Das Strategic Communication Centre of Excellence (Stratcom) der NATO hat sich in zwei Studien mit der Manipulation in sozialen Medien beschäftigt:
2019: Falling Behind: How Social Media Companies are Failing to Combat Inauthentic Behaviour Online
2020: Social Media Manipulation Report 2020. How Social Media Companies are failing to combat inauthentic behaviour online
In beiden Experimenten wurden reale Social-Media-Konten dazu genommen, sie mit für Fake News und Kommentaren zu fluten.
“To test the ability of Social Media Companies to identify and remove manipulation, we bought engagement on 105 different posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube using 11 Russian and 5 European (1 Polish, 2 German, 1 French, 1 Italian) social media manipulation service providers.
At a cost of just 300 EUR, we bought 3 530 comments, 25 750 likes, 20 000 views, and 5 100 followers. By studying the accounts that delivered the purchased manipulation, we were able to dentify 18 739 accounts used to manipulate social media platforms.”
In einem zweiten Schritt wurden diese Fake-Meldungen an die Sozialen Medien gemeldet. Selbst nach mehreren Wochen waren die Einträge nicht entfernt. Während Twitter und Facebook noch reagiert haben, sind Youtube und besonders Tiktok völlig schutzlos. Die Untersuchungen kommen zu dem Ergebnis: “Self-regulation is not working. The manipulation industry is growing year by year. We see no sign that it is becoming substantially more expensive or more difficult to conduct widespread social media manipulation.”
Stratcom empfiehlt daher, nicht nur die sozialen Medien zu regulieren, sondern insbesondere den Markt für die Medien-Manipulation:
“1. Setting new standards and requiring reporting based on more meaningful criteria
2. Establishing independent and well-resourced oversight of the social media platforms
3. Increasing the transparency of the social media platforms
4. Regulating the market for social media manipulation”