Feature

The Tangled Web Of Politics

When Computers and Politics Collide

When it comes to the influence of mass media on politics, the example most often cited is the Nixon-Kennedy debate of 1960. The fresh-faced Kennedy won handily in the opinion of the TV viewing audience, while actually losing among radio listeners, en route to election. This new emphasis on visual cues signaled a new era during which complicated political issues were increasingly boiled down to 30-second TV ads for easy consumption. Long-winded political oratory gave way to fleeting emotional images of children plucking flower petals or bears in the woods.

While there has not yet been another milestone like the Nixon-Kennedy debate, this year’s presidential campaign marks the true beginning of yet another new era in political media. The Internet has changed the game, bringing a new kind of connectedness to politics through social networking, blogging, the rapid proliferation of video and photos, and (perhaps most importantly) fundraising. While this change has by and large increased the opportunity for political discourse, it’s also raised some significant questions about our democracy and the security issues that arise as it increasingly moves online.

The Obama and McCain MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIN profiles seem almost perfunctory, like watching your grandpa try to break dance (which, by the way, you can do thanks to YouTube and enhanced video technology), but their presence and remarkable popularity acknowledges the powerful influence of the Internet’s social networking spirit. Political blogs like The Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and CNN Political Ticker rank among the top blogs by traffic, second only to tech and gadgetry sites like Gizmodo. And if substance isn’t your style, there are plenty of celebrity trash sites dishing on candidates from every imaginable personal angle. The net effect is a giant phone tree of content and its recipients. Email equals viral, and text messages are “straight talk” from friends, family, or the Joe The Plumber in your network. According to the Pew Research Center, 46% of Americans used email or text messages to get political news this year.

Online activism extends across blogs, tweets, joining groups (like 1,000,000 strong for Obama), and video. Different constituencies involve themselves in the web in different ways as well, with more online Obama activists than both Clinton and McCain. 74% of the wired Obama supporters got their political news and information online compared to 54% of Clinton supporters. Obama supporters have an edge in the online political environment because he has a large base of young voters who are more Internet savvy than their older counterparts.

Though a rash of goofy pictures of McCain would not necessarily make Jefferson proud, the fact that 39% of online Americans have turned to the web to review unfiltered information like candidate debates, speeches, papers, and transcripts that can only bode well for democracy.

Interested voters might be interested donors, a point not lost on politicians or those who work in IT security. The Internet is a fundraising vehicle extraordinaire. 6% of Americans made political contributions this year, up from 2% in 2004. That might not seem like a lot until you take into account the 305,515,336 Americans, only a portion of which are voting age (according to the US Census Bureau).

But while the net effect of all this political discourse must be good for democracy, the increased reliance on technology brings with it fresh concerns over misinformation, opportunities for new financial scams, and even (someday) good old fashioned electoral fraud.

The first concern is the good old-fashioned smear campaign. Stories are floated and disseminated more quickly and easily than ever, and by the time they are corrected the damage is done. Rumor and innuendo abound. Images of Obama in Middle Eastern garb, or McCain lashing out at reporters travel at the speed of email. Controlling information and misinformation becomes a full-time and real-time concern. Mayor Giuliani’s learned this when his daughter’s membership in 1,000,000 Strong for Obama undermined his campaign, and it was evident again when Wikipedia had to block access from some Congressional IP addresses as entries were constantly changing to ridicule some and elevate others. Politicians are now facing the need to guard their virtual personae more closely than their physical presence. And voters are now forced to consider the source more than ever before.

Even when the source may appear to be direct, recent high profile breaches and errors, such as John McCain’s MySpace page mistakenly stating his support for same sex marriage, or Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email account hack hint at some of the potential for more insidious forms of hacking to generate misinformation or uncover dirt.

Misinformation campaigns meant to suppress voters are making the jump to virtual with email, including misinformation about how and where to vote, and false sites that smear various candidates. Even if Obama’s Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Act passed, it’d be hard to stop the stream of email and spread of false rumors once in the public domain.

A rise in online donation tactics, driven by fervent and frequent email requests for money, along with, and other new fundraising tactics (like new technologies that enable setup of personal donation sites by thousands of voters) also means a rise in phony contribution sites. These sites masquerade as the real thing and reap the hard earned dollars meant for candidates, just like any sham e-commerce site, only they carry the gravitas of politics. Anti-phishing programs have upped-the-ante while donors who face real and false sites with nearly identical names have few reliable means to spot the bogus one.

As the Internet and technology move forward, average Americans and political leaders will become even more involved with the online political arena. New tools to get out the information and get out the vote will continue to evolve. But one thing is clear – all developments in technology and politics thus far pale in comparison with the near certainty that someday the act at the very core of democracy will move online. Someday, everyone will be able to register and vote via the Web. Concerns about security and access are the only things that have slowed the arrival of this inevitable move – already electronic voting machines are often “online”, though not using the public Internet.

Concerns about hanging chads, and the accuracy of electronic voting machines already in use, hint at the potential for security concerns when voting moves online. Perhaps never has their been a greater online security concern than electoral fraud. The parallels to offline voting fraud are obvious: bots that stuff ballot boxes, denial of service attacks that mimic offline attempts to block voter groups, hacking of vote-counting technology. The threat that someone may steal your vote may someday be almost as scary as the threat of someone stealing your money.

But when the first combined online and offline election happens, it will also be the culminating event of the new era that began 40 years after the Nixon-Kennedy debates. A record turnout of voters, informed by more information than has ever before been available, is virtually guaranteed.