One of the most powerful players in the British election is also one of the most opaque. With just over two weeks to go until voters go to the polls, there are two things every election expert agrees on: what happens on social media, and Facebook in particular, will have an enormous effect on how the country votes; and no one has any clue how to measure whats actually happening there.Many of us wish we could study Facebook, said Prof Philip Howard, of the University of Oxfords Internet Institute, but we cant, because they really dont share anything. Howard is leading a team of researchers studying computational propaganda at the university, attempting to shine a light on the ways automated accounts are used to alter debate online.I think that there have been several democratic exercises in the last year that have gone off the rails because of large amounts of misinformation in the public sphere, Howard said. Brexit and its outcome, and the Trump election and its outcome, are what I think of as mistakes, in that there were such significant amounts of misinformation out in the public sphere.
Källa: How social media filter bubbles and algorithms influence the election | Technology | The Guardian
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