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Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

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Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#11

Post by mapster »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #6
tlb wrote: post #2

It seems to have taken about a year for basic information about last year's misinformation campaign to come out. 3 years from now there'll be another election and presumably another misinformation campaign. Should we be optimistic that someone will be on top of it before the election?

> basic information about last year's misinformation campaign You mean when all of the U.S. press spent the year beating up on Trump? It was pretty obvious, just from looking at the front pages. That was the Russians? Wily buggers.

'beating on Trump' is their prerogative as media. stay on topic. this is about hacking and twitter and russia

Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#12

Post by dogma1138 »

mapster wrote: post #11
B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basic information about last year's misinformation campaign You mean when all of the U.S. press spent the year beating up on Trump? It was pretty obvious, just from looking at the front pages. That was the Russians? Wily buggers.

'beating on Trump' is their prerogative as media. stay on topic. this is about hacking and twitter and russia

How about US involvement in elections all over the world? You don't see outcry for that, in fact you see it on the cover of Time magazine as a boast.

Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#13

Post by save_ferris »

dragonwriter wrote: post #3
tlb wrote: post #2

It seems to have taken about a year for basic information about last year's misinformation campaign to come out. 3 years from now there'll be another election and presumably another misinformation campaign. Should we be optimistic that someone will be on top of it before the election?

Since it's more widely accepted to be a significant part of the threat model, there should be more attention and effort focussed on identifying and revealing information about it. OTOH, there will be misinformation directed to confuse the public about that, too, and that may be challenging to sort out.

> OTOH, there will be misinformation directed to confuse the public about that, too, and that may be challenging to sort out.

This is what scares me. We saw in the last few days that a prominent 'antifa' Twitter account pretending to based out of Boston tweeted from Vladivostok, presumably in error.

Accounts like these provide the fuel that empowers elements of the alt right, and they're still active in these efforts.

If Twitter and Facebook fail to become more proactive on countering these baiters, what does that mean for our future? This doesn't seem like a problem we can easily retroactively assess our way out of.

Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#14

Post by raverbashing »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #7

> On average, our automated systems catch more than 3.2 million suspicious accounts globally per week — more than double the amount we detected this time last year. Holy crap that is a lot of suspicious accounts! It's impossible to find political conversation on twitter without multiple accounts named like `HouseWifeXX937` (always something with weird characters then numbers at the end) in the middle of the conversat…

Maybe there should be a stronger proof-of-work for creating an account on twitter

Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#15

Post by [deleted] »

tlb wrote: post #2

It seems to have taken about a year for basic information about last year's misinformation campaign to come out. 3 years from now there'll be another election and presumably another misinformation campaign. Should we be optimistic that someone will be on top of it before the election?

[deleted]

Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#16

Post by Cleisthenes »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #7

> On average, our automated systems catch more than 3.2 million suspicious accounts globally per week — more than double the amount we detected this time last year. Holy crap that is a lot of suspicious accounts! It's impossible to find political conversation on twitter without multiple accounts named like `HouseWifeXX937` (always something with weird characters then numbers at the end) in the middle of the conversat…

> Nowadays I mostly ignore any strangers.

Isn't that one of the political goals? To undermine your trust of society (i.e. strangers)?

Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#17

Post by zaat »

raverbashing wrote: post #14
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #7

> On average, our automated systems catch more than 3.2 million suspicious accounts globally per week — more than double the amount we detected this time last year. Holy crap that is a lot of suspicious accounts! It's impossible to find political conversation on twitter without multiple accounts named like `HouseWifeXX937` (always something with weird characters then numbers at the end) in the middle of the conversat…

Maybe there should be a stronger proof-of-work for creating an account on twitter

They managed to set the bar too low for the common spammer while keeping it too high for a common potential user.

Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#18

Post by BinaryIdiot »

Cleisthenes wrote: post #16
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #7

> On average, our automated systems catch more than 3.2 million suspicious accounts globally per week — more than double the amount we detected this time last year. Holy crap that is a lot of suspicious accounts! It's impossible to find political conversation on twitter without multiple accounts named like `HouseWifeXX937` (always something with weird characters then numbers at the end) in the middle of the conversat…

> Nowadays I mostly ignore any strangers. Isn't that one of the political goals? To undermine your trust of society (i.e. strangers)?

You're exactly right and yet I don't really know how to fix it. Perhaps if Twitter opened up the verification process to anyone (free or paid) then I could limit to only those who are verified so I know I'm most likely talking with a real person.

Still, bots will get through the cracks but that has to be better than what is there, today. Right?

Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#19

Post by crdoconnor »

tlb wrote: post #2

It seems to have taken about a year for basic information about last year's misinformation campaign to come out. 3 years from now there'll be another election and presumably another misinformation campaign. Should we be optimistic that someone will be on top of it before the election?

>3 years from now there'll be another election and presumably another misinformation campaign. Should we be optimistic that someone will be on top of it before the election?

I'd hope for a mildly more competent, less compromised candidate who can't be "defeated" by Russians with an $80k ad budget.

Of course, if the Russians are really serious about fixing the election they'll arrange for Hillary to run again.

Re: Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, and Misinformation

#20

Post by heartbreak »

dogma1138 wrote: post #12
mapster wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'beating on Trump' is their prerogative as media. stay on topic. this is about hacking and twitter and russia

How about US involvement in elections all over the world? You don't see outcry for that, in fact you see it on the cover of Time magazine as a boast.

What about my Aunt Sue? What does one have to do with the other?
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