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Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

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Re: Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

#21
post #4

The cat is out of the bag- this stuff works! As most of us here know, fake news is an incredibly tricky problem to address. You tell me the tool that solves it, and I'll tell you how it can be gamed. Democracy's only hope is to build a culture of transparency and healthy skepticism.

Fake news is the symptom, not the disease. The disease is that our society is gullible and emotionally fragile, and the people bombarding us with propaganda know this. Fake news is tuned to our weaknesses and to fix this we need to improve ourselves as a society. If we don't then whatever media comes next will be similarly tuned, and the cycle will repeat itself (again), as it nearly always has. That sounds like a bi…

The human brain is buggy, we're glorified monkeys. You can't tackle societal problems by saying that we need to fix the brains. The history of society and politics is about exploiting those bugs and then, through great deal of effort over centuries, establishing institutions and norms to prevent the exploitation of those bugs.

Re: Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

#22
post #18
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically Wikipedia? Why do you think people will trust it and use it exclusively for information?

Because people do that already with Wikipedia! Boom.

What is true/accurate/complete and what is popular do not necessarily coincide.

Re: Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am reminded of the experiment where a cockroach had brain implants that allowed its movement to be controlled electronically. After a while the cockroach would figure out the signal the researchers were using and its brain ignored it effectively locking out the researchers. At some point it was figured out that if random noise (music) was constantly transmitted the cockroach could be controlled much longer before i…

I agree. It's worth remembering that placing trust in the people--as a democracy does--is not perfect. It's just better than alternatives, like a corporatocracy--let Alphabet Inc. decide which ideas are OK--or other authoritarian models. However, it is a truly difficult problem. It is difficult to say what penalties there should be for fake news. One thing I would propose is that civil liabilities associated with fal…

To echo some arguments used for and against socialism, communism or libertarianism, has a corpocracy been tried anywhere in the world?

Re: Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

#25
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake news is the symptom, not the disease. The disease is that our society is gullible and emotionally fragile, and the people bombarding us with propaganda know this. Fake news is tuned to our weaknesses and to fix this we need to improve ourselves as a society. If we don't then whatever media comes next will be similarly tuned, and the cycle will repeat itself (again), as it nearly always has. That sounds like a bi…

The human brain is buggy, we're glorified monkeys. You can't tackle societal problems by saying that we need to fix the brains. The history of society and politics is about exploiting those bugs and then, through great deal of effort over centuries, establishing institutions and norms to prevent the exploitation of those bugs.

If the bug were entirely process, that might be true. But the bug is largely ignorance. Education, and even more simply communication, have a long way to go. Not to mention technological solutions like sharing a knowledge graph[1].

A genius Haskell programmer and good friend of mine in the south recently said something to the effect of "liberals should give up this effort to ban all guns". The news he watches had characterized liberals that way, and he believed them. I pointed out that almost nobody on the left is gunning for that outcome, as it were, the "bug" disappeared.

[1] https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/wiki

Re: Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

#26
post #4

The cat is out of the bag- this stuff works! As most of us here know, fake news is an incredibly tricky problem to address. You tell me the tool that solves it, and I'll tell you how it can be gamed. Democracy's only hope is to build a culture of transparency and healthy skepticism.

An id verification/kyc tool required before doing things like tweeting or posting.

Re: Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

#27
post #4

The cat is out of the bag- this stuff works! As most of us here know, fake news is an incredibly tricky problem to address. You tell me the tool that solves it, and I'll tell you how it can be gamed. Democracy's only hope is to build a culture of transparency and healthy skepticism.

I am reminded of the experiment where a cockroach had brain implants that allowed its movement to be controlled electronically. After a while the cockroach would figure out the signal the researchers were using and its brain ignored it effectively locking out the researchers. At some point it was figured out that if random noise (music) was constantly transmitted the cockroach could be controlled much longer before i…

they had similar experiments with a bull and implant, where radio signal made it stop mid charge. i think people should also realise these days it's even possible to generate waves which interact with the low frequencies associated with brain function, where in times of this experiment that was more difficult to acheive, so theu put an implant to convert signals.

reallise, like you draw analogy with fake news being manipulative signals, all inputs which have interpreters behind it can be manipulated if one knows how the input is interpreted in detail. that's just the nature of interpreting signals, it opens possibility to 'fake' signals.

Re: Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

#28
post #4

The cat is out of the bag- this stuff works! As most of us here know, fake news is an incredibly tricky problem to address. You tell me the tool that solves it, and I'll tell you how it can be gamed. Democracy's only hope is to build a culture of transparency and healthy skepticism.

Fake news is the symptom, not the disease. The disease is that our society is gullible and emotionally fragile, and the people bombarding us with propaganda know this. Fake news is tuned to our weaknesses and to fix this we need to improve ourselves as a society. If we don't then whatever media comes next will be similarly tuned, and the cycle will repeat itself (again), as it nearly always has. That sounds like a bi…

the disease is not that we are gullible or emotionally fragile, that is the 'weakness' which is being exploited. the disease is that people actually want to exploit eachother for their own gains.

Re: Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am reminded of the experiment where a cockroach had brain implants that allowed its movement to be controlled electronically. After a while the cockroach would figure out the signal the researchers were using and its brain ignored it effectively locking out the researchers. At some point it was figured out that if random noise (music) was constantly transmitted the cockroach could be controlled much longer before i…

Maybe we should start with Dan Rather. His fake memo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy ) was the first attempt (that was caught at the in real-time) in using fake news (literally a faked meo) to influence a Presidential election by a major network. A lot of today's distrust of media traces from that incident.

I'm glad you brought this up.

I remember this incident and what is striking about it is:

- How seriously the fake memo was taken by some in the media; and

- Just how bad a fake it was. Like it was literally just printed off from Word and photocopied at Kinkos. Had someone instead used a typewriter from the era and not been seen at Kinkos it could well have been a different story.

If it had been a reasonable fake it may well have changed the result of the election. People on the right like to argue the media has a "liberal bias". These sorts of incidents don't really help.

Re: Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video]

#30
post #4

The cat is out of the bag- this stuff works! As most of us here know, fake news is an incredibly tricky problem to address. You tell me the tool that solves it, and I'll tell you how it can be gamed. Democracy's only hope is to build a culture of transparency and healthy skepticism.

Fake news is the symptom, not the disease. The disease is that our society is gullible and emotionally fragile, and the people bombarding us with propaganda know this. Fake news is tuned to our weaknesses and to fix this we need to improve ourselves as a society. If we don't then whatever media comes next will be similarly tuned, and the cycle will repeat itself (again), as it nearly always has. That sounds like a bi…

we are addicted to outrage. its mob mentality in the 2000s
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