Social Media and Politics

Johan Farkas, Lecturer and Researcher at the IT University of Copenhagen, joins the show to discuss his research on "cloaked Facebook pages" that spread propaganda through false identities. We talk about how cloaked Facebook pages have been used in Denmark to spread hate speech about Muslims, how a Facebook group of activists formed to combat these accounts by reporting them to Facebook, and what Facebook's response to the reports actually was. We also get into fake news and post-truth democracy in the age of social media, and why these terms might not best describe the current media environment.

Sergei Samoilenko, co-founder of the Character Assassination and Reputation Politics (CARP) Research Lab at George Mason University, shares his insights on how social media is used as a tool for defamation and crisis communication. We also discuss the state of the internet and social media in Russia, bots and trolls, and the Ukranian crisis. Check out their report: Character Assassination in Theory and Practice. Don't miss Tom Moylan's review of the podcast, and please take 5 minutes for the audience survey!

Please take 5 minutes to take the Audience Survey! And while you're at it, check out our episode on Podcast of the Day! Dr. Nico Carpentier, Professor at the Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University, guests on the podcast this week to discuss media, participation, and conflict in Cyprus. We discuss deliberative versus participatory democracy, as well as Dr. Carpentier's new book, "The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation".

Kenneth Hampton, former Chief of Police in Tchula, Mississippi, joins the podcast to discuss his style of law enforcement, which draws heavily on the use of Facebook. Kenneth discusses how he's used Facebook successfully to curb crime, the controversy he faced surrounding his social media use, and how important his Facebook community is to his job. You can check out Kenneth's Facebook pages, New Southern Justice and Tchula Police Department. The article from the Guardian featured in the intro can be found here.

Karolina Dam, founder of the NGO Sons and Daughters of the World, joins the podcast this week to tell the story of her son, Lukas. Lukas is a Danish citizen who became radicalized in Copenhagen, fled to Syria, and joined ISIS. We discuss how Facebook groups are used to recruit potential terrorists, the role that social media can play in deradicalization, and the types of communication that take place between a foreign fighter and his mother.

Dr. Scott Wright, Senior Lecturer in Political Communication at the University of Melbourne, joins the pod to discuss what citizens' everyday political talk on social media and other online forums means for democracy. D.r Wright shares findings from his research that the design of online forms, and the level of moderation on them, have a demonstrable impact on the quality of democratic debate that occurs within these online, 'Third Spaces.' Tune in to find out more! You can follow Dr. Wright on Twitter @Scott_Wright1

Gab is an upstart social network with over 200,000 users that does not censor its users' content. Utsav Sanduja, Gab's Chief Communications Officer and Global Affairs Director, joins the podcast to discuss what this social media is all about and addresses some of the recent controversies surrounding it. We discuss how Twitter and Facebook have been censoring users' content, the role of Gab in supporting free speech online, and what Gab's position is on bots and fake news. Utsav also talks about the choices made in developing the site's features, what's next for the Gab, and the social network's ambitions to go foster a global community.

Dr. Joel Penney, Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University, discusses his new book *The Citizen Marketer: Promoting Political Opinion in the Social Media Age*. The book explores how everyday citizens actively assist in the promotion of political messages through their social media activity, following logics of viral marketing to enact persuasion at a peer-to-peer level. Dr. Penney shares his research on the Bernie Sanders campaign and the role that citizens played on social media, and Facebook in particular, to help the campaign get out its message through official and unofficial channels. Purchase a copy of The Citizen Marketer: Promoting Political Opinion in the Social Media Age on Amazon here. Follow Dr. Penney on Twitter @professorpenney.

Samir Patel, Managing Director at Blue State Digital London, guests this week to discuss how the recent success of the Labour Party in the 2017 British elections was aided by a huge push in digital by the British Left. We discuss the role that Facebook data targeting played in the election - not just from Labour but also advocacy groups. Samir also explains how social media was used to mobilize the British youth vote, how citizens built their own digital tools to campaign (i.e. civic tech), and some transnational differences (and similarities) between campaigning in the United States, United Kingdom, and other parts of the European Union. We also talk about how Brexit and the upcoming negotiations may affect data privacy laws and campaign regulations. The article that I mention in the introduction can be found on Blue State Digital's website here.

The Social Media and Politics Podcast is a podcast bringing you innovative, first-hand insights into how social media is changing the political game. Subscribe for interviews and analysis with politicians, academics, and leading industry experts to get their take on how social media influences the ways we engage with politics and democracy. Connect with us on Twitter @SMandPPodcast & Facebook: Social Media and Politics Podcast In this episode, Sam Jeffers, co-founder of Who Targets Me, joins the podcast to discuss how sponsored Facebook ads were used by political parties in the 2017 British General Election. Who Targets Me is a project collecting targeted Facebook ads via a Google Chrome extension, and its aim is to shed light on who's posting political dark ads as well as who's being targeted. We discuss the project and what the initial data shows from GE2017. You can follow Sam on Twitter @wrklsshrd.