The “WalkAway Movement” is yet another example demonstrating that digital manipulation and disinformation are not platform-specific problems, and thus cannot be solved with platform-specific solutions. While certain fixes — like developing more sophisticated methods of detecting automated accounts and limiting the creation of new bot networks — would absolutely reduce the potential for manipulation via social media, ultimately these are human problems that will only be solved by bolstering our own human defenses.

Weaponized Social Media

It’s tempting to brush this off as a stunt, largely because that’s exactly what it looks like. The narrative—“I was a Democrat/progressive for my entire life but I decided to abandon my values and switch parties when the least popular, least qualified, and most unprincipled Republican president in modern American history took office”—is patently absurd, and some of the testimonials-by-tweet are, quite honestly, laughable. Furthermore, most of the accounts tweeting under the hashtag are either brand new or didn’t even bother to delete the evidence that they were already Trump supporters before “joining the movement” to walk away from the Democratic party.

However, while we can all acknowledge that the “WalkAway Movement” is not, in fact, going anywhere, that doesn’t mean we should discount the tactics or ignore what this astroturfed movement represents.

For one thing, there is reason to believe that this psychological operation — and to be clear, that’s what this is — represents a trial run for future social media manipulation efforts. I am not going to discuss all of those reasons, but based on the publicly available evidence alone, many characteristics of the “WalkAway Movement” suggest that there may be more going on than meets the eye. As I’ve written about previously, information warfare involves much more than “fake news” and propaganda.

Weaponizing information, disseminating it on social media and other platforms, and artificially amplifying it are among the most visible manifestations of information warfare, but there are more insidious methods that are not necessarily apparent to the casual observer. Developing effective methods of digital manipulation requires an understanding of the target population — and what better way to understand the nuances of a target population than embedding yourself amongst them and running a trial to gauge responses? This could be achieved by exploiting an existing online movement or hashtag, or by manufacturing a new one explicitly for intelligence gathering purposes.

Intelligence gathering during this type of trial run could include methods such as surveillance, profiling, social network mapping, and sentiment analysis, as well as more traditional techniques like message testing. Social media not only provides vast troves of publicly available information, but also yields dynamic streams of data that can be manipulated (as in an experiment) for the purpose of intelligence gathering. If you want to know how a particular population or subgroup will respond to specific messages, the easiest way to find out is to craft and disseminate those messages to the target group, and watch how they respond.

The same is true for studying patterns of interaction, group dynamics, and other social behaviors. For example, if you want to know how to engage a certain type of user, testing out different Twitter profiles or communication styles would likely yield important insight for future efforts. On a similar vein, if you want to cause chaos or just generally stir up trouble, figuring out how to provoke other users—and determining which users are most receptive to provocation—would be extremely helpful. This is a great reason to heed the advice, “Don’t engage the trolls.”

The “WalkAway Movement” also provides a glimpse into the issues and methods that are likely to be used in future psychological operations and disinformation campaigns, particularly as we approach the 2018 midterm elections. While many of the issues—race and racism, LGBTQ rights, immigration, etc—are the same ones that were used by Russia during its 2016 influence operation, they are being wielded in a different manner two years later.

Although Russia did target the left in 2016, there are reasons to believe that the left will be the target in 2018—meaning, the primary target. This doesn’t mean we won’t see a repeat of 2016 tactics targeting Trump supporters and right-wing voters, but rather that these tactics may be used as a supplement to those aimed at left-leaning voters. Thus, the “WalkAway Campaign” should serve as a warning to Democratic voters, who need to be prepared not to walk into the traps that are being and will be set.

Consider, for example, that at the same time Russian-linked Twitter accounts were amplifying #WalkAway and joining Trump supporters in reprimanding Democrats for a supposed lack of civility, they were also boosting the hashtags #AbolishICE and #MaxineWaters. In other words, they were working both sides of divisive issues and amplifying the most polarizing positions (and in some cases, intentionally misrepresenting those positions) in an apparent effort to erase the middle ground, discourage reasoned discourse, and make it seem like compromise is either not possible or not desirable.

