The Soros-funded Remoaner represents all that is wrong with the Fake News MSM. The book is astoundingly partisan and very badly referenced. The author quotes news media outlets as "sources" even when he highlights that the accused "right" (because it's only the "right" he condemns! EVERYONE is far-right!!) called this same source "Fake news". His approach is 'X says this is fake "fake news" but [Fake News source] said this ...' I'm not sure how quoting the fake news as the source is meant to prove the fake news is the truth. Geoghegan doesn't seem to understand primary and secondary sources (rookie mistake!) This book highlights that he is part of the problem of disinformation. By the time he gets to his out-and-out Trump-bashing (pps.323-332) the reader knows to expect the usual leftist prattle. Geoghegan lets it be known that he believes the US was all above-aboard and wonderfully legal (no dark money to see here! Unless it's, umm, on the "right" of course!) I wonder if he read the Times article where they admit they interfered in the due process, using dirty politics and dark money so they could "fortify" the election. We are only at the beginning of understanding how the 21st-century confluence of opaque money, extreme politics and digital technology has frayed our democracy. This book is an important part of that process. We are a long way from having viable solutions, but we owe a debt to relentless journalists like Geoghegan for starting the work of rooting out the source of stench before it overwhelms us. And the thing that’s terrifying is that while Cambridge has been disbanded, the same actors are out there. And there’s nothing has been — nothing has changed to allow us to start putting in place legislation to say there is something called information crimes. In this era of information warfare, in this era of information economies, what is an information crime? What does it look like? Who determines it? And yet, without that, we are still living in this unfiltered, unregulated space, where places like Facebook are continuing to choose profit over the protection of the republic. And I think that’s what’s so outrageous. American academic Sheri Berman explains how this discontent is borne from leaders’ failure to deal with economic challenges that have led to growing inequality, and political scientist Larry Diamond explains how the very basic tenets of democracy have been compromised to serve specific and influential interests.

This is a book everyone should read, it will open your eyes. The sad thing is that ‘The biggest source of disinformation “is the governing party, and they are the ones charged with changing the law” to protect our democracy. Sunderland was one of the first places to declare on referendum night. Over 60% voted to leave the European Union. It was a result that set the tone for a stunning political upset. Through the night, pollsters struggled to explain a vote that defied their predictive models. The next morning, markets nose-dived. The resignation of the prime minister, David Cameron, was only the third item on many news bulletins. The ensuing years of chaos laid bare the fault lines of modern Britain and have changed Europe forever. If you're concerned about the health of British democracy, read this book - it is thorough, gripping and vitally important' Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland. This is not a cheery read, but the audiobook I had made compelling reading in mood-regulating small doses. The micro-marketing now possibly on social media can be calibrated to precisely influence a highly specific audience of swing voters. Moreover, behavioural economics (not touched on as such, but alluded to in the book) allows the timing of emotive misinformation to have maximum effect. It was not described as such by Geoghegan, but it put me in mind of a targeted pain relief advert. In hitting the political bullseye, however, all too it feels more like the implantation of a cancer than its removal. Dark money has gone hand-in-hand with the rise of digital disinformation. It is a truism that politics has been transformed in recent years. But it is not just the outcomes, the election of disruptive authoritarian populists, that have changed. Behind Brexit, Trump and a host of other unforeseen ruptures is a paradigm shift in the nature of political communication. The digital world offers voters the opportunity to live in echo chambers where their political prejudices are confirmed and reinforced daily. We can all choose a tribe now and decide not to hear any voices critical of our choice.As politics becomes increasingly voracious of time and occupies more and more space on digital media, the scope for hidden influence through spending outside BRITTANY KAISER: The massive problems that came from the data collection, specifically, are where my original accusations come from, because data was collected under the auspices of being for academic research and was used for political and commercial purposes. There are also different data sets that are not supposed to be matched and used without explicit transparency and consent in the United Kingdom, because they actually have good national data protection laws and international data protection laws through the European Union to protect voters. Unfortunately, in the United States, we only have seen the state of California coming out and doing it. The communications revolution has changed our politics in ways we are still struggling to understand. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party may have ceded most of its power to Boris Johnson in the December 2019 general election, but the remarkable story of its short-lived success tells us a lot. In May of the same year, Britain’s first ‘digital party’ topped the polls in European parliament elections in the UK, less than four months after it was first registered. Inspired by Italy’s Five Star Movement, the Brexit Party ran a sophisticated online campaign that tapped into widespread anger that Britain was still in the EU, nearly three years after the country had voted to
leave. This book lifts the lid how the internet combined with undisclosed financing is being used in UK political campaigning. It exposes current campaign finance rules as being open to abuse as they fall behind technological advances and changes in the voters consume information. Most disturbingly, it lays bare how think tanks funnel undisclosed money into research and campaigns aimed at influencing governments position.

The absence of a truly representative electoral system or a codified constitution has only added to Britain’s democratic malaise. Regardless of what the country’s post-Brexit future looks like, its broken system needs radical surgery. Democracy for Sale is an on-the-ground account of Indonesian democracy, analyzing its election campaigns and behind-the-scenes machinations. Edward Aspinall and Ward Berenschot assess the informal networks and political strategies that shape access to power and privilege in the messy political environment of contemporary Indonesia. Among the lessons Farage gleaned from Five Star was the electoral benefit of being seen as coming from outside traditional politics altogether.Then there is the shed loads of illegal Dark Money being pumped into various causes, be it Johnson, Trump or Brexit.