When Campaigns Manipulate Social Media

Another in a continuing series on the use of online resources in campaigning. Take a look at this article, "When campaigns manipulate social media," by Jared Keller in The Atlantic:

"If you think about how much putting an ad on TV costs, you could pay an army of people to post fake information and promote it through social networks," says Menczer, who, based on his research, anticipates future manipulation of the Twittersphere for political gains. "It's a form of information pollution. Spamming on social networks has very low cost and has the potential to influence a large amount of people. From the point of view of someone running for office, it would be crazy NOT to use this system."

The article takes up the tricky questions of if and how use of social media should be reported on campaign finance reports.