Democracy Hacked: Political Turmoil and Information Warfare in the Digital Age

337 Pages·2018·5.34 MB·English

by  Martin Moore

DEMOCRACY HACKED
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D E M O C R A C Y H A C K E D
Political Turmoil and Information
Warfare in the Digital Age
MARTIN MOORE
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A Oneworld Book
First published by Oneworld Publications Ltd, 2018
This ebook published 2018
Copyright © Martin Moore 2018
The moral right of Martin Moore to be identifi ed as the Author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN 978-1-78607-408-9
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-78607-592-5
eISBN 978-1-78607-409-6
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Oneworld Publications Ltd
10 Bloomsbury Street
London WC1B 3SR
England
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To Jojo
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CONTENTS
Introduction ix
PART 1: HACKERS
1 Individuals: the Freextremist Model 3
2 Plutocrats: the Mercer Model 37
3 States: the Russia Model 72
PART 2: SYSTEMS FAILURE
4 The Facebook Elections 107
5 Anarchy in the Googlesphere 136
6 The Unbearable Lightness of Twitter 166
PART 3: ALTERNATIVE FUTURES
7 Platform Democracy 195
8 Surveillance Democracy 222
9 Democracy Rehacked 246
Acknowledgements 273
Notes 275
Index 311
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INTRODUCTION
There is a washed-out old colour photograph, taken in autumn
1974, of my family sitting in an orange Triumph convertible. I am
sitting in the back seat, aged four, wearing a Davy Crockett hat,
looking chilly and a little grumpy. My dad and my elder sister are
squeezed in the back with me, while my baby brother is sitting on
my mum’s lap in the front passenger seat. Stuck on the door of the
car is my dad’s campaign poster for the upcoming general election.
It was his second as a candidate – his fi rst having been only seven
months earlier – and we were out leafl eting, door-knocking and
canvassing constituents. I cannot imagine I was much help but,
over the course of the campaign, my dad was determined to knock
on every door in the constituency. When – or rather if – someone
opened it, he would make his pitch and hear what they wanted
from a candidate. The script, if you could call it that, was his own,
and the only help and direction he received from central offi ce
was a national campaign guide, containing a list of general policy
statements from the party.
That world is coming to an end. This is not meant as a sort of
‘The End is Nigh’ sandwich board slogan. But the democracy of
long-established, rigidly hierarchical, centrist parties is collaps-
ing. The idea that we should entrust the job of informing people
about news and politics to an exclusive group of news outlets is
disappearing. The concept of sporadic political representation
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