Tracking Political Manipulation Through Social Media – Samantha Bradshaw

Samantha Bradshaw is a researcher at the Computational Propaganda Project and a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute. She’s been tracking the phenomenon of political manipulation through social media.

https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/samantha-bradshaw/
https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/

You can find Samantha on Twitter – https://twitter.com/sbradshaww

The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon – https://twitter.com/craigcannon

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Topics

:30 – What is a bot?

2:30 – When computational propaganda began

3:30 – Changes in bot tactics since 2016

5:30 – Using bots for content creation

7:05 – WhatsApp and the upcoming Indian election

9:00 – Trends in computational propaganda

10:30 – How bots integrate into platforms

13:00 – Responsibilities of platforms to remove fake accounts

14:30 – The role of governments in media manipulation

17:55 – Fake news and selecting news that aligns with your beliefs

19:30 – Are platforms getting better or worse?

21:10 – Samantha’s personal internet habits

22:40 – Sentiment around tracking in the UK vs the US

24:00 – The Mueller report and US midterms

28:45 – Canadian elections

29:55 – 2020 US elections

30:30 – Deepfakes

31:25 – Optimistic thoughts for the future

32:45 – How to help against computational propaganda