2019 GLOBAL INVENTORY OF ORGANISED SOCIAL MEDIA MANIPULATION
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the European Research Council for the research project, “Computational
Propaganda: Investigating the Impact of Algorithms and Bots on Political Discourse in Europe,” Proposal 648311, 2015–2020, Philip
N. Howard, Principal Investigator. Additional support for this study has been provided by the Hewlette Foundation, Luminate and
the Adessium Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders, the Oxford Internet Institute, or University of Oxford.
For their assistance and advice on this research, we are grateful to Ualan Campbell-Smith, Amelie Henle, Caio Machado, and Cailean
Osborne for collecting the preliminary data and drafting country profiles about social media manipulation for the countries outlined in
this report. We are also extremely grateful to Akin Unver, Alberto Lalama, Alexi Abrahams, Angelina Huyun, Arzu Geybulla, Ben Nimmo,
Bence Kollanyi, Chris Roper, Darko Brkan, Didac Fabregas-Badosa, Gabby Lim, Ingrid Grodnig, Iva Nenedic, Lisa-Maria Neudert, Marc
Owen Jones, Martin Becerra, Mimie Liotsiou, Monika Kaminska, Nahema Marchal, Nick Monaco, Niki Cheong, Olivier Milland, Philip
Di Salvo, Ralph Schroeder, Rosemary Ajayi, Sabine Niederer, Sanjana Hattotuwa, Vidya Narayanan, Tamar Kintsurashvili, and Tom
Sear, as well as the many anonymous experts we consulted for this project. Their country-specific expertise and networks were
essential for ensuring the reliability and validity of our data. We thank them for their time and assistance in reviewing country profiles,
and for providing us with additional sources, citations, and data-points to include in this report.
Authors Biographies
Samantha Bradshaw is a leading expert on technology and
Philip N. Howard is a professor and writer. He teaches at the
democracy. Her dissertation research examines the producers
University of Oxford, directs the Oxford Internet Institute, and
and drivers of disinformation, and how technology—artificial
is a statutory Professor at Balliol College. He writes about
intelligence, automation and big data analytics—enhance
information politics and international affairs, and he is the author
and constrain the spread of disinformation online. At the
of eight books, including The Managed Citizen, Pax Technica:
forefront of theoretical and methodological approaches for
How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up, and
studying, analysing and explicating the complex relationship
most recently Computational Propaganda. He has won multiple
between social media and democracy, Samantha’s research
'best book' awards, and his research and commentary writing
has helped advance academic debate, public understanding
has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post,
and policy discussions around the impact of technology on
and many international media outlets. Foreign Policy magazine
political expression and privacy. Samantha is completing her
named him a 'Global Thinker' for 2018 and the National
PhD at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford and
Democratic Institute awarded him their 'Democracy Prize' for
is a Researcher on the Computational Propaganda Project.
pioneering the social science of fake news. His next book, Lie
Samantha tweets from @sbradshaww.
Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful
Robots, Junk News Operations and Political Operatives is
at www.philhoward.org and tweets from @pnhoward.
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forthcoming from Yale University Press in early 2020. He blogs