#TPT - Harvard psychologist tracks online interference swinging U.S. elections

Randomized, controlled experiments with thousands of participants

It’s another Friday edition of Twadpockle Thursday (#TPT), links of consequence for you!

Today we admire Harvard research psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein for his decade-plus project to protect Our Democracy and its election integrity.

A Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, Epstein was already hip-deep in the data of online election interference back in 2015, before it was cool!

Stanford University recognized his work in 2015 and 2017 and featured him in their Colloquium on Computer Systems Seminar Series, a course called “EE380,” which means it is graduate level in the Electrical Engineering Department. If I were 23 years younger, I might have ended up taking it. For credit!

The influence Dr. Epstein found is “one of the largest behavioral effects ever discovered, and it is almost entirely undetectable as a means of social influence, which makes it especially dangerous.” It is still going on right now, but he invented an ingenious way to track the trackers and is working hard to expose them.

You’ll never guess the culprit!

Could it be... RUSSIA? I’m not telling.

Find out by watching this video. You’ll figure it out pretty quick. No need to watch the whole thing—unless you give a flying fig about Our Democracy. 😅

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(VIDEO) Election Fraud, Big Tech And Trump 2024 w/Robert Bowes & Dr. Robert Epstein -- The Culture War EP. 34, Tim Pool

Epstein’s quantitative, controlled experiments into live online election interference
Oct 20, 2023

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The Stanford presentations are probably less entertaining, but here they are, in case you’re that repelled by Tim Pool (who was also a Democrat in 2015).

(VIDEO) Stanford Seminar - Unethical Algorithms of Massive Scale

EE380: Computer Systems Colloquium Seminar
Unethical Algorithms of Massive Scale: New Data, a New Discovery, a New Tracking System, and a New Organization
Jun 8, 2017

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(VIDEO) Stanford Seminar - The Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) and Its Unparalleled Power

(This video not available for embedding, but the button will take you to it on YouTube.)

Colloquium on Computer Systems Seminar Series (EE380)
The Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) and Its Unparalleled Power To Influence How We Think
Oct 29, 2015

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Dr. Epstein is co-founder and Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, where he develops these quantitative methods and monitors how online “ephemeral experiences” are manipulated intentionally to swing enough votes to change the outcomes of U.S. elections.

And “quantitative” means “numbers,” which do not lie. Because only people can do that. And Robert Epstein is a person. Can you make up your mind about him without regard to who his culprit is?

Democracy depends on it!

Abstract of the 2015 Stanford talk (excerpt)

An extensive study published in August 2015 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA shows that biased search rankings have a dramatic impact on the voting preferences of undecided voters. Five randomized, controlled experiments conducted with more than 4,500 participants in two countries showed that rankings that favored one candidate could easily increase the proportion of people who supported that candidate by 20 percent or more—up to 80 percent in some demographic groups—with virtually no one aware they were being manipulated…

The impact of search rankings on people’s thinking is called the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME). SEME is one of the largest behavioral effects ever discovered, and it is almost entirely undetectable as a means of social influence, which makes it especially dangerous.

Trust & Safety Dept.

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