{"id":729,"date":"2011-02-28T13:30:19","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T18:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=729"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:58:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:58:05","slug":"fear-the-sockpuppets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/02\/28\/fear-the-sockpuppets\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear The Sockpuppets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Growing up in the dawn of the Internet Age, as children we were often told, \u201cdon\u2019t trust strangers online,\u201d and frightened with stories of abductors posing as digital friends.\u00a0 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 \u2013 the manipulation of not one online persona, but of the digital populace as a whole.<\/p>\n

Last week, I described how Web 2.0 technologies \u2013specifically Twitter \u2013 can be manipulated to\u00a0create a faux story<\/a>\u00a0and how current election law is likely unable to do anything to stop abuse by a campaign trying to perpetrate such an act.\u00a0 Today, I\u2019d like to discuss how the Internet could be manipulated to create a faux reaction.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span>The source of this threat is sockpuppets.\u00a0 Sockpuppets \u2013 in general \u2013 are online identities designed to present a deceptive portrayal.\u00a0 While individuals have employed sockpuppets since the earliest days of the Internet (the boogieman online abductor is the most infamous example), the issue at hand is use of sockpuppets in an unprecedented manner, one that is organized, systematic, and widespread.\u00a0 This possibility was described by the Daily Kos last week.\u00a0 They commented on leaked emails by tech security company, HBGary which\u00a0describe software that develops sockpuppets en masse<\/a>.\u00a0 Essentially, the software allows a small group of individuals to pose as an extremely large group of people online.<\/p>\n

The impact of this is profound.\u00a0 And while politicians may not yet have\u00a0learned to master<\/a>\u00a0the sockpuppet trick, this software gives them frightening power.\u00a0 Using it, campaigns can corrupt our discourse by overrunning, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube with hundreds \u2013 even thousands \u2013 of fake personas.\u00a0 These armies of sockpuppets can create an illusion of public perception and, with mainstream media increasingly looking to these forums as the\u00a0basis of their coverage<\/a>, this manufactured \u201cpublic opinion\u201d can quickly be transformed through an echo chamber to become reality.<\/p>\n

Two legal issues confine our ability to react to this threat.\u00a0 The first is election law.\u00a0 As I described last week, the social media sites at issue here provide a platform of free online media and thus, are not subject to election law as is paid media.\u00a0 This gives campaigns anonymity to act, and no legal obligation to disclose their activities.\u00a0 The fact that this \u2013 unlike an individual faux Twitter account \u2013 involves complex and likely expensive software does provide a wrinkle that might allow us to apply election law, but hiring a new media consultant who possesses it seems to be an easy enough loophole to use the technology without disclosing one\u2019s activities to the public.<\/p>\n

Free speech is the other legal factor that burdens our ability to react to sockpuppets.\u00a0 Anonymity can, on one hand, be an essential feature to preserving free speech; news sources serve as a clear-cut example of this.\u00a0 However, this form of concealment seems to be subverting free speech more than actually serving it.\u00a0 At a time when weighing free speech against state interests, \u2013 notably in the context of\u00a0Internet and secrecy<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 has become a major issue in America, this technology possibly brings us to a point of drawing a line in the sand.\u00a0 And with social media now serving as a tool of\u00a0reform and revolution<\/a>, the potential impact is enormous.<\/p>\n

The role of the Internet, and how it affects the democratic process, is a question that will continue to arouse\u00a0debate and discussion<\/a>.\u00a0 The Internet appears inherently democratic because of its egalitarianism; it empowers us by providing an unlimited ability to communicate and acquire knowledge, putting all people on an equal ground.\u00a0 However, as sockpuppets show, any powerful force for democracy can become a force for consolidating power, and this is a lesson me must always be vigilant of.<\/p>\n

Image by\u00a0Tim Murtaug<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque Growing up in the dawn of the Internet Age, as children we were often told, \u201cdon\u2019t trust strangers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-bL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}