Covert Campaigns: Safeguarding Encrypted Messaging Platforms from Voter Manipulation
October 2024
On the “biggest election year in history,” our report sheds light on how political propagandists are exploiting the features of encrypted messaging platforms to manipulate voters. The report draws on interviews with purveyors of political propaganda in 17 countries and a survey of over 4,500 messaging app users in nine countries.
Given the importance of preserving end-to-end encryption for secure communications, especially in repressive environments, the report elaborates a set of concrete recommendations for messaging platforms, policymakers, and researchers to help mitigate political manipulation efforts on messaging apps without undermining encryption.
The report includes a series of recommendations.
For messaging platforms:
- Establish strict account-creation limits to hinder the operation of fake accounts and “phone farms,” and address technical loopholes exploited by propagandists.
- Restrict large-scale broadcasting to verified channels and vetted business accounts, and vet those accounts rigorously.
- Strengthen cross-industry and multi-stakeholder cooperation to identify inauthentic activity.
- Support accredited misinformation tiplines, which provide independent fact-checking services to users on their apps, and enhance access to them through improved user interface design.
- Invest in user-driven fact-checking tools, such as one-click reverse image searches, and support research into other potentially effective tools.
- Choose whether to prioritize privacy or abuse mitigation — and be transparent with users.
- Bifurcate the platform’s messaging service, reserved for individual and small-group chats, from its social media or broadcasting functions.
For policymakers:
- Do not impose legal obligations that undermine encryption, but require that messaging platforms provide some transparency as to their operation, policy enforcement, and business models.
- Support organizations that work collaboratively with communities to deploy context-sensitive media literacy strategies.
For researchers:
- Contribute to media literacy initiatives, such as fact-checking and voter education tiplines.
- Develop ethical methodologies for studying encrypted online spaces to enhance the public’s understanding of their effects on society.
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