Why Macron Won and Clinton Lost

Hillary Clinton blames her electoral defeat, in part, on what she has called "Russian WikiLeaks" which "raised doubts" in the minds of her likely supporters and "scared them off." Yet the very same arsenal -- bots, fake news, hacking -- was used against Emmanuel Macron -- and he still won the French presidential election against his populist rival by a two-thirds vote.

The internet-based election disruption toolkit is familiar by now. A network of social media accounts, both real and bot-run, agitates for a populist candidate and against his or her centrist rival, posting and reporting memes and stories that are often fake but believable to people in a certain filter bubble. At the same time, hackers launch phishing attacks against the centrist candidate's campaign and then leak their spoils, helped by the same activist-and-bot network. This is what happened in the U.S. in 2016 and in France in 2017. In both countries, the campaigns were blamed on Russia, because they were run against the candidates who were relatively hostile to Russia.