Social Media Security = Election Security
Sebastian Bay investigates the commercial black market for social media manipulation, showing how cheap botnets undermine democratic election security.
Summary
The Commercial Market for Online Manipulation
Digital disinformation is not limited to state intelligence agencies; a thriving global commercial market sells fake social media accounts, engagement bots, and narrative manipulation.
Mechanics of Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior
Sebastian Bay details how manipulation-service providers deploy armies of automated bot accounts to distort trending algorithms and manipulate public discourse.
Auditing Platform Moderation and Detection Evasion
Bay shares research testing the defense mechanisms of major social media platforms, demonstrating that commercial manipulation networks easily bypass bot detection.
Policy Interventions for Digital Election Security
The author calls for stricter transparency regulations on digital political advertising, coordinated threat sharing, and platform liability.
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