Bring your own device

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_your_own_device 

Bring your own device (BYOD /ˌbiː waɪ oʊ ˈdiː/)—also called bring your own technology (BYOT), bring your own phone (BYOP), and bring your own personal computer (BYOPC)—refers to being allowed to use one's personally owned device, rather than being required to use an officially provided device.

There are two major contexts in which this term is used. One is in the mobile phone industry, where it refers to carriers allowing customers to activate their existing phone (or other cellular device) on the network, rather than being forced to buy a new device from the carrier.

The other, and the main focus of this article, is in the workplace, where it refers to a policy of permitting employees to bring personally owned devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.) to work, and to use those devices to access privileged company information and applications. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as IT consumerization.

BYOD is making significant inroads in the business world, with about 75% of employees in high-growth markets such as Brazil and Russia and 44% in developed markets already using their own technology at work. Surveys have indicated that businesses are unable to stop employees from bringing personal devices into the workplace. Research is divided on benefits. One survey shows around 95% of employees stating they use at least one personal device for work.

History

The term was initially used by a VoIP service provider BroadVoice in 2004 (initially for AstriCon, but then continued as a core part of the business model) with a service allowing businesses to bring their own device for a more open service provider model. The phrase and the "BYOD" acronym is a take-off on "BYOB", a party invitation term first recorded in the 1970s, standing for "bring your own beer/booze/bottle".

The term BYOD then entered common use in 2009, courtesy of Intel, when it recognized an increasing tendency among its employees to bring their own smartphones, tablets and laptop computers to work and connect them to the corporate network. However, it took until early 2011 before the term achieved prominence, when IT services provider Unisys and software vendor Citrix Systems started to share their perceptions of this emergent trend. BYOD has been characterized as a feature of the "consumer enterprise" in which enterprises blend with consumers. This is a role reversal in that businesses used to be the driving force behind consumer technology innovations and trends.

In 2012, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adopted a BYOD policy, but many employees continued to use their government-issued BlackBerrys because of concerns about billing, and the lack of alternative devices.

New trends

The proliferation of devices such as tablets and smartphones, now used by many people in their daily lives, has led to a number of companies, such as IBM, to allow employees to bring their own devices to work, due to perceived productivity gains and cost savings. The idea was initially rejected because of security concerns but more and more companies are now looking to incorporate BYOD policies.

According to a 2018 study, only 17 percent of enterprises provide mobile phones to all employees, while 31 percent provide to none and instead rely entirely on BYOD. The remaining 52 percent have some kind of hybrid approach where some employees receive corporate mobile phones and others are expected to bring their own.

Prevalence

The Middle East has one of the highest adoption rates (about 80%) of the practice worldwide in 2012.

According to research by Logicalis, high-growth markets (including Brazil, Russia, India, UAE, and Malaysia) demonstrate a much higher propensity to use their own device at work. Almost 75% of users in these countries did so, compared to 44% in the more mature developed markets.

In the UK, the CIPD Employee Outlook Survey 2013 revealed substantial variations by industry in the prevalence of BYOD.

Advantages

While some reports have indicated productivity gains by employees, the results have drawn skepticism. Companies such as Workspot believe that BYOD may help employees be more productive. Others say that using their own devices increases employee morale and convenience and makes the company look like a flexible and attractive employer. Many feel that BYOD can even be a means to attract new hires, pointing to a survey that indicating that 44% of job seekers view an organization more positively if it supports their device.

Some industries are adopting BYOD more quickly than others. A recent study by Cisco partners of BYOD practices found that the education industry has the highest percentage of people using BYOD for work, at 95.25%.

A study by IBM says that 82% of employees think that smartphones play a critical role in business. The study also suggests that the benefits of BYOD include increased productivity, employee satisfaction, and cost savings for the company. Increased productivity comes from a user being more comfortable with their personal device; being an expert user makes navigating the device easier, increasing productivity. Additionally, personal devices are often more up-to-date, as the devices may be renewed more frequently. BYOD increases employee satisfaction and job satisfaction, as the user can use the device they have selected as their own rather than one selected by the IT team. It also allows them to carry one device rather than one for work and one for personal use. The company can save money as they are not responsible for furnishing the employee with a device, though this is not guaranteed.

Disadvantages

Although the ability of staff to work at any time from anywhere and on any device provides real business benefits, it also brings significant risks. Companies must deploy security measures to prevent information ending up in the wrong hands. According to an IDG survey, more than half of 1,600 senior IT security and technology purchase decision-makers reported serious violations of personal mobile device use.

Various risks arise from BYOD, and agencies such as the UK Fraud Advisory Panel encourage organisations to consider these and adopt a BYOD policy.

BYOD security relates strongly to the end node problem, whereby a device is used to access both sensitive and risky networks and services; risk-averse organizations issue devices specifically for Internet use (termed Inverse-BYOD).

BYOD has resulted in data breaches. For example, if an employee uses a smartphone to access the company network and then loses that phone, untrusted parties could retrieve any unsecured data on the phone. Another type of security breach occurs when an employee leaves the company; they do not have to give back the device, so company applications and other data may still be present on their device.

Furthermore, people may sell their devices and forget to wipe sensitive information before the handover. Family members may share devices such as tablets; a child could play games on a parent's tablet and accidentally share sensitive content via email or other means such as Dropbox.

IT security departments wishing to monitor usage of personal devices must ensure that they monitor only activities that are work-related or access company data or information.

Organizations adopting a BYOD policy must also consider how they will ensure that the devices which connect to the organisation's network infrastructure to access sensitive information will be protected from malware. Traditionally if the device was owned by the organisation, the organisation can dictate for what purposes the device may be used or what public sites may be accessed from the device. An organisation can typically expect users to use their own devices to connect to the Internet from private or public locations. The users could be susceptible from attacks originating from untethered browsing or could potentially access less secure or compromised sites that may contain harmful material and compromise the security of the device.

Software developers and device manufacturers constantly release security patches to counteract threats from malware. IT departments that support organisations with a BYOD policy must have systems and processes to apply patches protecting systems against known vulnerabilities of the devices that users may use. Ideally, such departments should have agile systems that can quickly adopt the support necessary for new devices. Supporting a broad range of devices obviously carries a large administrative overhead. Organisations without a BYOD policy have the benefit of selecting a small number of devices to support, while organisations with a BYOD policy could also limit the number of supported devices, though this could defeat the objective of allowing users the freedom to choose their preferred device freely.

