Facebook benefits financially from misinformation spreading on its platform. As long as it puts profits ahead of public good, the tilting of the political landscape will persist.
Ensuring the integrity of democratic elections from hackers and electronic tampering, and boosting public confidence in democracy, isn’t very difficult, nor expensive.
Cybersecurity experts in the US knew about Russian intelligence agencies’ activities, but may not have had any idea how comprehensive and integrated they were – until now.
Ian Anson, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Russian meddling has shaken Americans’ faith in democracy. But public discontent after a scandal is hardly new. Trust in government began to erode under Nixon, and it’s mostly worsened since then.
Will 12 Russians indicted for hacking the 2016 US election ever come to trial? They may not, but the indictments themselves are an important step in the effort to determine the truth of what happened.
Russian government agents allegedly penetrated US state and county election databases. Scholars of election security offer insight and recommendations about what to do now.
Google and Facebook reign supreme over digital advertising. Yet the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and when the effectiveness of this advertising seems limited, should we ban this model?
Cyber security has dominated international affairs in 2017, with the US election hack as one of the main stories. The ongoing investigation shows that cyber attacks can subvert systems of governance.
Cyberdetectives look for digital doors or windows left unlocked, find electronic footprints in the dirt and examine malicious software for clues about who broke in, what they took and why.
The prospect of foreign hackers interfering with democracy is not just an American story. It could happen in Australia too, and we need to guard against it.