Astroturfing: the battle on mobile phones to capture the undecided during the campaign

In an acute polarization scenario, the goal of the main teams in the campaign is an open secret: capture the undecided. They will define who will occupy Casa Rosada from December. Today, they account for just over 12% of the electorate, according to polls. They will indicate all the mechanisms of persuasion. The clbadic, with posters, street painting and more. But also with new technologies. In particular, through

WhatsApp

and some particular techniques condensed into a stranger name: "astroturfing".

What is it? A series of marketing techniques aimed at manipulating public opinion through digital media. Or, according to Conicet researcher Natalia Aruguete, "creates an artificial network of users and means to give the impression that there is a supportive community for a candidate or a party".

How it works? During the Brazilian presidential campaign, for example, the hard core of entities, media and citizens, who created and disseminated messages of support to

Jair Bolsonaro

, both by WhatsApp and other platforms such as Twitter and YouTube, "was created artificially for the occasion", according to a study by Aruguete and Ernesto Calvo. Together, they badyzed the distribution of messages on Twitter during the week preceding the elections and detected different rings of proximity and belonging to the "Bolsonarian community". Some spontaneous and others who acted in a coordinated way, with "trolls" and "bots" trying to promote the spread of the president 's messages today.

Social networks like

Twitter

and

Facebook

among other things, they can provide a favorable environment for this type of black propaganda and all sorts of misinformation. But according to the recent presidential elections, like Brazil, WhatsApp seems to be the ideal forum. Among other things, because the messages circulate without filters or control, and below the radar of candidates who can not defend themselves against lies. Until it is too late.

WhatsApp has already shown clues in Argentina of its electoral potential in 2015, when voting, when

Mauricio Macri

and

Daniel Scioli

They explored his reach.

"The election star was the Whatsapp (and Telegram's most paranoid public)," said Scioli's digital campaign leader, Cesar Gazzo Huck, in an article he wrote for a magazine of directors of Communication. "WhatsApp won all the prizes in the last weeks of the campaign, nothing was mentioned other than Macri and Scioli, and the game fans managed to write texts and memes, make audios and cut videos to viralize by messaging services from there to transcend social networks, for many, WhatsApp was the most effective way. "

Gazzo gave an example: every time Macri or Scioli appeared on a TV show and even more when they took part in the presidential debate, their teams were spread by WhatsApp and by email among their own "hashtag" they wanted promote on Twitter to dominate the market. social networks and even give the feeling that they had won this debate.

Today, four years later, while 4G connectivity is expected to reach 90% of the population this year and with WhatsApp in at least 76% of Argentine mobile phones, according to a survey of Corporación Latinobarómetro published in March, the De Macri's team thinks of a pincer approach that repeats the same five letters: microtargeting and micromilitancy. Because, according to the chief of staff, Marcos Peña, the vote will be won by convincing "one by one".

For this, the Macri "techie" team, made up of Guillermo Riera and other experts, manages a "short list" of 12,500 relevant WhatsApp contacts. But he has also set up a network of 300,000 activists who call themselves "advocates of change". Among many other tasks, they will help spread the messages of the ruling party.

However, WhatsApp offers a unique opportunity. Who? As the material that circulates in this app often comes from a friend, an acquaintance or a contact, we tend to "let down", to consider this message as being good and to badume it as an "information". And this is reinforced, according to academic research, when this supposed "information" confirms our previous badumptions. That is, when what we receive validates what we want to believe. In other words, a fertile ground for "false news".

An example? The video of a train of 100 wagons going in theory from Salta to Santa Fe and broadcast by WhatsApp as an example of the achievements of Casa Rosada that traditional media refuse to broadcast. But, in reality, this video comes from California, in the United States, as determined

Reverso

, the project against misinformation co-ordinated by Chequeado, AFP Factual, First draft and Pop-Up Newsroom, which involves more than 100 technology and media companies,
THE NATION.

What is the purpose of this type of fake messages? According to the experts consulted by
THE NATIONthe reasons are varied. On the one hand, keep the own troop together. On the other hand, put the opposing team on the defensive. And, to the extent possible, encourage voters who are undecided to ask questions about the candidate who is the victim of attacks on the networks.

"If the person who receives this video or this message thinks" Is it possible? "We already have half of their vote inside," he quipped.
THE NATION an expert who worked full-time in the 2015 presidential contest and therefore asked to keep her name under reserve. But it also marked who are the recipients who consume more false news: those over 60 years old. Among other reasons, because they are not "digital natives", like the youngest ones, in a very marked digital divide.

"Music and social networks are imposed on adults under 30," summed up academics Pablo Boczkowski and Eugenia Mitchelstein for Anfibia magazine, after a survey of 700 people . "In the group of over 60, television and radio win: the first is cited by more than two thirds of respondents as one of their main cultural consumption, radio by third and music by 25% Networks disappear from the podium, "they said.

In this context, "astroturfing" is used with all kinds of techniques and variants. Since the malicious edition of some entries of

Wikipedia

– deceive those who consult about the rival candidate or certain sensitive issues – or the creation and financing of NGOs and then cite them as "independent" sources of information, even attacks on Twitter that seem spontaneous. Example? In Spain, a network of nearly 3,000 Twitter accounts has been detected. He has distributed more than 4 million tweets with fake content and hate speech to promote, not to mention explicitly, the right-wing party Vox.