Several market and policies have emerged to address BYOD security concerns, including mobile device management (MDM), containerization and app virtualization. While MDM allows organizations to control applications and content on the device, research has revealed controversy related to employee privacy and usability issues that lead to resistance in some organizations. Corporate liability issues have also emerged when businesses wipe devices after employees leave the organization.

A key issue of BYOD which is often overlooked is BYOD's phone number problem, which raises the question of the ownership of the phone number. The issue becomes apparent when employees in sales or other customer-facing roles leave the company and take their phone number with them. Customers calling the number will then potentially be calling competitors, which can lead to loss of business for BYOD enterprises.

International research reveals that only 20% of employees have signed a BYOD policy.

It is more difficult for the firm to manage and control the consumer technologies and make sure they serve the needs of the business. Firms need an efficient inventory management system that keeps track of the devices employees are using, where the device is located, whether it is being used, and what software it is equipped with. If sensitive, classified, or criminal data lands on a U.S. government employee's device, the device is subject to confiscation.

Another important issue with BYOD is of scalability and capability. Many organisations lack proper network infrastructure to handle the large traffic generated when employees use different devices at the same time. Nowadays, employees use mobile devices as their primary devices and they demand performance which they are accustomed to. Earlier smartphones used modest amounts of data that were easily handled by wireless LANs, but modern smartphones can access webpages as quickly as most PCs do and may use radio and voice at high bandwidths, increasing demand on WLAN infrastructure.

Finally, there is confusion regarding the reimbursement for the use of a personal device. A recent court ruling in California indicates the need of reimbursement if an employee is required to use their personal device for work. In other cases, companies can have trouble navigating the tax implications of reimbursement and the best practices surrounding reimbursement for personal device use. A 2018 study found that 89 percent of organizations with a BYOD policy provide a full or partial stipend to compensate employees for their mobile phone expenses. On average, these organizations paid employees $36 per month as a BYOD stipend.

Personally owned, company enabled (POCE)

A personally owned device is any technology device that was purchased by an individual and was not issued by the agency. A personal device includes any portable technology such as cameras, USB flash drives, mobile wireless devices, tablets, laptops or personal desktop computers.

Corporate-owned, personally enabled (COPE)

As part of enterprise mobility, an alternative approach are corporate-owned, personally enabled devices (COPE). Under such policies, the company purchases and provides devices to their employees, but the functionality of a private device is enabled to allow personal usage. The company maintains all of these devices similarly to simplify its IT management; the organization will have permission to delete all data on the device remotely without incurring penalties and without violating the privacy of its employees.

BYOD policy

A BYOD policy must be created based on the company's requirements. BYOD can be dangerous to organizations, as mobile devices may carry malware. If an infected device connects to the company network, data breaches may occur. If a mobile device has access to business computing systems, the company's IT administrator should have control over it. A BYOD policy helps eliminate the risk of having malware in the network, as the management team can monitor all contents of the device and erase data if any suspicious event is captured. BYOD policies may specify that the company is responsible for any devices connected to a company network.

Additional policies

BYOD policies can vary greatly from organization to organization depending on the concerns, risks, threats, and culture, so differ in the level of flexibility given to employees to select device types. Some policies dictate a narrow range of devices; others allow a broader range of devices. Related to this, policies can be structured to prevent IT from having an unmanageable number of different device types to support. It is also important to state clearly which areas of service and support are the employees' responsibilities versus the company's responsibility.

BYOD users may get help paying for their data plans with a stipend from their company. The policy may also specify whether an employee is paid overtime for answering phone calls or checking email after hours or on weekends. Additional policy aspects may include how to authorize use, prohibited use, perform systems management, handle policy violations, and handle liability issues.

For consistency and clarity, BYOD policy should be integrated with the overall security policy and the acceptable use policy. To help ensure policy compliance and understanding, a user communication and training process should be in place and ongoing.

Feminism and media

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_and_media 

The socio-political movements and ideologies of feminism have found expression in various media. These media include newspaper, literature, radio, television, social media, film, and video games. They have been essential to the success of many feminist movements.

Susan B. Anthony, one of the authors of The Revolution

History

The history of feminism dates back to the 19th century and continues through present day. Feminism can be broken down into three distinct sections: first-wave, second-wave, and third-wave.

The terms "suffragette" and "feminist" refer to different movements, particularly in the early 1900s. Suffragists aimed to make it possible for women to vote in elections, but reinforced the notion that women should remain domestic (caring for the home, family, and community). Feminists, on the other hand, not only supported suffrage, but also were advocates for women to be entitled to the "same level of participation, economic independence, and social and sexual freedoms as men" (Finn, 2012).

First-wave feminism

First-wave feminism refers to the feminist movement of the 19th and early 20th century. At this time, women had little control over their lives. Generally, they were housewives who were uneducated and possessed no property or economic rights. Their lives were overwhelmingly limited creating discontent in the context of being limited to roles such as motherhood or wife-hood.

Feminists of the time (mostly middle-class white women) focused on the legal disabilities of women, especially women's suffrage. The first wave began at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, in which Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the Seneca Falls Declaration. The Declaration outlined the feminist's political strategies and philosophies. Suffragists worked together to attract more women to their cause, they went against traditional methods such as propaganda and lobbying that were previously learned during Radical Reconstruction and the abolitionist movements.

The first-wave was fueled by The Second Great Awakening, which allowed women to have more leadership roles in society, and the abolition and temperance movements. Women were generally excluded from these movements, prompting suffragists to demand women's suffrage. However, not all suffragists considered themselves feminists; they were eager for the right to vote, but not in favor of gender equality. Suffragists and feminists had their first success when New York passed the Married Women's Property Act in 1860, which legalized property ownership for women. They also had success when Congress ratified the 19th Amendment in 1920, allowing women the right to vote.

First-wave feminism use of media

The feminists' message during first-wave feminism was primarily spread through newspaper and other printed media such as pamphlets and bulletins.

Second-wave feminism

Feminists attempted to draw attention by forming women-only organizations, such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), and publishing papers that advocated women's equality, such as "The BITCH Manifesto". Radical feminists promoted the idea that "gender is an absolute rather than a relative category". An early depiction of this view includes Valerie Solanas's, S.C.U.M Manifesto written in 1967. The major legislative focus of the wave was on the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which guaranteed social equality regardless of sex. The ERA made it to Congress for ratification, but failed to be ratified. The second-wave is said to have ended in the early 1980s with the discussion of sexuality and pornography, issues that were discussed during the third wave. With more advanced technology in the second wave, feminists used newspapers, television, radio, and published papers to spread their message.

