The post-truth internet

Those who've been reading the site since its beginning (not that long ago!) know that one of my current obsessions is the extent to which both the internet and American society at large is descending into a post-truth free-for-all of competing disinformation.

I've even proposed a name for this new phenomenon: Internet Kessler Syndrome. The theory that the ease with which bad actors can distribute false information has expanded so rapidly that factual information—which remains as expensive to produce as it's always been—becomes an impossible-to-find afterthought.

Internet Kessler Syndrome: Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the open internet?

As purpose-built disinformation engines become nearly free to create and run, the production of researched and factual content remains expensive. The result could well be an internet so clogged with ‘debris’ that it loses everything that once made it useful.

Uncharted BlueHunter Lazzaro

There's a new example of this degradation in The Washington Post today. A man named Matthew Metro, who was a student at the Minnesota high school where Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz taught, had his identity stolen by an unknown group who used his name and biographical details to produce a video by an actor claiming to be him—a video in which the fake "Matthew Metro" made completely fabricated accusations against Walz.

The four-minute video, published by a mysterious X account falsely using Metro’s name, is one of numerous outlandish smears against Walz and the other candidates that have flown around social media in recent days, in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. While X eventually added labels beneath the video indicating the content had been manipulated, multiple versions of the clip remain online. In all, posts featuring the video garnered at least 5 million views, according to engagement data the platform publishes.

Now, this isn't your typical disinformation campaign: this one took some serious work. The fraudsters had to hunt online for an American who had attended one specific high school during one specific span of time. It had to be someone who was "online enough" for such biographical details to be available, but who wasn't online enough to quickly notice and debunk the deception. The account that first posted the information seems to have either been itself hacked into or was a "sleeper" account; the Post reports it was "created in October 2023. Other than posts critical of Walz, which began last week, it has mostly shared content about dogs." The video was then boosted via QAnon circles.

Most disinformation efforts don't go to the effort to find an on-camera actor willing to read their script, either. (It's not clear who the fake "Matthew" is, but the Post found an audio expert who said the audio may been altered somewhat.)

So there we go. It's another example of a fraud getting halfway around the world before the truth can put its shoes on, and if there's anything unusual about this particular case it's that, to my own thinking, this one has more hallmarks than most of being a "professional" disinformation effort. It's the use of an account that "mostly shared content about dogs" that makes me suspicious of that. Accounts only change voice so dramatically when they've been hacked into or when they've been created, often by the dozens or hundreds, as professional-grade bot accounts for the purposes of seeding disinformation. Both approaches are the hallmarks of professional, criminal, and/or state-sponsored disinformation.

Who's trying to boost the Trump campaign by putting out fake videos in which real people's identities are stolen for the purposes of peddling completely fabricated scandals against his enemies? We don't know. But it's a reminder that the Russian state-sponsored online voter manipulation attempts that narrowly targeted swing states in 2016 wasn't a one-off. This is likely what every election is going to look like from here on in.

For any foreign or domestic group that wants to manipulate public opinion, there's very little downside to this sort of disinformation. China's been allegedly getting into the game, as has Iran, and U.S. "ally" Israel was in June caught running a government-backed disinformation effort that used roughly 600 fake online personas to pressure U.S. lawmakers into ignoring or dismissing human rights violations in Gaza.

The question, then: Can democracy survive the internet? Is it even possible for a nation's citizens to self-govern if not just a little, but the majority of information they are exposed to has been manipulated to bend their thoughts in whatever ways the worst anonymous actors desire?

I may obsess on this subject, but it's because I don't have a good answer. The structure of the current internet, simply from a technical perspective, doesn't offer a solution. There's no inbuilt verification system for tracking who's really behind that video you see or story you read, and the creation of such a system could itself quickly turn dystopian.

It's a mess. All we know for now is that these propaganda campaigns are going to get much, much worse before anything gets better—if it gets better.

UPDATE: Yup: The Washington Post is now reporting the fabricated Walz claims appear to be linked to a Russian disinformation campaign.