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April 2, 2016

“When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.”

As for Sepúlveda, his insight was to understand that voters trusted what they thought were spontaneous expressions of real people on social media more than they did experts on television and in newspapers.

He knew that accounts could be faked and social media trends fabricated, all relatively cheaply. He wrote a software program, now called Social Media Predator, to manage and direct a virtual army of fake Twitter accounts. The software let him quickly change names, profile pictures, and biographies to fit any need. Eventually, he discovered, he could manipulate the public debate as easily as moving pieces on a chessboard—or, as he puts it, “When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.” How to Hack an Election

Posted by gerardvanderleun at April 2, 2016 10:10 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

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Posted by: Dennis Myers at April 2, 2016 4:56 PM

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