Prior to 1960, both men and women accepted the reality of traditional gender and family roles. But, when the second-wave feminism began, women challenged these roles both at home and at work. (Beck, 1998). Betty Friedan's 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, has been said to have spurred the second-wave movement due to its discussion of the unhappiness of (white, middle-class) women "with their limited gender roles and their sense of isolation in the suburban nuclear family" (Mendes, 2011).

Second-wave feminism use of media

It was also during this period (around the 1960s and 1970s) that women's portrayal on television was changing, in part due to the eventual release of "female sexual and political energy" (Douglas, 1994). Before this time, women's sexuality could be considered a "taboo" topic, creating for a revolutionary change in the portrayal of women on television. Examples of these different female roles include but are not limited to: Morticia Addams (The Addams Family), Samantha Stevens (Bewitched), and Mary Richards (The Mary Tyler Moore Show). All of the aforementioned women were either magical in some way and/or a strong female character, which differed from the more stereotypical-housewife roles from the 1950s. In addition, many roles in this era portrayed the woman as independent, thus not needing or seeking out a man.

Third-wave feminism

Third-wave feminism started beginning in the early 1990s and continues into the present. This movement grew as a response of the supposed failures and criticism of the second-wave movement. The goals of the movement were broadened from the second wave to focus on ideas such as lesbian theory, abolishing gender roles and stereotypes, and defending sex work, pornography, and sex-positivity. The movement has a focus on lesbian and African American women as distinct from traditional feminists, and it has weakened many traditional concepts, such as those notions of gender, heteronormativity, and "universal womanhood". This conversation on social media on womanhood has strengthened the understanding of the "economy of the celebrity". (Keller)

Third-wave feminism use of media

Third-wave feminism depends mostly on social media to spread its goals. Social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook are consistently covered in feminist messages, and hashtag campaigns are steadily spread to convey feminist ideas (#heforshe, #yesallwomen, #whyistayed). Many television shows also feature dominant, strong women and encourage the idea that women are equal to men (Nashville, Orange Is the New Black, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Press (2011) wrote that third-wave feminism focuses more on women's sexual freedom, which has come a long way since the time of second-wave feminism. Disparities such as the "orgasm gap" still exist (Armstrong, England & Fogarty, 2010), which describes the sexual inequalities between men and women involving sexual gratification. The media also continues to oppose the existence of women's sexual freedom, noted with the continued use of the word "slut" as well as the emphasized importance of virginity, which is often displayed in popular culture.

Mass media

Though most journalists aim to create an objective view of their subjects, feminism has long been portrayed in a negative light. Feminism's portrayal is fueled by the idea that the media seems to lean toward opposition; pinning women again men creates the mostly negative roles women become portrayed by. A study by Lind and Saio (2006) revealed that feminists rarely appear in the media and are often demonized. They are often portrayed as different from "regular" women, and are not associated with day-to-day activities, but rather, public activities and events. Feminists are also not often portrayed as victims and are more frequently associated with the women's movement and their goals compared to regular women (meaning if a woman isn't a labeled "feminist" she often isn't associated with the movement, despite being female). Creedon (1993) wrote, "feminists are constantly framed as deviant sexually, a bunch of man-haters out to destroy 'family values.'" In the media, the term "feminism" is often opposed to the term "family", leading to the idea that feminists can't be family women. This negative portrayal over the decades has led many young women rejecting the idea of feminism, in part due to feminists being labeled as "man bashers". Other labels associated with feminism include: "bubblehead", "Amazons", "angries", "radical", and "hairy" (Jones, 1992). Most media decision-makers are male, although women are beginning to enter the field of journalism. The contemporary women's movement has predominantly been ignored through mainstream media, leaving only room for a few high-profile exceptions. The Miss America pageant of 1968 was one of the first high-profile cases to be publicized. Although to the feminist movement's dismay, the coverage was both distorted and sensationalized. During the occurrence of the event, the term "bra-burner" label for women unearthed itself. The practice of labeling feminists with derogatory terms has been a method to silence its supporters and promote fear of speaking out.

Flora Davis (1991) wrote in her book, Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America, that the media coverage on the feminist movement wasn't necessarily negative, as it was the media that spotlighted the movement in 1969. In addition, Davis notes that the media is the source that publicized the movement's issues, heroines, and activities and allowed the movement to reach individuals it may have not otherwise.

On screen media

Social media

In recent years, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have led to widespread discussion on issues ranging from domestic abuse to street harassment, catcalling, and abortion. In 2012, feminists in Turkey created Facebook groups to organize and mobilize protests and marches against legislation of a nationwide abortion ban. Feminists in other parts of the European Union began to take notice and promoted the issue in their respective Facebook groups and the legislation was eventually dropped from the legislative agenda.

In the wake of the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal, in which video evidence showed the Baltimore Ravens running back knocking his then fiancée, Janay Palmer, unconscious, writer Beverly Gooden started the Twitter hashtag #WhyIStayed. This hashtag highlighted personal experiences of herself and other women who stayed in abusive relationships. This quickly spawned subsequent hashtags including #WhyILeft which many used to describe the final incident of abuse or reason for leaving.

Feminist use of Twitter

In 2013, the Representation Project created a mobile app called #NotBuyingIt which allows users to connect with each other and quickly tweet or otherwise engage sexist media ranging from advertisements to soundbites and quotes from public figures. It is often used during football season where Super Bowl ads are notoriously deemed sexist. In the aftermath of the University of California-Santa Barbara shootings, thousands of women across the internet began tweeting experiences of sexism experienced in their daily lives with the hashtag #YesAllWomen. In June 2014, as a response to the US Supreme court's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, there were thousands of tweets containing #HobbyLobby, #JoinTheDissent and #NotMyBossBusiness expressing emotions ranging from disdain to rage at the Supreme Court's decision to allow employers not to cover certain contraceptives on a religious basis. According to Matthew Slutsky at Change.org, social media has opened the forums on these issues to not only feminists and other activists, but to anyone who wants to discuss them.

#MeToo movement

Sign from the 2019 Women's March supporting the #MeToo movement.

In 2017, actress Alyssa Milano brought the #MeToo movement to light when she asked her Twitter followers to reply with #metoo if they had experienced sexual assault. While Milano's actions have received backlash for taking credit for a movement that was started by an African American women the movement has stood to expose sexual harassment and assault within the work place. Following the social media popularity it was reported that 30% of women and 4% of men reported experiencing sexual assault within the U.S. academic medical field. While Milano brought popularity to the movement following allegations against Harvey Weinstein she did not create the movement or the phrase. Activist Tarana Burke originally started the movement in 2007. She started using the term "me too" to show solidarity with girls and women who had and were experiencing sexual assault. This movement reached all aspects of life in the United States including Hollywood, politics, education, news outlets, and even agriculture. The #MeToo movement has allowed not only a shift or norms but a shift in policies, education, and trainings in order to create better reporting systems and prevent sexual misconduct from occurring.

