4. Flood the Zone
In the run up to the 2016 elections, journalists in America and Philippines try to raise the alarm: something strange is going on online. Social media is under attack.
2016 is a big election year. But something is going very wrong online. Journalists in America and the Philippines start to notice something strange going on online.
In Manila, Maria Ressa - the editor of online news site, Rappler - discovers a sock puppet network of social media accounts, all pushing for the election of a strong leader. Someone like Rodrigo Duterte. Maria is suspicious. She makes an urgent call to Facebook.
In Veles, in Macedonia, a young man called 'Marco' starts writing fake articles and posting them online. Very soon they're being read by millions of people around the globe and he's making huge sums of money.
The online ecosystem is under attack.
Producer: Caitlin Smith
Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore
Composer: Jeremy Warmsley
Exec: Peter McManus
Researcher: Juliet Conway and Elizabeth Ann Duffy
Commissioned by Dan Clarke
Archive: 大象传媒 News, AP Archive, Bloomberg Television, CNN
New episodes released on Mondays. If you鈥檙e in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on 大象传媒 Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u
Last on
More episodes
Previous
Next
Broadcasts
- Mon 26 Feb 2024 11:00大象传媒 Radio 4
- Tue 2 Jul 2024 15:00大象传媒 Radio 4 FM
Podcast
-
![]()
The Gatekeepers
The founders of social media conquered the world... and they're not finished yet.
