RECENT advancements in social media listening tools and media intelligence software have made it possible to track trolls and bots.
These, and the ability to investigate potential perpetrators at the financial level, have added an extra dimension to the "Game of Narratives".
This is good news because social media manipulation should have become harder.
But simple troll farms and bots will persist because there is global demand from threat actors — businesses and individuals, including political figures.
A new type of narrative manipulation has emerged, and researchers at the Crisis Management Centre are calling it the "Actual Angry People Gambit".
A member of the public who has posted a negative comment on a social media platform is found with simple search tools or more sophisticated monitoring software. Normally, this person is not that famous and is just angry about a situation.
The post then goes viral through the buying of 'likes' and 'shares', and with the asistance of trolls. The person who owns the account initially is excited because he becomes famous instantly.
In a process called 'backgrounding', a person informs a reporter or editor in a mainstream publication that covers the topic that the post is going viral and the issue is of public concern.
To make sure the story really gets going, a few smaller online media outlets often owned anonymously but with titles linked to a given geographic location will pick it up, too.
Over the weekend, it catches the attention of a citizen or an interest group that then lodges a report with the authorities.
The media reports on this, and, for good measure, gets the comments of the persons filing the report.
By this time, the individual who made the posting has gone from being a hero to a villain and is subject to an investigation, which can drag on for days and weeks.
The innovative and clever part of this gambit is that there is no financial relationship or any relationship for that matter between the person who makes the initial post and the manipulator of the post itself.
The whole affair looks authentic from the beginning because it is indeed a real person — an actual angry person. And the manipulator can do this with just a small sum of money.
The Quarterly Adversarial Threat Report produced by Meta in August 2022 defines Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour as "efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal, in which fake accounts are central to the operation".
It describes Coordinated Violating Networks as groups working together to break the rules in its community standards.
The "Actual Angry People Gambit" fits neatly into both these boxes.
What we are dealing with is not just misinformation but organised use of social media to manipulate and steer narratives for a strategic goal.
The media may be complicit in the process.
It needs to understand that reporting on a trending post on any social media platform may play right into the hands of some groups that can only be described as digital mercenaries. These groups are not concerned about the consequences of the communication for an individual, community or government.
This goes beyond stoking. It requires a further understanding of the business models of modern media brands, the multiple platforms through which their content flows, and the education levels of the public on issues.
It is critical to continue to educate the media and the public — all part of the society of modern communicators.
* The writer is founder of Crisis Management Centre, Kuala Lumpur