Emma Watson

In addition, celebrities such as Emma Watson have also taken a pro-feminist stance through social media. In 2014, the UN Women's Ambassador stated, "I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights." Her speech also goes into depth about the negative connotation the word feminist has because of social media and how we as a society can take a stand for gender equality.

Studies into political campaigning have proven that women tweet more aggressively than their male counterparts, as platforms such as Twitter allow women to bypass traditional media and bring attention to their own raw narrative. In 2018 the use of feminist social media came to the forefront in the referendum to appeal the abortion laws in Ireland. Grassroots campaign groups, like TogetherForYes, strategized their social media to campaign and influence a positive "yes" vote to amend abortion laws. When tackling these feminist issues, social media can bring somewhat traditional private issues into the public, an exposure that can encourage positive change as emotions are mobilized across an online network, reaching people who can not only vote, but also those who can encourage voters, to support their women counterparts.

Film

Film is an aspect of media that contributes to the socialization of citizens. Feminist themes in film have become more commonplace within modern history and feminist film theory was born out of several disciplines of psychoanalysis conjoining with the emerging film industry and the views of sexuality and gender roles.

In her 1970 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", Laura Mulvey diagnosed two major issues within Hollywood that she felt allowed for an inaccurate portrayal of the feminine experience up until that time. Her first claim, that "men and women are differentially positioned by cinema", states that women are positioned in roles as inferior or subservient to men. The lead roles or main action roles are normally held by men. She argued that this perpetuates the stereotypes that females are incapable and that males are dominating and the leaders of the group. The second claim is that women are portrayed in film as "objects for masculine desire and fetishistic gazing", writing that this relates directly to the sexuality of females and that the prevalence of a romantic element to a female's role shows that beyond a romantic or sexual element, women in the plot line are essentially worthless. Sophie Mayer's 2016 publication Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema focuses on feminist film theory in the 21st century and argues that many of the same issues pointed out in Mulvey's essay continue. Mayer focuses instead on other elements of film beside plot to view through a feminist lens. She also looks at other cinematic elements such as costuming that expand the volume of works that can be reviewed with feminist film theory.

Video games

Video games have become a new form of media that derives from other media, such as books, films, and music. It is a new model that can interact with old forms of media and then create new contents or means of entertainment and interaction. With the development of video games, female characters play a significant role in the gaming world. However, most of the female characters are usually being objectified by video games. Especially, there are a large number of female characters who are objectified as sex workers in commercial video games. Yao et al. state that female heroines in action-based video games often wear sexy outfits barely covering their bodies. Moreover, Yao et al. also indicate that sexualized female characters may prime males' thoughts about sex and encourage them to view women as objects, fueling belief in negative female stereotypes. As a result, objectifying females has severely affected gender equality, and it also becomes a method that game companies use to attract male players. Through the development of video games, males have always been the main customers, so game companies do not intend to consider the feelings of female players. Bonnie Ruberg states that the reason for having discrimination against female characters is not because of the erotic labor but the devaluation behavior that presents in the games. Moreover, in her article "Representing sex workers in video games: feminisms, fantasies of exceptionalism, and the value of erotic labor", she criticizes the game's description and portrayal of female characters, and she also promotes that video games need a diversity of feminisms.

Ms. is a feminist focused magazine

Print publications

Though hardcopy newspapers do not carry the readership they once did, they played a historically important role in the circulation of feminist ideas within Western societies. Newspapers were the dominant form of mass media throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, beginning to decline only after the proliferation of radio and television news. Feminist newspapers allowed women and their group interests to voice their opinion to a larger audience with more consistency and accuracy than word of mouth, helping lay the groundwork for organized movements to take hold. Throughout the 1800s, several feminist newspapers were started with varying degrees of success. The German feminist newspaper founded by Mathilde Franziska Anneke, Frauenzeitung, managed to produce a single issue. In contrast, Louise Otto-Peters's Frauen-Zeitung, a weekly German feminist newspaper, lasted from April 1849 to at least the middle of 1852. The readership and lifespan of feminist newspapers varies widely, but there are several examples that are known for their contributions to the cause of feminism through this form of mass media.

La Voix des Femmes

La Voix des Femmes (English: The Voice of Women) was founded by Eugénie Niboyet and remained in print from 1848 to 1852. It was the first French feminist daily newspaper and enjoyed great success. Its decline was due to the rise of conservatism under Napoleon III.

La Fronde

La Fronde (English: The Sling) was another French feminist daily newspaper created by Marguerite Durand. It ran from 9 December 1897, to March 1905. It was run and written solely by women. It notably achieved a readership of 50,000 in Paris, before financial problems led to its closure.

Courage

A group of women from the Kreuzberg Women's Centre created the German feminist newspaper Courage in 1976. The paper published many articles on taboo subjects that were issues for feminists, such as abortion, sexual violence, and forced prostitution. The newspaper declared bankruptcy in 1984 because of the loss of readership due to negative coverage from male press and competing feminist papers.

The Revolution

The Revolution was an American weekly newspaper created by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as a reaction to the National Woman Suffrage Association's call to put women's suffrage on hold, to deal with the issue of African American male suffrage. The establishment of the newspaper in January 1868 helped keep the women's suffrage movement alive during the post-civil war era. However, Anthony's ideological commitments, including her opposition to "quack medicine" and "Restellism" (a reference to Madame Restell, a 19th-century British-born American abortionist), limited available income for the newspaper. Bankruptcy was declared in 1870, and Anthony shouldered the $10,000 debt.

Media Directory of Women Experts

The Independent Women's Forum published the Media Directory of Women Experts as a way of providing journalists with names of women that could give conservative opinions on topics.

Social media use in politics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_use_in_politics 

Social media use in politics refers to the use of online social media platforms in political processes and activities. Political processes and activities include all activities that pertain to the governance of a country or area. This includes political organization, global politics, political corruption, political parties, and political values.

The internet has created channels of communication that play a key role in circulating news, and social media has the power to change not just the message, but the dynamics of political corruption, values, and the dynamics of conflict in politics. Through the use of social media in election processes, global conflict, and extreme politics, diplomacy around the world has become less private and susceptive to the public perception.

Background

Participatory role

Social media have been championed as allowing anyone with an Internet connection to become a content creator and empowering their users. The idea of “new media populism” encompasses how citizens can include disenfranchised citizens, and allow the public to have an engaged and active role in political discourse. New media, including social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, can enhance people's access to political information.

