Have we ever been tricked? Influenced by someone? A lot of us have been tricked and influenced by our friends to do something, but have we been influenced to think in a certain pattern or is it even possible? As per Edward Bernay, “We are governed, our minds moulded and our ideas suggested by men we have not met”, which means our thinking patterns can also be influenced and shaped. Multinationals and politicians have been influencing how and what we think for ages; take the example of our mental battlefield where our mind fights between Coca-Cola vs Pepsi, Nike vs Adidas, Trump vs Biden, Mamdani vs Andre Cuomo. These comparisons arise organically in our mind, but the extent of views is also shaped by narratives, mass psychology and, in recent times, social media narratives. In the last decade, everything has shifted sharply into digital mode, including people who significantly engage in the digital world. As people’s attention and engagement shifted online, even business campaigns, political campaigns and democratic discourses shifted online.
The growth of digital democracy and fruitful political engagement in social media has made digital political campaigns lucrative for Politicians and political parties. Political digital campaigns’ primary growth, however, is their noteworthy influence; it has gone to the extent of influencing polling decisions and shaping the social and political narratives through astroturfing and algorithms. This output has led politicians and political parties to be eager to integrate digital tools and strategies in political discourse. In this short journey, they have already made two best friends: Algorithm and astroturfing, which have helped them to create influence bubbles and keep citizens in their narrative silos.
Algorithm and astroturfing in present democracies
Algorithms are automated mechanisms that curates, suggests contents based on our engagement. It’s a mechanism that is created to keep us attached to the screens based on a personalised experience created through our recent engagements. Astroturfing is the practice of influencing people with messaging and content strategies to create a fake promotion and support from the general public. It’s a growing strategy to create inorganic support and validation out of misinformation, disinformation or clever messaging by tricking people into believing in mass psychology. The deadly combo of Algorithms and astroturfing has become a prominent tool for influencing citizens across the world, polarising citizens, creating ideological bubbles and influencing polling. Algorithms act as an accelerant to the astroturfed content that gains millions of views which was a significant task before digitalisation. As a result, substantial amounts and skilled human resources are mobilised globally to influence algorithms to form a deadly combo of hyper-personalised influencing through AI slop that floods citizens’ feeds. Globally, this deadly combo is used to subtly persuade people into believing the inorganic content flood, which is a general psychological tendency. The Indonesian cyber troops, Indian political parties’ digital games, Bulgaria’s funded cognitive shaping during the parliamentary election and astroturfing in Nepal’s 2026 HoR election show the widespread use and threat of Algorithms and astroturfing in democracies across the world.
Algorithm and astroturfing in Nepal’s democracy
The digital divide in Nepal is huge but increasing foreign employment has led smartphones to reach remote parts of Nepal where algorithms and astroturfing have followed. The areas which were inaccessible and highly costly for political campaigns have seen greater digital reach in recent elections with algorithms, misinformation and paid ads. Nepal’s individual, social and democratic discourses have been actively shaped by online discourses. Political parties and citizens have made the digital space a battlefield of emotions where real democratic discourses are foundering as a result of algorithms and astroturfing feeding hatred and hostility. Nepal’s political ad spending pattern, use of bots, paid cyber troops, use of AI and targeted astroturfed messaging show how Nepal is shifting its democratic discourses to the virtual world. Nepali political circle has realised that attention and engagement are a commodity for politics and it’s found abundantly in digital platforms, which are traded in dollars(ads) and influenced by astroturfing very easily. The global pattern of cognitive shaping by astroturfed content has entered Nepal, which is used to validate and shape discussion around polling, policies, ideologies and constitutional discourses. This shift of digital discourse amidst a vulnerable civic health is a worrying sign for Nepali democracy and the primary blame goes to political actors, media and popular pages who use rage-baiting, sensationalization and emotional targeting to grow views and advance respective agendas. They sensationalise news, create subtle hostility and use messaging patterns to promote and socially undermine views. This poses a serious question as to how Nepal’s democracy is coping or suffering from the algorithmic gaming and psychological priming by astroturfers.
Algorithm and astroturfing succumbing Nepal’s Democracy
Algorithms and Astroturfing hit the hardest where civic consciousness is most vulnerable. The use of Algorithms and astroturfing has created silos and bubbles which have polarised the country; everyone seems to enjoy their bubble conformity bias and attack every dissenting view. This outrage and intolerance have led Nepal’s already susceptible civic health to become vulnerable, increasing toxicity and barbarity against dissenting views and democratic friction means our democracy is succumbing to narratives and polarisation created across digital platforms. The formation of opinion and criticism is influenced by actors who gas their respective blocks with astroturfed content, which restricts critical thinking and healthy discourses. Even when people break the conformity bias and shackles of narrative to give their opinion, it’s met with hate speech, outrage and assaults, digitally restricting opinions and discourses. Frictions are norms of democracy but in Nepal it seems to have foundered because of polarisation, hostile suppression and intolerance created by astroturfed content and algorithms, which signifies a shadow of doubt over Nepal’s democracy.
What next?
Our vulnerable civic consciousness made us blank slates that were easy to feed narratives and malleable by algorithms and astroturfing. The first step towards restoring our democratic norms should be an immunisation camp against astroturfing, misinformation and disinformation accelerated by algorithms, which should be proactively led by civil societies as political power itself is victimising citizens. Secondly, citizens shall internalise our democratic foundations based on cooperation, tolerance and compromise and allow discourses to happen that empower our democracy. Democracy is not an equilibrium; it’s a sum of friction, but where dissent and ideologies are respected and this needs to be restored to end the current fatal polarisation. Lastly, this is a global problem that the Nepal government should anticipate and address to limit the scourge of algorithms and astroturfing in our political life, which has gradually entered the social fabric. The recent EU AI Act and Digital Services Act provide impetus for binding regulation to control harmful AI-based manipulations and very large online platforms, which Nepal should take as a reference and demonstrate progressive efforts through legislation and policies to curtail undue and inorganic influence and restore the democratic foundation.