Consider also that this took place amid nationwide outcry over Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy, which led to the separation of thousands of immigrant children from their parents. The heartbreaking pictures and gut-wrenching sounds of children sobbing and crying out for their parents even touched a nerve with some of those who might be inclined to support Trump’s immigration policies. Clearly, diverting the public’s attention away from this cruel policy and the human suffering it caused would be of interest to Trump. And you know what would be a way to distract from that? Amplifying a hashtag that is all-too-easy to misrepresent (#AbolishICE), thereby allowing Trump to shift the debate to Democrats calling for “open borders” (even though ICE is not the agency that enforces our borders), while also conveniently exacerbating existing divisions over immigration within the Democratic Party.

Democrats need to be aware that these strategies will be used with increasing frequency, intensity, and sophistication as the 2018 midterms draw nearer. There is an alarming degree of hubris among some non-Trump voters, who seem to believe that Trump supporters are uniquely susceptible to social media manipulation, disinformation, and other types of information warfare. While it’s true that Democrats and other non-Trump voters have more readily accepted the evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and has continued its effort to sow chaos and discord in American society, this has not necessarily translated into preparedness—and you can be sure that political operatives in Russia and in the U.S. have taken note of this.

That brings us to what may be the most important takeaway: Russia clearly still sees Trump supporters as potential accomplices — witting or unwitting — in its ongoing efforts to sow chaos and division in American society. Likewise, after nearly two years of warnings from the U.S. intelligence community, Trump supporters clearly aren’t taking the threat of Russian interference seriously. While most of the people involved in the “WalkAway Movement” likely had no idea that Russia was also involved in pushing the campaign, the founder of the movement was obviously aware and apparently saw no problem with it, even going as far as sitting for an interview with one of the most well-known channels of Russian propaganda. Of course, this doesn’t mean that he is “working with Russia” and it certainly doesn’t prove anything about his intent. However, it does show that Trump’s continued attempts to deny and downplay the threat posed by Russian influence operations are having an impact on his supporters.

Instead of taking the threat seriously, his supporters view Russia as a potential friend and ally, and apparently don’t see anything wrong with accepting help from a Kremlin-funded propaganda outlet.

Conclusions

While the “WalkAway Movement” isn’t likely to convince—not to mention convert—many people, it offers important insight for those interested in understanding psychological operations aimed at manipulating and influencing social media users. This includes people who are interested in developing better defenses against manipulation, as well as those who want to develop more effective methods of manipulation.

Perhaps the most important observation is how quickly Russian propaganda outlets and Russian-linked social media accounts took notice of the campaign and started promoting it. While not exactly surprising, this tells us that Russia is still actively monitoring U.S. social media and looking for opportunities to amplify narratives that are aligned with the Kremlin’s goals.

Similarly, the “WalkAway Campaign” also shows that Russian interests are still very closely aligned with far-right U.S. media outlets and pro-Trump social media users, indicating that we will likely see continued cooperation (witting or unwitting) in the future. This is also a reflection of Trump’s failure to condemn Russia’s interference in our elections and society, which appears to have given his supporters the impression that it’s not something to be taken seriously.

The fact that #WalkAway — a hashtag that was clearly amplified by Russian-linked and automated accounts — remains an active and trending topic on Twitter also tells us that the platform is still highly susceptible to manipulation, and has a long way to go if it wants to minimize the influence of bot-driven operations. In this case, the subject matter wasn’t inherently problematic, but artificial amplification of any content on a wide scale is cause for concern. When automated accounts are used to “like,” share, and post material, they end up gaming algorithms and pushing content onto social feeds when it otherwise wouldn’t be there. The result is that rational debate between humans is replaced by soundbites, arguments, and content designed to amplify extreme or polarizing positions. The use of automated accounts can also help create false impressions of popularity, support, or opposition, and can ultimately even influence news cycles and shape public perceptions on a mass scale.

With midterm elections approaching, we should all be prepared to see more frequent and more sophisticated efforts aimed at manipulating our information space and distorting our perceptions of reality. Dark money in politics is bad enough, but the dark arts it funds take insidious influence to a whole new level.