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Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

lgraham.senate.gov

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Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#71
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Independent fact checking firms exist, I don't think it is a stretch to distill their info into an easily comprehended badge icon. Google, according to their Counsel, is already giving anti terror groups flagging software.

So you propose Tampa Bay Times Politifact, and The Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org become arbiters of truth? Have you actually read many of their articles? A lot of it depends on judgement calls of the person doing the fact checking. Leeway is given or taken by the fact checker.. and that amount varies by who is doing the checking. (And you can’t eliminate this because human language is so flexible tha…

+100

One was "accurate but need clarification"; the other "exaggerating and misleading".

> Sanders said that for African-Americans between the ages of 17 and 20, "the real unemployment rate … is 51 percent." His terminology was off, but the numbers he used check out, and his general point was correct -- that in an apples-to-apples comparison, African-American youth have significantly worse prospects in the job market than either Hispanics or whites do. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Mostly True.

> Trump says the unemployment rate for black youths is 59 percent. The unemployment rate is a widely used term with a specific definition: It refers to the percentage of jobless people in the workforce who are actively seeking employment. In May, the unemployment rate for blacks ages 16 to 24 was 18.7 percent, or less than one-third of Trump’s claim...Clearly, black youths have a harder time finding work than whites. But Trump exaggerates the issue through his misleading use of statistics. We rate his statement Mostly False.

None are free from bias.

The solution to oligarchy is democracy, not monarchy.

The solution to bad speech is more speech, not less speech.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#72
post #33
post #7

Facebook Counsel says: Our authenticity policy is the cornerstone of how we prevent abuse on our platform, and was the basis of our internal investigation and what we found. From the beginning, we have always believed that Facebook is a place for authentic dialogue, and that the best way to ensure authenticity is to require people to use the names they are known by. Fake accounts undermine this objective, and are clo…

"an assessment of the news outlet's ratio of fact versus fiction and reporting versus opinion" Assessed by who? the Ministry of Information? No thanks.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#73
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's funny because this whataboutism is exactly the kind of thinking that Russian bots are accused of spreading. "exactly the kind of thinking" - critical thinking, it's called. It's in low supply lately. 'whataboutism' is a valid argument given the assertions that this is unique event, a bridge too far. When, in fact, the US have been doing it for years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/13…

That was then. Try and find a post-Cold-War instance of the US deciding to usurp free and fair elections for our own economic or security purposes. We weren't doing it for the fun of it, and in a unipolar world order, we don't do it at all.

..... wow you're adorable.

Try the past two decades of Venezuelan politics just for an appetizer.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#74
FB: $100K in ads barely made an impression on the election. Nothing to really worry about

Also FB: Come buy our ads!

Zuck man, either you have the power or you don't. I get trying to save face, but I didn't get that feeling from them. It felt to me that they really are that dissonant.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#75
post #44
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't see the Russians attempting to influence the US elections via social engineering as a problem?

That is a naive thinking. If US has a defense system against nuclear weapons but you can attack it via social media the error is on the US side. US is not an exception and had also attacked a lot of countries before via different strategies.

Uh okay, but that doesn't mean the US shouldn't examine this and respond as necessary.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, sans-sarcasm. It's better than the alternative, which is allowing Russian disinformation to determine facts.

> It's better than the alternative, which is allowing Russian disinformation to determine facts. No it's not better. "Russian disinformation" is a bullshit term to describe overblown and mostly ineffective tactics used by just about all governments. Disinformation clogs the web. From WaPo to NYT to Salon to [insert media outlet here]. The very same bozos who sold you the Iraq war. The dumbness of American discourse i…

> "Russian disinformation" is a bullshit term to describe overblown and mostly ineffective tactics used by just about all governments.

