Just Finished Reading: Democracy Hacked – How Technology is Destabilising Global Politics by Martin Moore (FP: 2018) [272pp] 

Attempting to ‘fix’ or ‘game’ elections is as old as Democracy itself. A fake victory, after all, is just as good as a real one – if you can get away with it. Unfortunately for those who have tried this in the past the result tends to not be worth the effort – at least in actual democracies and not in places that call themselves Democratic Republic of ‘X’ or ‘Y’. Of course, you can try to hack into voting machines where they exist (we don’t have them here) but that’s really not as easy as it seems. Likewise, subverting election officials sounds fairly straightforward but never seems quite subversive enough (or widespread enough). But there is another way, rather than hacking machines, the system or even the officials you go deep – you hack the electorate! Back in the 20th you did this through radio, posters and other forms of rather crude propaganda techniques. We’ve all seen it – political rallies, torchlight parades, ‘leaders’ haranguing their followers etc. All very crude, all very unsophisticated. But this is the modern age, we have something much better, more targeted, more precise, and with far more bang for the buck. Today we have the Internet and social media. 

There’s never been anything quite like it. Back in those heady days before social media hit its stride (or its billionth subscriber) politicians spent a great deal of time crafting and delivering ‘soundbites’ on TV, kissing babies, drinking beers in pubs to provide the common touch and promising everything to everybody. But it was all scattershot and no one knew if it was actually working even after all of the votes were in. Now, Big Data and its analysis can tell you exactly what worked with what demographic and how to have an even greater impact next time. Politicians, political parties and others – both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ now have the tools and the motivation to actively and, more importantly, actually ‘game’ elections to produce the results they desire. With targeted adverts delivered with the data driven precision of a laser-guided bomb they can influence people's micro-decision making to an astonishing degree – so the data shows at least. In many ways, of course, this is what politicians have always done – lied and manipulated their way into power. But technology has now given them a greatly enhanced ability to do that and more. The problem outlined in this interesting and timely book is that our established processes are not designed to easily cope with such an intimately wired world. What it will mean going further into the 21st century as techniques become more sophisticated, algorithms get more powerful and people – especially the young – get even more connected is an open question. After years of Fake News and crude manipulation will people get better at finding the true gold hidden within the gigatons of fool's gold? Maybe. Or will people become more and more pliant as their media and other feeds become more subtle and more invasive so future voters no longer even know why exactly they voted for the candidate they did. Containing much to think about as well as much to be concerned about this is an important read for those navigating their political future – smart device in hand. Recommended.