“In a recent experiment, the Harvard senior Max Weiss used a text-generation program to create 1,000 comments in response to a government call on a Medicaid issue. These comments were all unique, and sounded like real people advocating for a specific policy position. They fooled the Medicaid.gov administrators, who accepted them as genuine concerns from actual human beings. This being research, Weiss subsequently identified the comments and asked for them to be removed, so that no actual policy debate would be unfairly biased. The next group to try this won’t be so honorable.” The Atlantic: Bots Are Destroying Political Discourse As We Know It.

+ Tired of manufacturing and disseminating your own propaganda? Don’t worry, there’s help on the way. Buzzfeed: How A New Breed Of PR Firms Is Selling Lies Online.

+ Sometimes you need a little more influence to spread the falsehoods. Luckily, there are people to serve that need as well. CBS: GOP congressman tweets fake photo of Obama with Iran’s president.