No, the particular aggressive global propaganda (approach and scale) by the Putin regime had become a wide concern even before any discussion of it being directly targeted on the US election. See, e.g., https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#77
post #16

Hey Russians! If you guys have worked out how to get the herd to stampede, then why for the love of cabbage, do you need to use this skill to just cause randomness??? I mean can't you guys get the herd to buy Russian iPhones or line up for Russian super hero movies or something? I really can't understand what the Russians have gained here. If Mueller's final report says the Russians had a major influence on the elect…

Are you serious? Donald is SIGNIFICANTLY more pro-russia than Hilary would have been. Ex-post facto that justified it. Actions of Donald: 1. Intense skepticism of NATO (Russia hates this). 2. attempted to remove sanctions 3. Return spy compounds 4. America turning inwards and rejecting its international role as the hegemonic power and guarantor of western institutions. 5. The russians have preferred the republicans f…

To prove successful influence on elections, one would have to prove that the content of the ad influenced a voter's choice of candidate. This is hard, if not impossible to prove, by anyone, and Mueller certainly isn't the authority on why someone in Ohio or Pennsylvania or Florida voted the way they did. These 3 states sealed the deal for the election.

What is proved so far is attempted Russian influence on elections. This has been the status quo since the cold war. Had the question been asked in 2012 or 2008, the answer would have been yes as well. In 2017, the nature of spreading information to consumers has transformed dramatically thanks to the increased reach of social media, and the decision of the Russian government to use social media as an attack vector. This is par for the course in world geopolitics, as the United States government has engaged in principally the same thing for years across the world.

Also slightly off topic but - when a candidate says "Read my lips, no new taxes", or "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor", and somebody votes for them, but instead they act against the interests of the voter, isn't the net result that the voter has been duped, regardless of by whom?

Regardless, I am curious about this particular anti-Russia wave though because it seems to be treated more seriously than other cases. For example when a sitting President says "Tell Vladimir this is my last election, after the election I'll have more flexibility", and also blasts the opposing candidate on the debate stage by joking that "the cold war ended 30 years ago" when he suggested Russia was a threat to American interests - is this not a good enough case for collusion with the Russian government to ensure that potentially objectionable geopolitical decisions are postponed till after a Presidential election so that a debate regarding their propriety can be absent from the political discourse during the campaign?

There is also the issue of large sums of money flowing to Washington lobbyists to influence members of both parties in the legislative branch, which is now being uncovered as part of the Mueller investigation - again this is not particularly new, as Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Tony Podesta etc. made a lot of money doing exactly this for countries all over the world for decades.

The strongest case against the President would be if there was proof that Julian Assange's source for the DNC and Podesta emails was either the Russian government or someone working for the interests of the Russian government. These emails were very damaging to the Clinton campaign, but contained true information, nonetheless. Given that Podesta chose a trivial email password, it's also likely that some other entity had access to his emails. The challenge then would be to prove that the Trump campaign was a co-conspirator in this exercise, by perhaps coordinating the timing of certain releases with the appropriate campaign rhetoric, etc. What's also equally likely is that the campaign was clueless about the entire thing, and unwittingly profited from it. In that case, there would need to be evidence that if there are pro Russia decisions being taken by the executive branch or the military, and that these decisions are being made as a result of suggestions coming from the Kremlin. This, of course, would far exceed "influence on the elections", but "influence on the executive branch". Given that there is already Russian money flowing into Congress, this puts two thirds of the government in the pockets of Russia - i.e. unprecedented levels of corruption and probably some degree of treason as well.

For some unsolicited perspective - speaking as someone living in India - the geopolitical impact of an America that was supposedly free of Russian influence has not been a net positive for the world in my view. There have been a number of bad decisions and messes created in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and others. I'm somewhat confident that President Putin is not all that interested in whether Gorsuch or Garland takes Scalia's place, but is rather more interested in furthering his personal game of Risk that he plays on the world map. If the US government is now effectively a Russian puppet on the world stage, this is selfishly somewhat comforting since the Russians have been political allies with India for several decades. Putin violates the sovereignty of Russia's neighbours, as does China with India and others, as does the USA with countless interventions around the world, often seating a sympathetic figure as the head of state in other countries to facilitate this kind of thing in exchange for good deals. I find it difficult to accept that Hillary Clinton would have been a better outcome for the rest of the world given her decision making for the past 30 years of public life, and her track record as US Secretary of State. I don't know if we would be better off with two Putins as opposed to one Putin and one puppet Putin, if that turns out to be true in all of this. Major world powers like the USA, Russia and China are in a constant battle for territory and resources, which is something we could frankly all do without.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#78
post #31
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t watched the testimony, but I don’t think the suggestion is for the government to make the judgements for the labels - at least, that sounds like an epically terrible idea, especially (but not only) given the current president’s predilection for calling any news he doesn’t like “fake”. Rather, I think social media platforms would be expected to do that themselves, maybe by contracting with external fact chec…

