The technology which might influence the US election

The US election between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump is going down to the wire. Indeed, this has been described by many as the closest presidential election ever seen. Inevitably, with tensions so high on either side, the cry of electoral interference is a common one. But just how is today’s technology being used to sway voter opinion, and by how much? Scott Lucas is an expert on US politics at the Clinton Institute, University College Dublin and the University of Birmingham. He is also founder and editor-in-chief of EA WorldView, which is a leading site for coverage of international affairs. He spoke with Chris Smith

Scott - The dramatic change in this year's election was in late July when President Joe Biden stood down and let Kamala Harris run this very brief but intense campaign to try to hold the White House for the Democrats this time around.

Chris - Probably, those sentiments you've expressed have been reflected in the polling hitherto, haven't they? We can focus on how close it is now in a second, but there had been quite a gulf opening up between where Biden sat and Trump now.

Scott - The indicators beyond the polls were that Biden's age was sucking all the oxygen out of the room and so Trump's lead was widening, including in the seven states that will decide the election. As soon as Harris replaced Biden in the race, Trump's advantage in those seven states and indeed nationwide disappeared. Ever since then, it has been a 50/50 race, and I think it will remain a toss up all the way to November 5th.

Chris - And is it literally that close at the moment? It's sitting around the centre point 50/50 each way at the moment?

Scott - In the seven states that will determine this election, in each of the seven, the gap between Harris and Trump is less than 2%, and in five of the seven states, the gap is less than 1%.

Chris - How do we regard social media in all this? Is that going to be a big player? It seems to be dominating all the headlines: who's saying what online? Is that the new way you win elections?

Scott - Well, social media has been an influence in US elections all the way back to 2008, when Barack Obama's campaign used that platform very effectively to propel him and to propel his views over the Republican John McCain. Then, we've seen as social media and the technology behind it develops, and as you have new platforms that come forward, whether you're talking about Facebook, whether you're talking about Twitter now, Instagram and TikTok, that this is the way that people are reached quickly. This is the way that not necessarily full discussions of issues, but at least soundbites from the candidates are presented. So I would say not only that social media has become more important, I would say that social media actually is overtaking traditional media and being the platform for immediacy in terms of seeing the candidates and thus making your decision on which of those candidates you support.

Chris - It's interesting, though, isn't it, because Donald Trump got thrown off Twitter and then Elon Musk spent billions, tens of billions, buying it and has reinstated him and he is also backing him. Has Elon Musk basically spent tens of billions in order to help one potential candidate here?

Scott - Well, social media is not necessarily a neutral venue in terms of elections. What we have seen with Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, converting it into effectively a personal platform which tries to propel his beliefs, his views, and his alliances, is that this in effect is an attempt to make that outlet a Donald Trump platform as well as Trump's own social media platform, Truth Social. Musk, who has personally given $250 million to Trump, this is not hidden. The fact is that Musk is now part of a social media environment in which the platform might be one where everybody can join in, but the people running the platform can politicise it and tilt it, or try to tilt it, to make a difference in an election.

Chris - Indeed. Are there any rules around any of this? Because presumably all it would take is some lines of code to get inserted into the algorithm to just tilt the balance a bit and you could very dramatically change what people were exposed to, who they were introduced to as possible followers, etc., and rebalance things in a different direction?

Scott - The US government and the courts effectively gave up on regulating balance in media in the 1980s when they removed the fairness doctrine, so that's not new. What has been significant is that with this brave new world of the media that we now have, there's really been no attempt to bring in a regulation. There's no particular federal authorities, at least in the United States, that can tell Elon Musk, you really can't put up these posts which are flagrant violations of balance, violations of fairness, and in some cases coming very close to breaking laws. So, no, effectively, if you talk about Facebook/Meta, if you talk about Google, if you talk about X, you really are dependent upon those who oversee those platforms to play fair, to play by the rules. There's no chance that the government can step in and make them do so.

Chris - The new kid on the technological block is also AI, and this has been sort of the word of the year for few years running. Very, very rarely out of the papers. What role might that play and how are politicians, policymakers worried about that? What threat does it pose?

Scott - Again, AI is getting a lot of attention now, but AI has been with us for some time in terms of the ability to generate images to try to get out there and influence what we see, to influence how we think. What is distinctive in 2024 is of course the speed and the depth to which AI can generate text or it can generate sounds or it can generate videos.

Chris - We've also had headlines about the UK Labour Party sending activists over to the US to campaign on behalf of one of the candidates. What sort of role or what's the level of concern about international interference from I wanna say you can't really include the UK as a rogue state, but other rogue states, Iran, certainly on the list. China has also got form in this area, and especially Russia as you've just mentioned.

Scott - I think the specific allegation of, uh, the UK's foreign interference is an example of how social media can be manipulated. In fact, not to give us the truth, but to give us deception. This in fact, was actually foreign interference of a different kind. It was a UK politician named Nigel Farage, who put out the false statement that Labor Party activists may have been paid to work with the campaign of Kamala Harris. Completely untrue. Uh, Nigel Farge himself has actually been working with the Trump campaign since 2016, but what he was doing is he was trying to twist what we see on social media and to get traditional media to pick up the story. Uh, and he was successful to a degree in doing that. At the same time, that case of, of, of almost a distraction in terms of how social media is used and a manipulation, how social media used, took us away from what are the very real issues, the broader issues about foreign powers who have tried for years to interfere in elections.