Defending Democracy in the Age of Internet Society

-- By EungyungEileenChoi - 07 Oct 2019

Evil or Good?

It was expected that democracy would flourish even more with the invention of the internet. It is in the heart of democracy that important decisions (including who should represent the nation) are made by the majority. The majority opinion may not be always the best opinion but it is believed that by providing as much information as possible to the public, guaranteeing the freedom of expression, and facilitating vigorous discussions and debates, the majority of people would reach a consensus that is fairly reasonable and beneficial to the society in general. Also, the process of consuming information, expressing opinions, and discussing issues itself can help to bring the society members together because even the minority people feel that their opinion has been heard and considered.

In this context, the internet could only do good to democracy. Information can be distributed through the internet to practically everywhere in less than a second. Various social media and on-line bulletin boards make it possible for anyone to express opinions in public and engage in discussions or debates.

The Candlelight Revolution

In March 2017, the Korean Supreme Court decided to impeach the then-president Ms. Park. Several events led to this impeachment. A scandal that involved Ms. Choi, a close friend of Ms. Park, misusing her relationship with the president to squeeze out money from Korean conglomerates and a marine accident during which the president kept herself locked-in in her bedroom and did not receive reports nor give any orders to rescue the drowning passengers who were mainly high-school students. Angry people poured into the streets and requested Ms. Park to resign. When Ms. Park refused to do so, the National Assembly called for impeachment and the Supreme Court approved. Because the people were holding candlelights while protesting, this impeachment is often referred to as the 'Candlelight Revolution'. There is no contestation that the internet played a significant role in the Candlelight Revolution. News and rumors relating to Ms. Park were widely disseminated through personal broadcasting media, people's anger was snowballed through interaction on social media, and instant messengers were used to organize protests. Thus, some people perceive the Candlelight Revolution as a true example of the internet promoting democracy in its most favorable way.

The King Crab

In the aftermath of the impeachment, Mr. Moon was elected as the new president and his political party gained the majority in the Korean parliament. One year after, the current ruling party requested the police to investigate suspicious activity on the internet. They found that the number of 'likes' of articles opposing Mr. Moon and 'dislikes' of articles that favored Mr. Moon spiked in an irregular pattern. Few months later, a man, widely known by its social media ID 'Duru King', was convicted for impairing the operation of portal website servers by manipulating the numbers of 'likes' or 'dislikes' for certain articles or opinions using a hacking tool called 'King crab'. It was found that Duru King had initially operated the King crab for the benefit of Mr. Moon during his presidential election campaign for which he received some money from a very important figure in Mr. Moon's camp. After President Moon's victory, Duru King asked that a man well-acquainted with himself should be appointed as a high-rank diplomat but his request was rejected. That's when he turned his back and started to use the King crab against Mr. Moon.

The history of internet manipulation in Korean politics dates way back. Several politicians from different political parties were convicted for hiring people to distribute fake information through the internet to slander his opposing candidate in a primary race or election, in 2004, 2008, and 2012, respectively. A former head of the Korean intelligence agency is serving jail time for having ordered his subordinates to post mass comments or retweet comments in support of Ms. Park who was then running for president.

Asch Conformity and Cambridge Analytica

But does the number of 'likes' or 'dislikes' or fake news really matter? To answer this question, let's turn to a classic psychological experiment by Solomon Asch that suggests those things matter. In his well-known conformity experiment, Asch observed that about one third (32%) of the participants conformed to the clearly wrong majority view although most of them claimed that they did not really believe their answers to be true. McLeod? , S. A. (2018, Dec 28). Solomon Asch - Conformity Experiment. https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html Asch suggested that it was the group pressure that was making those people respond in conformity with the majority. Also, according to the experiment, people are more likely to conform if the number of majority is larger. So, the number of 'likes' or 'dislikes' on a posting regarding a political candidate might have an influence on prospective voters. Voters might refrain from expressing their views if they see the 'likes' or 'dislikes' of the majority is different, in a poll, for example. The poll results, in turn, could affect the same or other voter's decisions. False or unverified information degrading a candidate might not be believed right out but if voters are exposed to disinformation over and over again, more are likely to believe the story. As the number of believers grows, group pressure might kick in with a snowballing effect. People who don't believe the story may silence, the majority view, i.e., those who believe the story will grow even bigger, the pressure goes up, etc.

A typical form of public opinion manipulation on the internet includes the use of social network media and the distribution of fake news, i.e. propaganda. Social media plays a crucial role in both ways - collecting personal data from individuals and reaching out to those individuals with fake information. (For a more detailed explanation of how public opinion manipulation on the internet works:https://www.usenix.org/node/208126.) Massive data collectively make it possible to sort out the most vulnerable people, find out their weakest spots, and bombard them with fake information that targets to stimulate their behavior by attacking the very weak spot. "The Great Hack", a documentary on how Cambridge Analytica used personal information to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections shows that, if coupled with behavioral targeting, the impact can get as big as to reverse the results of the election. Even if the outcomes remain unchanged, by creating a public appearance that there might be something wrong in the procedure, electoral legitimacy is put at risk. So, if the Russians or any others wished to sabotage the upcoming 2020 presidential elections in the U.S., they could do it simply by creating chaos and distrust around the system. https://nyti.ms/2uyBXk

Defending Democracy in the Age of Internet Society

While it will be up to the cybersecurity forces to monitor and detect any suspicious activities on the internet, I wonder what I, as a lawyer or as one of the people, can do to help protect the integrity and legitimacy of our democratic system against malicious attempts to manipulate public opinion.

First, knowingly distributing fake information with the intention of manipulating public opinion to harm a political candidate or party should be acknowledged as a separate crime subject to severe punishment. Of course, spreading information is a form of speech protected by the constitution in many countries. The courts in the U.S. and South Korea share views that freedom of speech includes (at least some of) false speech. See, United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 132 S. Ct. 2537 (2012); 2008Hunba157, Korean Constitutional Court (2010.12.28.) Political speech in the U.S. is particularly strongly protected. See, McIntyre? v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 U.S. 334, 115 S. Ct. 1511 (1995). However, freedom of speech is not absolute and the government may restrict speech if such restriction is justifiable under strict scrutiny (in case of political speech in the U.S.) or proportionality test (in Korea). Whatever level of scrutiny applies, my view is that criminalization of the aforementioned kind would stand the test for the following reasons: i) false statements of facts have less, if any, value for "they interfere with the truth-seeking function of the marketplace of ideas", see dissenting opinion in Alvarez, 567 U.S. at 746; and ii) after all, it is for democracy's sake that we protect freedom of speech so that, if the consequences of fake speech are that it actually harms the integrity of democratic procedure, it would be meaningless to protect such harmful speech.

Second, it should be prohibited to collect and use personal information for purposes other than inevitably necessary to provide requested services. As explained before, public opinion manipulation is most powerful and effective if accompanied by personal big data analysis and individual behavioral targeting. Thus, by limiting the collection of personal data to the minimum extent necessary to provide the services requested by the data subject and prohibiting the use of such data for other purposes, we could effectively neutralize attempts of public opinion manipulation on the internet. Although today's websites provide notices such as cookie policies, most times the information is insufficient and too vague to fully understand who collects and uses which information for what purposes. Moreover, it is not possible to refuse or restrict such collection or use because it is either you agree to the policy as whole or you cannot use the entire services of the website. Even if there were a checkbox type of consent for every data collected and used, it would still be problematic because a person's data will inevitably include information relating to others in which case consent by that other person would also be required. Therefore, this problem cannot be solved by mere disclosure or consent but must be that the collection and use is restricted to the minimum extent necessary by law.