Public Square vs Gladiatorial Arena: Invisible Rulers, Part 2

"America's free speech tradition is predicated on the idea that fact and falsehood will meet in the marketplace of ideas, that both will be heard, and that good ideas will overcome the bad. However, our current communication ecosystem actively stymies that process. We have not a public square but a gladiatorial arena." Renée DiResta, Invisible Rulers (336).

Last week I began discussing Renée DiResta's 2024 book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. She focuses on the concept of the influencer-algorithm-crowd trinity, analyzing how these interact and increasingly create what she calls "bespoke realities." Complete with their own worldviews, conversational norms, tropes, and shared references, bespoke realities act to further factionalize various segments of the public and to shape online and offline behavior. Many of the influencers involved are making huge sums and gaining political traction and clout. Charlie Kirk turns up multiple times as an example at the time it was written: "the bombast and innuendo of Charlie Kirk has earned Turning Point USA millions and millions of dollars—many of which end up in Kirk's pocket, according to an investigation by the Associated Press" (159).

DiResta is part of the Stanford Internet Observatory, which, according to her bio is "a program dedicated to the study of abuse in information technologies." Her expertise as a researcher of such phenomena cuts both ways in an environment where stoking distrust of experts is a key tactic of social media influencers. As in, "will we find her analysis more—or less—believable because she has been a careful observer as well as the victim of such abuse herself?" As her research indicates, the answer may differ wildly, depending on what influencer one has placed most trust in.

In Part 2, in chapters entitled Propagating the Big Lie; Viruses, Vaccines, and Virality; Agents of Influence; The Fantasy Industrial Complex; and The Path Forward; DiResta describes the #StoptheSteal campaign; the culture war's influence on responses to the Covid pandemic; participation by agents or trolls from other countries; ideologically-driven attacks DiResta personally experienced when she and her organization were falsely targeted; and her recommendations for how respond to the challenges of our current communication environment.

The book is an in-depth consideration of issues and history, running 359 pages long, with 58 pages of footnotes. The main takeaways for me involve the velocity with which the trinity responds and sends out ripples into the offline world, its ability to manipulate and spin crowds out into unreality, and the overall impact on people's trust and their ability to reason about what is going on in the world. Based on the evidence she presents, we're in a phase of adaptation to this "infodemic" that truly is every bit as chaotic as it feels. It isn't as though it hadn't been foreseen, however.

Technical Triumph and Social Disaster?

Considering the possible trajectory of computer technology, Yale professor Martin Shubik wrote in the early seventies that,

"Within a few years it may be possible to have a virtually instant referendum on many political issues. This could represent a technical triumph—and a social disaster if instability resulted from instantaneous public reaction to incompletely understood affairs magnified by quick feedback" (329).

Add in interference from the state or from foreign entities, and the effects multiply. Bad enough that information (and propaganda) is being broadcast and received more quickly than it can be reasonably interpreted by viewers, but now there is the added element of AI.

DiResta points out that the high-tech fakery is not solely damaging for what it may make people believe, but also for how it may cause them to doubt the evidence of their own eyes:

"Generative AI enables us to manufacture unreality . . . . But another consequence of this technological revolution is even more important to understand: the liar's dividend, in which awareness of the existence of the technology enables a person to cast doubt on things that are real" (206).

Add to this the proliferation of impersonation—trolling, particularly by Russian agents—and you have a perfect storm of confusion. In the chapter Agents of Influence, DiResta shares findings about how these "personas performed somewhat stereotypical identities," that nonetheless managed to convince some:

Major American media outlets inadvertently embedded IRA troll posts as exemplars of man-on-the-street—'someone on the internet is saying'—commentary in their coverage of online conversations. Some of the accounts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter managed to accrue hundreds of thousands of followers; overall, the effort generated hundreds of millions of likes, shares, reposts, and other engagements across all social platforms" (193)."