Social media platforms and the internet have facilitated the dissemination of political information that counters mainstream media tactics that are often centralized and top-down, and include high barriers to entry. Writer Howard Rheingold characterized the community created on social networking sites:

"The political significance of computer mediated communication lies in its capacity to challenge the existing political hierarchy’s monopoly on powerful communications media, and perhaps thus revitalize citizen-based democracy."

Scholar Derrick de Kerckhove described the new technology in media:

"In a networked society, the real powershift is from the producer to the consumer, and there is a redistribution of controls and power. On the Web, Karl Marx’s dream has been realized: the tools and the means of production are in the hands of the workers."

The role of social media in democratizing media participation, which proponents herald as ushering in a new era of participatory democracy, with all users able to contribute news and comments, may fall short of the ideals. International survey data suggest online media audience members are largely passive consumers, while content creation is dominated by a small number of users who post comments and write new content. Others argue that the effect of social media will vary from one country to another, with domestic political structures playing a greater role than social media in determining how citizens express opinions about stories of current affairs involving the state.

Most people see social media platforms as censoring objectionable political views.

In June 2020, users of the Social Media platform TikTok organised a movement to prank a Trump Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma by buying tickets and not attending so that the rally appeared empty.

As a news source

See also Social media and political communication in the United States.

Social media platforms are increasingly used for political news and information by adults in the United States, especially when it comes to election time. A study by Pew Research conducted in November 2019, found that one-in-five US adults get their political news primarily through social media. 18% of adults use social media to get their political and election news. In small research conducted by McKeever et al in 2022, they found that 269 out of the 510 United States participants had noted that they got most of their information about gun violence from social media sources.

The Pew Research Center further found that out of these United States Adults relying on social media for this information, 48% of them are from ages 18–29.

In addition, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, lead the social media platforms in which the majority of the users use the platforms to acquire news information. Of all United States adults, 67% use the platform with 44% who use the platform to get news.

According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report in 2013, the percentage of online news users who blog about news issues ranges from 1–5%. Greater percentages use social media to comment on news, with participation ranging from 8% in Germany to 38% in Brazil. But online news users are most likely to just talk about online news with friends offline or use social media to share stories without creating content.

The rapid propagation of information on social media, spread by word of mouth, can impact the perception of political figures quickly with information that may or may not be true. When political information is propagated in this manner on purpose, the spread of information on social media for political means can benefit campaigns. On the other hand, the word-of-mouth propagation of negative information concerning a political figure can be damaging. For example, the use of the social media platform Twitter by United States congressman Anthony Weiner to send inappropriate messages played a role in his resignation.

Attention economy

Social media, especially news that is spread through social media sites, plays into the idea of the attention economy. In which content that attracts more attention will be seen, shared, and disseminated far more than news content that does not gather as much traction from the public. Tim Wu from Columbia Law School coins the attention economy as “the resale of human attention.” 

A communication platform such as social media is persuasive, and often works to change or influence opinions when it comes to political views because of the abundance of ideas, thoughts, and opinions circulating through the social media platform. It is found that news use leads to political persuasion, therefore the more that people use social media platforms for news sources, the more their political opinions will be affected. Despite that, people are expressing less trust in their government and others due to media use- therefore social media directly affects trust in media use. It is proven that while reading newspapers there is an increase in social trust where on the contrary watching the news on television weakened trust in others and news sources. Social media, or more specifically news media- plays an important role in democratic societies because they allow for participation among citizens.Therefore, when it comes to healthy democratic networks, it is crucial that that news remains true so it doesn't affect citizens’ levels of trust. A certain amount of trust is necessary for a healthy and well functioning democratic system.

Younger generations are becoming more involved in politics due to the increase of political news posted on various types of social media. Due to the heavier use of social media among younger generations, they are exposed to politics more frequently, and in a way that is integrated into their online social lives. While informing younger generations of political news is important, there are many biases within the realms of social media. In May 2016, former Facebook Trending News curator Benjamin Fearnow revealed his job was to "massage the algorithm," but dismissed any "intentional, outright bias" by either human or automated efforts within the company. Fearnow was fired by Facebook after being caught leaking several internal company debates about Black Lives Matter and presidential candidate Donald Trump.

As a public utility

See also: Social media as a public utility

A key debate centers on whether or not social media is a public good based on the premises of non-rival and non-excludable consumption. Social media can be considered an impure public good as it can be excludable given the rights of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to remove content, disable accounts, and filter information based on algorithms and community standards.

Arguments for platforms such as Google in being treated as a public utility and public service provider include statements from Benjamin Barber in The Nation

"For new media to be potential equalizers, they must be treated as public utilities, recognizing that spectrum abundance (the excuse for privatization) does not prevent monopoly ownership of hardware and software platforms and hence cannot guarantee equal civic, educational, and cultural access to citizens."

Similarly, Zeynep Tufekci argues online services are natural monopolies that underwrite the "corporatization of social commons" and the "privatization of our publics."

One argument that displays the nature of social media as an impure public good is the fact that the control over content remains in the hands of a few large media networks, Google and Facebook, for example. Google and Facebook have the power to shape the environment under personal and commercial goals that promotes profitability, as opposed to promoting citizen voice and public deliberation.

Government regulation

Proponents and aims for regulation of social media are growing due to economic concerns of monopolies of the platforms, to issues of privacy, censorship, network neutrality and information storage. The discussion of regulation is complicated due to the issue how Facebook, and Google are increasingly becoming a service, information pipeline, and content provider, and thus centers on how the government would regulate both the platform as a service and information provider. Thus, other proponents advocate for “algorithmic neutrality”, or the aim for search engines on social media platforms to rank data without human intervention.

Opponents of regulation of social media platforms argue that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter do not resemble traditional public utilities, and regulation would harm consumer welfare as public utility regulation can hinder innovation and competition. Second, as the First Amendment values are criticized on social media platforms, the media providers should retain the power to how the platform is configured.

Effect on democracy

Social media has been criticized as being detrimental to democracy. According to Ronald Deibert, "The world of social media is more conducive to extreme, emotionally charged, and divisive types of content than it is to calm, principled considerations of competing or complex narratives". On the contrary, Ethan Zuckerman says that social media presents the opportunity to inform more people, amplify voices, and allow for an array of diverse voices to speak. Mari K. Eder points to failures of the Fourth Estate that have allowed outrage to be disguised as news, contributing to citizen apathy when confronting falsehoods and further distrust in democratic institutions.

