketches ethnographic portraits of disinformation architects 
to shed light on their work routines, social and financial motivations, 
as well as the mental acrobatics they make to justify morally sketchy 
work. It identifies the vulnerabilities in the creative industries and 
particularly the digital influencer industry that have not only enabled 
disinformation work but made it financially rewarding.

The Philippines, with its highly organized digital labor force 
represents a “stockpile of digital weapons” that have potentially grave 
consequences to democracies in the West. The report outlines preliminary 
policy recommendations and argues against a one-size-fits-all approach 
to disinformation interventions in global context.

Download here: 
http://newtontechfordev.com/newton-tech4dev-research-identifies-ad-pr-executives-chief-architects-fake-news-production-social-media-trolling/


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