Elections in 18 separate nations were influenced by online disinformation campaigns last year, suggests research.
Independent watchdog Freedom House looked at how online discourse was influenced by governments, bots and paid opinion formers.
In total, 30 governments were actively engaged in using social media to stifle dissent, said the report.
Educating users to spot fake news and making tech firms police their networks could combat the manipulation, it said.
Hacking must explain why voters are going off-script.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2017, @03:56PM (1 child)
Spreading propaganda and misinfo is not 'hacking'.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 15 2017, @05:34PM
Spreading propaganda and misinfo is not 'hacking'.
Correct, they're trying to muddy the waters.
Hacking the servers of our political parties and hacking the servers of the election commissions is hacking.