Politicians and social media

Social media has allowed politicians to subvert typical media outlets by engaging with the general public directly. Donald Trump utilised this when he lost the 2020 presidential election by claiming the election to be fraudulent and therefore creating the need for a re-election. The consequences of Trump's online actions were displayed when, on January 6, the U.S. Capitol was attacked by supporters of the former president.

Being a popular presence on social media also boosts a politician's likelihood of coming to power take Boris Johnson in the 2019 bid to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister, Johnson had more than half a million page 'liking' his page (substantially more than the other candidates) which meant that when he released his launch video it gained more than 130,000 views which could have been a prominent factor in him eventually winning power.

A study conducted by Sounman Hong found that in the case of politicians utilising social media and whether its use would increase on their individual weighing up on the consequences and if they would be largely positive or negative found that in the case of backbenchers, 'underdogs' and opposition it was likely to increase in order to gain recognition and support from the public eye where they otherwise might go unnoticed.

Democratization

The Arab Spring

See also: Social media and the Arab Spring

During the peak of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the Internet and social media played a huge role in facilitating information. At that time, Hosni Mubarak was the president of Egypt and head the regime for almost 30 years. Mubarak was so threatened by the immense power that the Internet and social media gave the people that the government successfully shut down the Internet, using the Ramses Exchange, for a period of time in February 2011.

Egyptians used Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as a means to communicate and organize demonstrations and rallies to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak. Statistics show that during this time the rate of Tweets from Egypt increased from 2,300 to 230,000 per day and the top 23 protest videos had approximately 5.5 million views.

Disinformation in relation to US election

Though fake news can generate some utility for consumers, in terms of confirming far-right beliefs and spreading propaganda in favor of a presidential candidate, it also imposes private and social costs. For example, one social cost to consumer is the spread of disinformation which can make it harder for consumers to seek out the truth and, in the case of the 2016 Election, for consumers to choose an electoral candidate. Summarized by a Congressional Research Service Study in 2017,

“Cyber tools were also used [by Russia] to create psychological effects in the American population. The likely collateral effects of these activities include compromising the fidelity of information, sowing discord and doubt in the American public about the validity of intelligence community reports, and prompting questions about the democratic process itself.” 

The marginal social cost of fake news is exponential, as the first article is shared it can affect a small number of people, but as the article is circulated more throughout Facebook, the negative externality multiplies. As a result, the quantity demanded of news can shift up around election season as consumers seek to find correct news, however the quantity demanded can also shift down as people have a lower trust in mainstream media. In the American public, a Gallup poll in 2016 found “Americans’ trust in the mass media ‘to report the news fully, accurately and fairly’ was, at 32%, the lowest in the organization's polling history.” In addition, trust in mainstream media is lower in Republican and far-right political viewers at 14%. About 72% of American adults claim that social media firms excessively control and influence the politics today, as per the June 16–22 survey conducted by Pew Research Center. Only 21% believe that the power held by these social media firms over today’s politics is of the right amount, while 6% believe it is not enough.

Algorithms can facilitate the rapid spread of disinformation through social media channels. Algorithms use users’ past behavior and engagement activity to provide them with tailored content that aligns with their interests and beliefs. Algorithms commonly create echo chambers and sow radicalism and extremist thinking in these online spaces.

Algorithms promote social media posts with high 'engagement,' meaning posts that received a lot of 'likes' or 'comments'/'replies'. For better or for worse, engagement and controversy go hand-in-hand. Controversy attracts attention as it evokes an emotional response, however "Benford's Law" of controversy states that "passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available". This means that the less grounded in facts a political tweet is, the more engagement it is likely to receive, therefore the likelihood of spreading disinformation is high. Twitter has become a battleground for political debate. Psychologist, Jordan Peterson, spoke of Twitter's radicalising effect in an interview conducted by GQ. He explained that for any given tweet that appears on one's 'feed,' the tweet shall have been seen by a far greater number of people than is reflected by its likes and comments. Therefore, who are the people who comment on a tweet? The people who comment shall be those who have the strongest views on the matter, the people who want their opinion to be heard. Peterson claims that this creates an environment in which the opinions that the average user sees on twitter do not reflect the views of a random sample of the population. The opinions most commonly seen on twitter tend to be those of people at each extreme end of the political ideology spectrum, hence the 'radicalising effect'.

Advertisement

See also: Microtargeting and Geo-fence

Political advertisements—for example, encouraging people to vote for or against a particular candidate, or to take a position on a particular issue—have often been placed on social media. On 22 November 2019, Twitter said it would no longer facilitate political advertising anywhere in the world. Due to the nature of Social media bringing different information to different people based on their interests, advertising methods such as "Microtargeting" and "Black ads" have become prominent on social media and allow advertising to be much more effective for the same price, relative to traditional adverts such as those on cable TV.

Grassroots campaigns

When it comes to political referendums, individuals often gather on social media at the grassroots level to campaign for change. This is particularly effective where it comes to feminist political issues, as studies have proven that women are more likely to tweet about policy problems and do so in a way that is more aggressive than their male counter-parts. Like-minded individuals can collectively work together to influence social change and utilise social media as a tool for social justice. An example of this is in the referendum to appeal Ireland's eighth amendment. Civil society organisations, such as TogetherForYes, utilised Twitter as a tool to bring abortion law into the public and make the harms of the eighth amendment visible and accessible. The positive outcome of the referendum (in the amendments repeal) can be equated to the efforts of individuals and advocates coming together at the grassroots level to make the vote visible, as social media goes beyond the local level to create a widespread global political impact, making the issue of strict abortion laws a global one, rather than one just confined to Ireland. The strength in a political grassroots campaign on social media is the increased mobilisation of participants. Due to the fact that social media platforms are largely accessible, a political platform can be provided to the voices of those traditionally silenced in the political sphere or in traditional media.

US election interference

The 2016 United States Presidential Election was an example in which social media was used by the state actor Russia to influence public opinion. Tactics such as propaganda, trolling, and bots were used to leak fake news stories that included an "FBI agent had been killed after leaking Clinton’s emails" and "Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump.”  Studies have found that pro-Trump news was as many as four-time more than pro-Clinton fake news, and a third of the pro-Trump tweets were generated by bots. Social media has also provided the means for large amounts of data to be collected on social media users – allowing analysis and predictions to be made on what information and advertising the user is most likely to be susceptible to. This was highlighted in 2018 when the Cambridge Analytica – Facebook scandal emerged. Data and predictions from the company were used to influence voters in the 2016 Brexit/Leave campaign and also the 2016 US election Trump Campaign.

