AI can find politicians’ “skeletons in the closet” on social media – and yours too

They say that a person's character is defined by what they do when no one is looking. But in this election campaign, what's becoming increasingly clear is that character is also revealed by what you do when you think only a few people are watching.

Ever since JD Vance was chosen as Donald Trump's running mate in July, the Ohio senator has been under fire after some of his content came to light, including misogynistic and xenophobic comments on podcasts and controversial phone calls in his contact list on the payment app Venmo.

The first millennial to join a US presidential ticket is also the first vice presidential candidate whose digital presence has come back to haunt him.

JD Vance's troubled candidacy is proof that, regardless of political ideology, overexposure on the internet has become a risk for anyone who wants to enter public life in a prominent position.

Not only is it harder to hide digital tracks, but experts in unearthing compromising content are more efficient than ever – especially in the field of politics.

GOING THROUGH YOUR ONLINE HISTORY

Spending too much time on social media can trap us in a bubble that shapes our opinions, and this echo chamber creates an environment where we feel comfortable and confident sharing them. In a political landscape where every comment can go viral, this is a big problem. And it’s a relatively new issue.

JD Vance and his fellow millennials were in their early 20s when Facebook launched in 2004. Since then, they have amassed two decades of posts, tweets, blogs and YouTube videos — all while a culture of exposing others’ contradictions has taken shape, teaching people to sift through each other’s digital footprints.

But the problem is not limited to candidates only. Ferretlyfor example, has just launched an AI-powered social media analytics platform specifically aimed at political campaign workers.

Experts in unearthing compromising content are more efficient than ever, especially in the field of politics.

“I’m not a pro-censorship person, but I do believe that what someone says publicly can have consequences,” says Darrin Lipscomb, founder of Ferretly. “If someone wants to be part of a company and its culture, the company has every right to vet their public statements.”

Since 2019, Ferretly has been helping companies discover what potential employees have said online. It uses AI to scour social media and other public sources going back up to 15 years, looking for potentially risky behavior that might go unnoticed by conventional checks — such as inflammatory rhetoric, hate speech, bullyingdrug use and even nudity.

With clients in 32 countries, the company serves a diverse base that includes everything from college and professional sports teams to police departments and influencers. It’s not hard to imagine how many problematic hires could have been avoided with the help of this type of service.

However, Ferretly didn’t initially set out to create a platform for political campaigns. “We started by identifying behaviors related to politics, government discourse and extremism on social media, and we went from there,” Lipscomb says.

After noticing an increase in these behaviors among profiles evaluated in other areas, the company was hired to analyze some candidates for the UK parliament. It has since launched its service aimed at electoral teams and now works with some political action committees in the US.

The platform, which can be customized according to the client's needs, goes beyond standard analysis by focusing on extreme rhetoric and visual content.

Machine learning algorithms can filter thousands of posts and memes for offensive gestures like the middle finger, extremist symbols like Nazi insignia and terrorist flags, and images of weapons, sharp objects and explosives.

DIGGING UP OLD TWEETS

The fact that Ferretly's platform is in such high demand is yet another sign of how social media is coming under scrutiny.

In addition to social media, it also analyzes transcripts of public podcasts for specific words and phrases. Imagine what could be revealed about a candidate with controversial views whose campaign is trying to hide and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Analyzing the profiles of political candidates probably won’t stop them from reproducing certain behaviors. But it will probably teach them to hide them better. The secret may lie in knowing when and how to cover your tracks.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joe Berkowitz is an opinion columnist for Fast Company. learn more

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