Authors:
(1) Filipo Sharevski, DePaul University;
(2) Benjamin Kessell, DePaul University.
Table of Links
2 Internet Activism and Social Media
3 Internet Activism and Misinformation
3.1 Grassroots Misinformation Operations
3.2 Mainstream Misinformation Operations
4 Hacktivism and Misinformation
4.1 Research Questions and 4.2 Sample
4.3 Methods and Instrumentation
5 Misinformation Conceptualization and 5.1 Antecedents to Misinformation
5.2 Mental Models of Misinformation
6 Active Countering of Misinformation and 6.1 Leaking, Doxing, and Deplatforming
7 Misinformation Evolution and 7.1 Counter-Misinformation Tactics
8 Discussion
8.3 Limitations and 8.4 Future Work
6 Active Countering of Misinformation
Literature on misinformation focuses on helping the social media users discern falsehoods with strategies for “prebunking” i.e. forewarning and preemptive refutation of the falsehoods [68] or “debunking” i.e. providing users verifiable corrections of the falsehoods from credible sources to break the illusion of truth [30, 93]. An algorithmic is also available for the mainstream social media platforms (the alternative ones do not deem misinformation as a problem [107]) that leverages natural language processing, image analysis, or metadata to detect trolling and memes [50,51,122]. Platforms also have the option for algorithmic “soft” moderation by either obscuring trolling and memes with warnings covers or attaching warning labels [108, 125] and “hard” moderation for removing or suspending misinformer accounts [63]. None of these solutions, however fends of troll farms and meme disseminators effectively, so we wanted to know what hacktivists have to propose instead in the second research question.
6.1 Leaking, Doxing, and Deplatforming
Suspending user accounts by social media platforms for breach of their code of conduct is referred to as “deplatforming” [1]. In the context of hacktivism, it takes a border meaning as hacktivists do investigative work that entails leaking and doxing but also confrontation with the misinformers that, in their subjective view, breaches the vision of democratic Internet. For example, hacktivists did a massive API scrapping of the alt-platform Parler to leak data that tied users to the Capitol Riots and the QAnon conspiracy [94], which in turn resulted in a massive account deplatforming on Twitter [15]. These activities spur operations to confront and expose the QAnon conspirators on social media (e.g. @QAnonAnonymous [22]), amongst which some of our hacktivists have a direct role in “dismantling the Qanon infrastructure” [P2].
The deplatforming targets political misinformation campaigns where our hacktivists “compiled and leaked dossiers on individuals spreading hateful propaganda and those who seek to sow the seeds of violence” [P1] on social media. These operations were targeted both on “individual spreaders, nation-states, even companies with murky records” [P2]. Several mentioned their direct operations for exposing disinformation relative to the “Ukrainian conflict” [P5], praising the work of the Ukrainian IT Army outfit for dispelling the myth that Ukraine is committing genocide against Russians in the Donbas region [23]. Hacktivists were dedicated in “doxing companies and governmental agencies in response to the political meddling in the US internal affairs from places like Russia, Iran, and China” [P8]. Misinformation “sanctioned by the governments” was targeted by hackers in attempts to deplatform prominent “disinformation front agents on social media, like Irina Tsukerman, for example” [P3].
Leaks and doxing were equally utilized for misinformation beyond political counter(argumentation) and external propaganda. One of the hacktivists has dedicated considerable time on exposing cryptocurrency scammers on social media and elsewhere, deeming the feeling of it as “better than sex” [P5]. Another was focused leaking personal details about predators on social media that spread misinformation to cover their sexual harassment and cyberstalking towards women, “exposing both their sock puppet accounts and their real name on Twitter” [P3]. Another pushed back against criminal misinformation by doxing “bullies, liars, and fraudsters” [P20] and one “anti-cancel culture in case of minors” hacktivist noted that they “successfully deplatformed major participants in hate campaigns and stalking of minors” on social media [P5].
6.2 Anti-Misinformation “Ops”
The hacktivists in our sample engaged in misinformation saturation ops, true to the their commitment to “fight misinformation with more information.” One of the hacktivists stated that it is “expected from the hacktivist community to combat misinformation in such a way” and noted that “it is the sole reason they maintain a Twitter account” [P3]. Another one seconded this posture noting that “it is frustrating to see misinformation from others and other creators but that is the main reason I continue to post on TikTok” [P17]. In the words of P2, “there is more ideological aspect of it when I am fighting disinformation,” directly invoking the mission of the true hacktivists to become reflexively “loud and determined” to speak true information in response to the “general assholery of misinformation on internet” [P9].
Partaking in operation #NAFO (North Atlantic Fellas Organization) dedicated to countering Russian propaganda and disinformation in Ukraine by weaponizing memes [103], our participants materialized a combination of saturation and doxing to “curtail misinformers’ ability to gain followers” [P1]. They extended their work to counter “extremists and fascists and their toxic conspiracy theories” [P1] by disrupting their funding and deplatforming prominent followers, true to the spirit of the “Antifa” hacktivist counterculture [131]. In a similar vein, one of the hacktivists proclaimed that they “greatly contributed in the #OpJane operation” [P10]. #OpJane is the latest operation launched by Anonymous against Texas for enacting the anti-abortion Bill 8 that allows “abortion bounty” for anyone who will investigate and report abortion in the state of Texas [38]. Interestingly, in the announcement of the operation, Anonymous calls for “fighting misinformation with enough plausible and difficult to disprove misinformation” to make any data these bounty hunters gather as useless [5].
This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license.
