The Digital Trap: How Misinformation Targets People Like Us
Writing this blog, I’m making some assumptions about my readers—primarily graduates, middle class, aged between 45 and 65, and self-identifying as well-educated. I hope what I’m about to say doesn’t upset too many of you.
Hate, distrust, and disinformation designed to create political divisions have proliferated in our digital spaces.
We are all collectively aware of misinformation online and the dangers of radicalization. But we mostly assume that it’s other people who fall for it. We tell ourselves that we’re too smart, too well-educated, too well-read. We were probably early adopters who have been online for 30+ years.
When we think of people radicalized online, we picture them—Brexit voters, MAGA supporters. Not us.
We’re wrong.
This is what the SMIDGE Project, an EU-funded initiative, seeks to uncover. I realize that European funding will put some people off, but it is doing some of the most interesting work on online radicalization because it focuses on people like us—middle-aged and middle-class.
We are one of the key groups being targeted by misinformation and radicalisation online via our social media feeds. Not through particularly sophisticated disinformation campaigns, but with the same basic formula used to influence MAGA supporters—just with slightly different content.
The Digital Divide: Why We’re Vulnerable to Misinformation?
We are the last generation of non-digital natives, people who grew up before the internet. We think of ourselves as skilled at spotting misinformation or manipulation, but we lack the instinctive awareness of younger generations. They know that the internet looks different to everyone, that we don’t all see the same information, and that what is shared with us doesn’t always come from the sources we think it does. Our generation doesn’t always keep that in mind.
Not as digitally savvy as younger users, we often lack the necessary skills to distinguish online truth from fiction. Many of us have also grown more cynical and distrustful of mainstream media, making us more susceptible to simplified narratives and easy explanations.
Age has given us resilience, but it has also changed our working patterns and social interactions. We spend more time online. Our children are leaving home, our parents are passing away, and many of us are retiring or have reached the peak of our careers. The things that once filled our lives and our time are receding.
And that makes us vulnerable.
A Personal Encounter with Digital Manipulation
I was reminded of the SMIDGE Project in a recent online interaction. I had posted an image of Elon Musk making what appeared to be a Sieg Heil gesture. In response, some people shared this image with me:
I traced the image’s journey online. It originated on Trump-Rising, a web forum that evolved from the pro-Trump 4chan groups active around the 2016 U.S. presidential election. These forums are unapologetically racist, misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic, and transphobic.
From there, the image bounced between far-right Xitter accounts and pro-Trump forums like TheDonald.Win and GreatAwakening.Win—both known for violent and extremist content. Social media algorithms then amplified it, pushing it beyond the far-right echo chambers and into wider networks through “For You” feeds.
Within a few hours, the image reappeared on my own Facebook page. People I knew—who would never identify as far-right—shared it with me in discussions about Musk and the Nazi salute.
This wasn’t just because social media algorithms promoted it. It had transitioned from far-right spaces into other political groups: Corbyn supporters, Green Party members, and alternative wellness communities were particularly prone to sharing it.
There was debate among my friends about whether Musk’s gesture really was a Nazi salute. But there was no ambiguity on the MAGA and Trump forums. They knew what it was. They celebrated it.
For them, this was a clear victory: a high-profile figure had finally legitimized their fascist ideology. Some users openly discussed their future plans—rounding up immigrants first, followed by Jews and paedophiles, who they believed should be “fast-tracked to the gas chambers.” Others fantasized about neighborhood lynchings, with their punishment of choice being execution by woodchipper—feet first.
Their forums and social media accounts quickly filled with people replicating Musk’s gesture.
He had made Sieg Heil great again.
And the U.S. far-right loved him for it.
The Spread of Disinformation: A Repeated Pattern
This was a massive dog whistle—one that some chose not to hear.
But it wasn’t the first time far-right misinformation had reached me from unexpected sources.
For example, during the last U.S. election, I had Jewish and Arab friends tell me they couldn’t vote for Kamala Harris because of her stance on Israel/Palestine.
- Some felt she was too pro-Israel.
- Others believed she was too pro-Palestine.
The most striking thing? The arguments on both sides were identical, but in mirror image.
Tracing these narratives back, I found they originated from Future Coalition PAC, a pro-Trump Political Action Committee funded by Elon Musk.
This PAC had produced targeted ads spreading contradictory messages—one for Jewish voters painting Harris as pro-Palestine, and another for Arab voters depicting her as pro-Israel. These are 2 of the ads side by side:
Both groups were being manipulated using the same tactic.
I could tell the same story about misinformation surrounding Greta Thunberg, climate change, vaccines, paedophile conspiracies, and countless other viral stories.
Why This Matters
The purpose of online disinformation is simple: to undermine trust in democratic institutions.
Anyone whose ideology makes them feel superior to mainstream politics—whether that’s Democrat/Republican, Labour/Conservative—is a target.
And these campaigns are terrifyingly effective.
The infrastructure of disinformation is multi-layered, spanning:
✔ Social media
✔ Messaging apps
✔ Online forums
✔ Alternative media channels
✔ Fake news websites
✔ Content aggregators
There are powerful people inside and outside the UK investing vast sums of money to install an authoritarian far-right leader in Number 10 at the next election.
They will spend enormous resources targeting the 17 million people who backed Brexit.
But just as much time and money will be spent splintering the left—encouraging alternatives to Labour to achieve the same outcome.
And they will target people exactly like us, exploiting our sense of intellectual and moral superiority to manipulate us.
Filling our social media feeds with carefully curated misinformation.
Pushing our buttons.
And, tragically, we will fall for it—over and over again.
A Final Thought
Some will rightfully ask: Who am I to be so wise? What makes my opinion more valid than anyone else’s?
That’s a fair question.
We live in a time when personal opinion is treated as sacrosanct. The internet has allowed us to express our political views freely and cultivate a sense of individual political identity.
But beyond opinions and identities, there are other things: fact, reality, truth.
Not everything is just an opinion.
And that matters—because when we stop believing in objective truth, we stop believing in democracy.
I don’t claim to be the sole guardian of truth.
But I do know that truth and reality exist—somewhere amid the fantasies, falsehoods, and half-truths that flood our digital spaces.
And I care.
Because I lost a good friend to online disinformation.
And I don’t want to lose any more.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886
This playbook of feeding hate and division to people is getting worse. So long as the working and middle classes are fighting one another no one will care about the wealth inequality that is on hyperdrive. The multi-millionaire and billionaire class are indeed filling their coffers at an unprecedented rate and will continue to do so – so long as we continue to fight each other. It’s an old playbook that has been turbocharged by social media and I don’t see it ending well.
I agree. The harder it is to tell truth from lies, reality from fantasy, the easier it is to manipulate people and, in turn, push them towards authoritarianism