Wargame Exercise Shows How Social Media Manipulation Works

Researchers at the University of New South Wales ran a four-week multiplayer wargame called 'Capture the Narrative,' in which 270+ students from 18 universities built AI-driven bots to manipulate a simulated election on a custom social media platform called Legit Social. The bots successfully shifted the simulated vote by 1.8 percentage points — enough to change the outcome. Teams developed techniques including adaptive spam systems, sentiment-based micro-targeting, and closed-loop content optimization, all on budgets of AU$0–$100. The exercise was inspired by real-world influence operations targeting Australian elections and referendums. Key takeaways: social media platforms need to do more to detect and remove AI-generated persuasion content at scale, and public education about autonomous content generation is essential.