Yes but there IS a legal definition for reporting vs opinion and it is easy enough to put an article in Column Op-Ed instead of Column New Info

Well, I don't think it matters which "column" an entire article goes in. Op-eds usually contain a variety of factual statements which are used to support the subjective parts, and those statements still need to be true. Indeed, most 'less professional' websites make no distinction between "straight reporting" and opinion - in effect, all their articles are op-eds - but it's precisely those sites that are most likely to spread false information and thus most need to be fact-checked.

It's true that courts need to distinguish fact from non-actionable opinion in defamation/libel cases (at the level of individual statements, not entire articles) - not to mention that almost all court decisions rely on the judge evaluating competing factual claims, to some extent, even though that's theoretically the job of the jury. The judicial branch does do at least a somewhat better job at staying neutral, serious, fact-based, compared to other branches - but far, far from ideal. I suppose the idea of a government fact-checking agency sounds slightly less terrible if you make it part of that branch (though that would be an odd arrangement, since it would seem to fall under the broad umbrella of 'regulatory agency' that you usually see in the executive branch). But still terrible IMO.

After all, US defamation law grants authors an enormous amount of leeway when it comes to issues of public concern, and that's by design, to prevent it from being used to censor valuable speech even given biased judges. I'll concede that true "fake news" is often a straightforward matter of totally made-up claims, to the point that the people named probably could sue the publisher for defamation and win, under the existing system - albeit at the cost of money, effort, and potentially triggering the Streisand effect. If that's all this hypothetical agency cared about, it could operate relatively safely. But that wouldn't be good enough. There's a broad spectrum of claims that aren't clear-cut enough to be actionable - and are protected by the First Amendment - yet are still misleading enough to merit poor ratings from fact checkers. The agency could try to apply a stricter truth standard in its advisory labels than that used in defamation law, arguing that the First Amendment is less of a concern when speech isn't actually being censored. It'd still face constitutional challenges, but it might survive them.

But "stricter truth standard" is just another way of saying the agency needs to be able to make subjective decisions. Not too subjective - nowhere near the caricature "disagree = false" that I've seen from some critics of fact checkers on HN (never mind the president) - but not 100% objective either. I think it's important for fact checkers to be able to exercise such discretion, because politicians are very, very skilled at muddying the waters. But I also think I'd prefer to keep that power out of the hands of the government, no matter which part of it or in what form.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#79
post #75
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a naive thinking. If US has a defense system against nuclear weapons but you can attack it via social media the error is on the US side. US is not an exception and had also attacked a lot of countries before via different strategies.

Uh okay, but that doesn't mean the US shouldn't examine this and respond as necessary.

Sure, I am just saying that it is "funny" that a superpower is attacked via social media in a naive way. This attack could be organized by any other entity with enough cash. It sounds like an easy hack.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#80
post #74

FB: $100K in ads barely made an impression on the election. Nothing to really worry about Also FB: Come buy our ads! Zuck man, either you have the power or you don't. I get trying to save face, but I didn't get that feeling from them. It felt to me that they really are that dissonant.

Skip past the FB/Google/Twitter Lawyers at the hearings and listen to what the Security experts are saying.

The tech companies are only reacting to whats happening on THEIR platforms, but the big picture emerges only when looking across multiple platforms and the dark web. This makes sense to me, as modern day marketing/targeting happens across as many channels as your budget allows. The target is not just spending his entire day on one site.

I am no fan of Zuck or FB and what chaos they have enabled, but things have escalated way beyond what one tech company can counter. We are going to be borrowing lessons from China soon to get a handle on this mess.

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