Dems boost social media presence to combat interference

Democratic leaders fearful of potential Russian interference and burned by recent conservative success on social media have begun a new effort to win the midterm election battle on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party organization in charge of strategy for House races, introduced internal software this spring to identify suspected automated Twitter accounts, or bots, that frequently post about key races and seem similar to the fake accounts U.S. intelligence officials and technology firms say were part of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, party officials said.

The system also is designed to provide a more aggressive strategy to drive discussions on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, an area in which Democrats think they were outmaneuvered in ’16 — with the committee hiring dozens of social media specialists to fight daily messaging battles online.

The effort has dispatched 43 staff members to the most competitive districts in the nation, where they are building grassroots networks to spread proDemocratic messages as well as attacks on Republicans in local Facebook and Twitter communities. The DCCC has flagged nearly 10 accounts as malicious bots to Twitter, which shut them down, committee staff members said.

“This is completely different from what we have done in past cycles,” said Dan Sena, the executive director of the DCCC.

Under the new model, Democratic organizers paid for by the national party committee recruit volunteer social media activists like they would people to knock on doors or work at phone banks. The new staff members work to place potentially viral content in local Facebook groups like they once tried to influence the letter to the editor pages of local newspapers.

Republicans, meanwhile, have a more limited program of providing House candidates with digital training and support for campaign staff members.

A focus on social media organizing is quickly becoming the new standard as Democrats increase the volume of political persuasion efforts on social media, a growing tool for reaching voters as TV viewership declines and smartphone use increases. Democrats concluded after the 2016 election that Republicans had outperformed their efforts, both in paid and viral memes driven by candidate Donald Trump.

“Whether it’s Russia or whether it is a bot network in Michigan, it’s all the same in terms of fighting against it,” said David Yanakovich, the digital director for the successful Senate campaign of Doug Jones, D-Ala., an effort that tracked some automated bot activity in the closing days of that race. “You have to take everything seriously. You can’t let anything go without combating it.”