This scandal first appeared in the news in 2016 following both the UK's Brexit referendum results and the US' presidential election result but was an on-going operation by Cambridge Analytica with the permission of Facebook using Aleksandr Kogan's app "This is your Digital Life". However, the methods were exposed on 27 September 2016 during a presentation by Alexander Nix named "The Power of Big Data and Psychographics". Nix was the chief executive officer of market-research at Cambridge Analytica. After founding the company in 2013 he was then suspended on 20 March 2018 following the release of a video in which he admitted to working directly with Donald Trump to gather data on the US electorate. In his 2016 presentation, Nix highlights his contribution the 2016 Ted Cruz campaign and how taking the focus away from demographics and geographics for the targeted ads and instead using psychographics in order to target personality traits and get a better understanding of voter demands is a more effective method of gaining votes. In 2016, one of Nix's business associates, Steve Bannon, left the company to take over the campaign of Donald Trump and as a result of the video leak which lost Nix his job it is largely believed he had direct influence too. As well as this, Cambridge Analytica staff were also heavily involved in the Vote-Leave campaign for the 2016 Brexit referendum. As a result of an organisation specialised in targeted ads being involved in two populist campaigns that produced shock results, many point out as a potential threat to democracy.

But this is not the only example of potential election interference using social media. November 1, 2015, Rodrigo Duterte was announced as president of Philippines after being 'the first person to make the full use of the power of social media'. Facebook had made an astonishing rise since the previous election and Duterte saw this as an opportunity to get social media influencers to promote his party and create viral content, further showing the power social media can have over democracy.

On 18 May 2017, Time had reported that the US Congress was investigating CA in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The report alleges that CA may have coordinated the spread of Russian propaganda using its microtargetting capabilities. In 2018, following disclosures that the company had improperly used the personal information of over 50 million Facebook users while working on Trump's presidential campaign, The Times of Israel reported that the company had used what Nix had called "intelligence gathering" from British and Israeli companies as part of their efforts to influence the election results in Trump's favor. This was the work of one company and regulation may be able to prevent this in the future, but social media is now a medium that makes this kind of interference possible.

Election results

In October 2020, Twitter announced its new policy that candidates will be forbidden to claim victory until their election win has been credibly projected by news outlets or officially certified.

Impact on elections

Social media has a profound effect on elections. Oftentimes, social media compounds with the mass media networks such as cable television. For many individuals, cable television serves as the basis and first contact for where many get their information and sources. Cable television also has commentary that creates partisanship and builds on to people's predispositions to certain parties. Social media takes mass media's messages and oftentimes amplifies and reinforces such messages and perpetuates partisan divides. In an article by the Journal of Communication, they concluded that social media does not have a strong effect on people's views or votes, but social media does not also have a minimal effect on their views. Instead, social media creates a bandwagon effect when a candidate in an election commits an error or a great success, then users on social media will amplify the effect of such failure or success greatly.

The Pew Research Center finds that nearly one fourth of Americans learn something about the candidates through an internet source such as Facebook. Nearly a fifth of America uses social media with two thirds of those Americans being youth ages of 18–29. The youth's presence on social media often inspires rallies and creates movements. For instance, in the 2008 presidential election, a Facebook group of 62,000 members was created that sponsored the election of President Obama and within days universities across the countries held rallies in the thousands. Rallies and movements such as these are often coined the "Facebook Effect". However, social media can often have the opposite effect and take a toll on many users. The Pew Research Center in a poll found that nearly 55 percent of social media users in the US indicate that they are "worn out" by the amount of political posts on social media. With the rise of technology and social media continuing, that number increased by nearly 16 percent since the 2016 presidential election. Nearly 70 percent of individuals say that talking about politics on social media with people on the opposite side is often "stressful and frustrating" compared to 56 percent in 2016. Consequently, the number of people who find these discussions as "interesting and informative" decreased from 35% to 26% since 2016.

In terms of social media's effect on the youth vote, it is quite substantial. In the 2018 elections, nearly 31 percent of the youth voted compared to just 21 percent in 2014. Social media use among the youth continue to grow as around 90 percent of the youth use at least one social media platform. Of the 90 percent, 47 percent received information about the 2018 elections via a social media platform. The messages shared on the social media platform often include messages to register to vote and actually carrying out their vote; this is in contrast to receiving the message from the candidate's campaign itself. Subsequently, of the first time youth voters in the 2018 election, 68 percent relied on social media to get their information about voting. This is in comparison to the traditional methods of being notified to vote of just 23 percent first time voters. Furthermore, just 22 percent of youth who did not hear about an election via social media or traditional means were very likely to vote; however, 54 percent of youth who found out about the election via social media or traditional ways were very likely to vote. However, the youth are becoming distrustful of the content they read on social media as Forbes notes that there has been a decline in public trust due to many political groups and foreign nations creating fake accounts to spread a great amount of misinformation with the aim of dividing the country.

Social media often filters what information individuals see. Since 2008, the number of individuals who get their news via social media has increased to 62 percent. On these social media sites, there are many algorithms run that filter what information individual users see. The algorithms understand a users favorites and dislikes, they then begin to cater their feed to their likes. Consequently, this creates an echo chamber. For instance, black social media users were more likely to see race related news and in 2016 the Trump campaign used Facebook and other platforms to target Hillary Clinton's supporters to drive them out of the election and taking advantage of such algorithms. Whether or not these algorithms have an effect on people's vote and their views is mixed. Iowa State University finds that for older individuals, even though their access to social media is far lower than the youth, their political views were far more likely to change from the 1996–2012 time periods, which indicates that there are a myriad of other factors that impact political views. They further that based upon other literature, Google has a liberal bias in their search results. Consequently, these biased search results can affect an individual's voting preferences by nearly 20 percent. In addition, 23 percent of an individual's Facebook friends are of an opposing political view and nearly 29 percent of the news they receive on the platform is also in opposition of their political ideology, which indicates that the algorithms on these new platforms do not completely create echo chambers.

Washington State University political science professor Travis Ridout explains that in the United Kingdom the popular social media platforms of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are beginning to play a significant role in campaigns and elections. Contrary to the United States which allows television ads, in the United Kingdom television ads are banned and thus campaigns are now launching huge efforts on social media platforms. Ridout furthers that the social media ads have gotten in many cases offensive and in attack formation at many politicians. Social media is able to provide many individuals with a sense of anonymity that enables them to get away with such aggressive acts. For example, ethnic minority women politicians are often the targets of such attacks. Furthermore, in the United States, many of the youth conservative voices are often reduced. For instance, PragerU, a conservative organization, often has their videos taken down. On a different level, social media can also hamper many political candidates. Media and social media often publish stories about news that are controversial and popular and will ultimately drive more traffic. A key example is President Donald Trump whose controversial statements in 2016 often brought the attention of many individuals and thereby increased his popularity while shunning out other candidates.

