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
Abstract
In this study, we interviewed 22 prominent hacktivists to learn their take on the increased proliferation of misinformation on social media. We found that none of them welcomes the nefarious appropriation of trolling and memes for the purpose of political (counter)argumentation and dissemination of propaganda. True to the original hacker ethos, misinformation is seen as a threat to the democratic vision of the Internet, and as such, it must be confronted on the face with tried hacktivists’ methods like deplatforming the “misinformers” and doxing or leaking data about their funding and recruitment. The majority of the hacktivists also recommended interventions for raising misinformation literacy in addition to targeted hacking campaigns. We discuss the implications of these findings relative to the emergent recasting of hacktivism in defense of a constructive and factual social media discourse.
1 Introduction
Steven Levy’s portrayal of the hacker culture in his 1984 book Hackers largely remains the most influential reference to the public’s general view of hackers [43, 65]. Recasting them Robin Hood-style activists committed to a democratic vision of the Internet [97], Levy asserts that the hacker ethos embodies several sacrosanct postulates to the public good, notably that (i) all information should be free, and (ii) authority should be mistrusted and decentralization promoted [65].
Later-day Internet hackers shifted the ideological tendency for autonomy in the cyberspace towards a vision of the Internet as a popular space for sharing any information that can nevertheless be politicized and weaponized against the neoliberal elites responsible for economic and social disarray [37]. Turning Internet activism into a form of socio-political resistance online [58], enabled a functional selection of issues that no longer necessitated a long preparation [74]. This, in turn, resulted in almost instant convergence and coordination of activities in response to the issues of interest that, over the years, became publicly visible through mass media coverage [47].
The Internet activism, expectedly, bifurcated to online campaigns concerned with the protection of the Internet as a relatively unregulated and unowned space (e.g. Anonymous, WikiLeaks, Snowden [21, 114, 116]) and online campaigns concerned with the protection of human rights and the environment (e.g. the Occupy movement, Arab Spring, Pirate Party [59, 80]). The former activism – or hacktivism - often is anonymous, performed in secret, and operates with a kind of impunity that the Internet technologies seem to afford so far [117]. The later activism – or hashtag activism – usually is public, openly used the Internet for political mobilization, operates primarily on the streets, and subjects to the dangers of crowd violence, harassment, and arbitrary arrest [100].
The hashtag activism historically utilized various Internet technologies such a petition websites (e.g. MoveOn.org for organizing political protests) or e-mail communication (e.g. Tea Party’s campaign to reduce government spending and taxation) [16], but the advent of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube truly accelerated the self-organization and participation in the sociopolitical struggle (e.g. the #BlackLivesMatter and #SchoolStrike4Climate movements [34]). While the essential dependence on social media is apparent, both in a historical context and for the future of the hashtag activism [56], the relationship between the hacktivism and social media is a bit more complicated.
Hacktivists, in contrast, hacked various Internet technologies such as defacing websites [98], breaking into systems to “leak” and “dox” private documents [114, 118], and storm systems with traffic to cause a Denial-of-Service (DOS) [81]. Hacktivists’ foray in social media mirrors these actions as campaigns were undertaken for hijacking/defacement of social media accounts (e.g., Anonymous’s #OpKKK campaign [128]), doxing individuals on Twitter (e.g. the students of Covington High School [70]), and DoS Twitter topics (e.g. #IranTalks campaign [86]). But hacktivists also hacked the social media affordances for content amplification (e.g. StayWokeBot [36, 102]), early instances of trolling (e.g. Rickrolls [101]), and sharing memes (e.g. Lol Cats on 4chan [21]).
Despite the intuitive versatility of social media for such subversive operations, hacktivism became largely inactive on the mainstream platforms following some high profile run-ins with the legal authorities of the leading hacktivists [53, 124]. The apparent absence of hacktivism created a vacuum where no one actively challenged the elites, defended freedom of expression, and appended the vision of democratic social media participation. It took little time, unfortunately, for this vacuum to be appropriated by state-sponsored actors hijacking the hacking playbook for actions aimed not just against the neoliberal elites but the entire social order [32]. Bot-style amplification aided political trolling and sharing of memes in the beforemath of Brexit campaign in the UK [24] and the 2016 elections in the US [10]. The crucial difference in these instances was that the amplified memes and trolling were not pranks but damaging fake news, emotionally-charged memes, and conspiracy theories that instead of unifying the social media crowds for a cause, divided them in opposition camps pitted against each other [111].
In response to such a large-scale disruption on the social media turf, one would have plausibly expected that the hacktivists will retaliate and confront, expose, or counter hack the state-sponsored “trolls” [135]. Misinformation, back to the Levy’s depiction of hacker’s ethics [65], runs counter the (i) all information should be free postulate because it undermines the basic utility of information as a public good (i.e. truth and facts do not dwindle in supply as more people “consume” them and truth and facts are available to all people in a society) [31]. Misinformation also runs counter the (ii) authority should be mistrusted and decentralization promoted postulate because it is promulgated by a state-sponsored “shadow authority,” as evidence confirms in the aftermath of the Brexit and the 2016 US elections [48,73,134]. Surprisingly, the hacktivists never struck back [11], though they clearly poses the capabilities to do so, as witnessed in the Anonymous’s #OpISIS campaign, for instance, where the collective flagged about 101,000 Twitter accounts attributed to the Islamic-State [49].
The absence of response to misinformation on social media by the hacktivist community seemed quite perplexing and, in our opinion, worthy of in-depth inquiry with active “hackers” that still operate in the spirit of the Levy’s code of ethics [65]. Through personal connections and snowballing sampling, we identified 22 prominent hacker figures and set down for at least an hour-long interview with each of them to learn their take on the misinformation ecosystem, on responses to falsehoods on social media, and the way misinformation impacts and shapes the hacktivists’ agenda in the future. We found a consensus among the hacktivists against the present forms of misinformation as an ammunition for political counter(argumentation) and external propaganda. They were adamant to deplatform, dox, and expose every “misinformer” that they believe is polluting the social media discourse, and suggested ways to improve the general misinformation literacy among users in addition to these targeted operations.
To situate our study in the intersection between the hacktivist counter-culture and the rise of misinformation on platforms, we review the interplay between Internet activism, social media, and false information in Section 2. We look in the broader context of misinformation in Section 3 to highlight the pressing need of hacking action to reclaim the social media space true to Levy’s vision of Internet as an information exchange to the public good. In Section 4 we outline our research design and methodology. Sections 5, 6, and 7 expand on our findings and we discuss the implications of the hackers’ disposition to social media misinformation in Section 8. Finally, Section 9 concludes the paper.
This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license.
