A platform originally developed to fight the spread of terrorist propaganda will soon be used to help Joe Biden in his election battle against President Donald Trump.
A Democrat-led PAC advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has plans to use artificial intelligence and network analysis that received initial funding from DARPA, the Pentagon’s secretive research arm, The Washington Post reports.
Instead of fighting ISIS propaganda, the group “Defeat Disinfo” will use the technology to call out Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak in an effort to boost Biden.
The tool works by identifying the most popular Trump counter-narratives and boosting them through a network of more than 3.4 million influencers across the country. The platform will even pay users with large followings to take sides against the president. The artificial intelligence used will put up a fight against Trump’s digital army.
“It’s often said campaigns are a battle of ideas, but they’re really a battle of narratives,” David Eichenbaum, a media consultant who is a senior adviser to the PAC, told the newspaper. “Today those narratives spread quickly online.”
Social media expert Curtis Hougland is in charge of the effort. He said Republicans have a much stronger digital presence that shows up to defend Trump.
He told The Washington Post that Republicans “have greater volume frequency and quality of digital narrative."