In the 2020 Presidential Election, social media was very prevalent and used widely by both campaigns. For Twitter, nearly 87 million users follow President Donald Trump while 11 million users follow Joe Biden. Despite the significant gap between the two, Biden's top tweets have outperformed Donald Trump's top tweets by nearly double. In terms of mentions of each candidate on Twitter, from October 21 to October 23, there were 6.6 million mentions of Trump and Biden and Biden held 72% of the mentions. During the 2020 Presidential Debates, Biden had nearly two times the mentions as Donald Trump with nearly half of the mentions being negative. For Trump, he also had half of his mentions being negative as well.

In Europe, the influence of social media is less than that of the United States. In 2011, only 34% of MEPs use twitter, while 68% use Facebook. In 2012, the EPP had the highest social media following of 7,418 compared to the other parties. This is in relationship to the 375 million voters in all of Europe. When comparing the impact to US social media following, former President Obama has over 27 million fans while the highest in Europe was former French President Nicolas Sarkozy of over 700,000 fines, a stark difference. The 2008 US presidential election skyrocketed the need for technologies to be used in politics and campaigns, especially social media. Europe is now following their lead and has been increasing their use of social media since. However, just because European Politicians don't use social media as much as American Politicians doesn't mean that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter don't play a large role in European Politics- in particular- Elections. In the run-up to the 2017 German Bundestag Elections, a group of extremists used social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube in hopes of gaining support for the far-right group Alternative für Deutschland. Despite being limited in numbers, the group were able to publish "patriotic videos" that managed to get on to the Trending tab on YouTube as well as being able to trend the hashtag "#AfD" on Twitter. Though polled to come 5th in the election, Alternative für Deutschland won 13.3% of the vote, making them the third largest party within the Bundestag, making them the first far-right party to enter the building since 1961

In the UK, Cambridge Analytica was allegedly hired as a consultant company for Leave.EU and the UK Independence Party during 2016, as an effort to convince people to support Brexit. These rumours were the result of the leaked internal emails that were sent between Cambridge Analytica firm and the British parliament. These datasets composed of the data obtained from Facebook were said to be work done as an initial job deliverable for them. Although Arron Banks, co-founder of Leave.EU, denied any involvement with the company, he later declared “When we said we’d hired Cambridge Analytica, maybe a better choice of words could have been deployed." The official investigation by the UK Information Commissioner found that Cambridge Analytica was not involved "beyond some initial enquiries" and the regulator did not identify any "significant breaches" of data protection legislation or privacy or marketing regulations "which met the threshold for formal regulatory action" In early July 2018, the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner's Office announced it intended to fine Facebook £500,000 ($663,000) over the data breach, this being the maximum fine allowed at the time of the breach, saying Facebook "contravened the law by failing to safeguard people's information". In 2014 and 2015, the Facebook platform allowed an app that ended up harvesting 87 million profiles of users around the world that was then used by Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 presidential campaign and in the Brexit referendum. Although Cambridge Analytica were cleared, questions were still raised with how they came to access these Facebook profiles and target voters that would not have necessarily voted in this matter in the first place. Dominic Cummings the prime minister's ex aide had a majority in involving Cambridge Analytica in the Leave.EU campaign, this can be seen in the real accounts of Brexit: The Uncivil War.

In terms of analyzing the role of fake news in social media, there tends to be about three times more fake new articles that were more likely to be pro-Trump over pro-Clinton articles. There were 115 pro-Trump fake news articles while only 41 pro-Clinton fake news articles; pro-Trump articles were shared 30.3 million times while pro-Clinton articles were shared 7.6 million times on Facebook. For each share there is about 20 page visits which means that with around 38 million shares of fake news articles there are 760 million page views to these articles. This means that roughly each US adult visited a fake news site three times. Whether the spread of fake news has an impact on elections is conflicted as more research is required and is difficult to place a quantification on the effects. However, fake news is more likely to influence individuals who are over 65 and are more conservative. These groups tend to believe fake news more than other groups. College students have difficulty in determining if an article shared on social media is fake news. The same study also concluded that conspiratorial beliefs could be predicted by a person's political party affiliation or their ideological beliefs. For example, those that Republican or held a more conservative belief were far more likely to believe in baseless theories such as that of former President Obama being born outside of the United States; and those that voted Democrat or held a more liberal belief would be more likely to believe in conspiracies such as former President Bush having played a role in the 9/11 attacks.

Role in conflict

There are four ways social media plays a significant role in conflict:.

1. Social media platforms allow information to be framed in mainstream platforms which limits communication.
2. Social media enables news stories to quickly go viral and later can lead to misinterpretations that can cause conflict.
3. Strategies and the adaption of social media has caused a change in focus amongst leaders from administrative dynamics to new media technology.
4. Technological advancements in communication can increase the power of persuasion leading to corruption, scandals, and violence on social media platforms.

Map of 2011 Arab Spring Protests

The role of technological communication and social media in the world can lead to political, economic, and social conflict due to its unmonitored system, cheap interface, and accessibility.

Weaponization by state actors

Social media platforms have been weaponized by state-sponsored cyber groups to attack governments in the United States, the European Union, and the Middle East. Although phishing attacks via email are the most commonly used tactic to breach government networks, phishing attacks on social media rose 500% in 2016. As with email-based phishing attacks, the majority of phishing attacks on social media are financially motivated cyber crimes that install malware. However, cyber groups associated with Russia, Iran, and China have used social media to conduct cyberattacks and undermine democratic processes in the West. During the 2017 French presidential election, for example, Facebook detected and removed fake accounts linked to the Russian cyber group Fancy Bear, who were posing as "friends of friends" of Emmanuel Macron associates to steal information from them. Cyber groups associated with Iran, China, and Russia have used LinkedIn to steal trade secrets, gain access to critical infrastructure, or recruit spies. These social engineering attacks can be multi-platform, with threat actors initiating contact on one platform but continuing communication on more private channel. The Iranian-backed cyber group COBALT GYPSY created a fake persona across multiple social media platforms and initiated contact on LinkedIn before moving to Facebook and email.

In December 2019, a chat and video calling application developed by the United Arab Emirates, called ToTok was identified as a spying tool by the US intelligence. Suspicion over the Emirati app emerged because it banned the use of VoIP on applications like WhatsApp, FaceTime and Skype.