Communications of the ACM
Government Regimes May Be Learning New Twitter Tactics to Quash Dissent
Researchers studying Twitter interactions during Venezuelas 2014 protests found that regimes may be growing more savvy in their use of social media to help suppress mass movements.
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Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) and New York University researchers suggested authoritarian governments may be using new Twitter strategies to suppress social media-using dissenters.
The researchers analyzed Twitter interactions during Venezuela's 2014 protests, in which the protesters' tweets highlighted the demonstration itself, while the opposition's tweets covered a wider range of subjects.
The government suddenly revised its Twitter strategy in reaction to the protests, and the dissenters grew less focused over time.
Penn State's Kevin Munger said the regime's strategy of spreading doubt via other narratives effectively disrupted the protests' coordinated opposition.
“When we started doing this study, there had been a lot of optimism about the capacity of social media to produce revolutions throughout the world,” said Munger. “But it seems like, in hindsight, this was the result of short-term disequilibrium between the capacity of the masses to use this technology and the limited capacity of these elites to use it."
From Penn State News
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