Jake Laperruque
Growing up in the dawn of the Internet Age, as children we were often told, “don’t trust strangers online,” and frightened with stories of abductors posing as digital friends. But, while we have always been vigilant of an individual with a misleading online identity, right now we face a new threat with strong ramifications for democracy and discourse – the manipulation of not one online persona, but of the digital populace as a whole.
Last week, I described how Web 2.0 technologies –specifically Twitter – can be manipulated to create a faux story and how current election law is likely unable to do anything to stop abuse by a campaign trying to perpetrate such an act. Today, I’d like to discuss how the Internet could be manipulated to create a faux reaction.