Foreign Interference in the 2020 Election: Tools for Detecting Online Election Interference
Abstract
Foreign election interference is a serious threat to U.S. democratic processes, something that became visible and received public attention in the wake of the 2016 U.S. general election. In the aftermath of that election, it became clear that agents acting on behalf of the Russian government went online and engaged in a very sophisticated malign information effort meant to sow chaos and inflame partisan divides in the U.S. electorate (Marcellino, Cox, et al., 2020). Because of the seriousness of the threat and concerns that such threats are likely to be ongoing, improving the detection of such efforts is critical. That desire to help bolster our democratic processes from illicit interference motivated our current study, which attempted to pilot improved detection methods prior to the 2020 electionwe wanted to detect any such efforts in time to provide warning rather than post hoc.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1111253
Entities
People
- Christian Johnson
- Marek N. Posard
- Todd C. Helmus
- William M. Marcellino
Organizations
- RAND Corporation