In a bizarre episode that illustrates how this online manipulation can cause results offline, DiResta describes how

"the trolls worked to galvanize distinct audiences to protest, and counterprotest, at the site of a Confederate monument in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The audiences of a pro-Muslim and pro-Texas Secession Facebook page were each convinced, by people sitting at desks in Russia, to attend a single rally in downtown Houston—to support Islamic culture or to fight against the growing presence of Islam in Texas—and when they showed up, the police had to separate the crowds" (195).

The cumulative effect is a vicious cycle of distrust that threatens social cohesion:

"Distrust has become the default. Polarization increases distrust which increases polarization" (230).

This was particularly apparent to DiResta as her organization looked at how perceptions of the pandemic developed. She argues that

"Experts face an uphill battle, a result of both actual institutional mistakes and failures, as well as the incentivized exacerbation of distrust" (230).

It seems clear now that this distrust has been leveraged by those driving the current changes in the Department of Health and Human Services.

The flames of distrust have also been fanned by years of aggrieved claims about a supposed platform bias against conservatives. Her chapter, The Fantasy Industrial Complex looks at moderation struggles—both the very real flaws in implementation and the false "censorship" spin that influencers have generated about them. The bottom line for DiResta is that in the social media arena,

"The fight over 'free speech' is about preferential dissemination. It is a fight about algorithmic amplification, share of voice, and the ability to reach vast audiences at no cost—recast as if they were rights. It's a fight for power, for dominance of communication infrastructure and the capacity to shape public opinion" (298).

The current administration's overt efforts to silence dissent and shape the narrative certainly seem to bear this out.

"There is, of course, a deep irony that platforms built to connect the world have severed our ability to find common ground" (358).

The final chapter asserts that we don't have to stand back and watch this destruction, no matter how pervasive and entrenched it seems. DiResta offers many suggestions for addressing the problems she has laid out, including by better moderation frameworks; clear and transparent enforcement of those policies; regulation that assures audiences are aware of which influencers are engaged in paid political speech; co-operation between agencies and platforms to root out foreign influence operations; and algorithm design that slows down potential false viral rumors and steers less attention toward ragebait.

All of Us

These are all measures that platforms and legislators need to work on. But there is work for the rest of us, as well:

"Perhaps the most impactful lever for change is not tweaks to the rules and features of social media but an improved awareness of our own behavior as users . . ." (341).

This is an education issue:

"Learning now about how algorithms function, how tropes and rhetoric work, and why we might be incentivized to spin up outrage can help us recognize when and how we are being manipulated and make us more informed participants. And so, education is our final, and perhaps most powerful lever" (341)

She discusses the need for recognizing propaganda, but also how to deal with rumors; a section on training for "prebunking" false claims suggests this as an effective and essential educational strategy (350). DiResta also advocates for "networked counterspeech":

"In today's world, where rumors and propaganda spread through networks, institutions need networks to spread their messages" (357).

She notes that academics, scientists, and other institutional agents have often been slow to react and are generally much less savvy in their messaging relative to right-wing influencers. And when they finally respond, they have been met with spin:

When we tried to create a network of institutions to help get the most accurate information out to the public, those who wanted to manipulate the discourse unopposed tried to reframe it as a cabal" (357).

In spite of that pushback, DiResta believes that networked counterspeech is necessary. She explains,

When just a few people speak up, they can be easily overwhelmed by a harassment brigade. But a groundswell of outspoken participants can stand up against this harassment and ensure that the viewpoints on social media platforms are more fully representative" (358).

Her final rallying point is a strong and valid one, even as it feels farther and farther out of reach:

"Platforms can design with incentives beyond engagement in mind. Governments can prioritize transparency and the restoration of trust. Counterspeakers—all of us—can leverage the very same networked tools that propagandists do.

The path forward requires systems to mediate, not manufacture, consent. We need systems that are resistant to top-down control and corruption but also to bottom-up, breakneck rumors. This requires a heightened awareness from, again, all of us: a recognition of our own biases and preferences, a commitment to balancing skepticism and trust, and a genuine desire to share the same reality" (359).