Trust of Citizens?—Reasoned Distrust Might Be a Better Plan

By manipulating activity on social media platforms, one can strategically influence trends, amplify certain content, and target specific individuals for trolling. This has become known as Computational Propaganda (CP). Indeed, many disciplines are now reporting the pernicious effects of CP and identify a research gap, viz., a social-data science response. This pilot study research asks if micro-targeting can be proactively used to ameliorate the effects of CP? Evidence about CP was presented in different ways, to a micro-targeted, small purposive sample group in a longitudinal study of approximately four weeks, after which recall and salience were tested. The findings showed that none of the participants knew about deliberate campaigns of co-ordinated CP previously and that age mattered. In fact, there was a pronounced critical evaluation skills gap with younger aged participants. Simultaneously, older aged participants did not recognise that social media-based CP could indirectly affect them too. This proof-of-concept study demonstrated that an explanation of and exposure to CP had been necessary; the CP material presented had salience to the participants and it was significant enough to motivate people to care about the issue. The results will be used to refine our future research in this area.