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Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#71

Post by kartan »

honestlyidk wrote: post #64
jsonne wrote: post #6

I gave a talk at Denver startup week last year about the underlying profit incentives tied to fake news and how industry reforms in the way media companies do business could not only benefit the advertisers but also stop Fake news. At the end of the talk I had 3 people ask how they could make fake news to promote their startups. That this has turned into a booming industry surprises me 0%, though it is depressing.

Is this something that requires government oversight or is it just a business plan/strategy. If the latter then the free market should tell you that your plan is right or wrong. If it requires government overshight I would say its inherently flawed. "Fake news" isnt a problem the problem is a lazy populace that take any word for granted as long as the production value is good enough. Fake news is how free speech is s…

> Fake news is how free speech is supposed to work.

I can't agree with your statement. Game news is the contrary of what free speach stands for. Free speach is about being able to express your opinions. Fake news are intentionally misleading and hurt other people's well-being.

> Fake news" isnt a problem the problem is a lazy populace that take any word for granted as long as the production value is good enough.

Blame the victim. If you cheat me, it is my fault to not see thru your lie, if you rob me it's my fault for not being more vigilant.

If I lie about my products, or about other things for economical gain. Shouldn't the state make sure that I'm punished for that? Should not be the same case that for breaking a contract?

Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#72

Post by forapurpose »

whyaduck wrote: post #35
jsonne wrote: post #6

I gave a talk at Denver startup week last year about the underlying profit incentives tied to fake news and how industry reforms in the way media companies do business could not only benefit the advertisers but also stop Fake news. At the end of the talk I had 3 people ask how they could make fake news to promote their startups. That this has turned into a booming industry surprises me 0%, though it is depressing.

My thought experiment for considering the moral limits of capitalism: If producing Soylent Green were legal and profitable, would there be actors willing to produce and sell it? If you answer no, see: Philip Morris, Lockheed, Beretta, etc.

Like other commenters, I think this thought experiment goes much too far. On the other hand, many companies worked with the Nazis, work with the Saudis, Russians, and many others today, and sell all sorts of things to oppressive governments including the tools of oppression (such as those selling censorship and hacking tools to various dictatorships[0]). If the U.S. became an authoritarian dictatorship, I don't doubt that many companies would do business with the dictator too.

But I'd like to examine it with more nuance: Does it vary across time or across place? Is it different than the culture of the people from which the company emerged (e.g., how do private American citizens behave differently than large American companies)? Most importantly, on what factors does good and bad corporate behavior depend? My guess is that some of this research has been done - I'd love some pointers to it.

[0] A recent headline: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israel...

Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#73

Post by markhall »

gambler wrote: post #68
gtirloni wrote: post #54

The fake news phenomenon is something that worries me at a local level: friends and family. I'm constantly bombarded by forwarded messages from them that don't pass a simple cursory review and are 99% fake if you dig further. I've tried to combat this by researching what's forwarded to me and pointing that out (including how I discovered it was false) but people either don't reply back or get hostile, assuming I'm on…

I feel most people who trust social media for news are super-late Internet adopters who don't quite understand how any of this stuff works. I know some older (but not old, really) people who use Facebook without understanding the boundary between Facebook and the rest of the web. They just see text on the screen and make arbitrary assumptions on where it's coming from. This is the price society is paying for making s…

This is a great point. I wonder what studies, if any, has been done on age/tech experience vs susceptibility to believing fake news.

Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#74

Post by markhall »

gtirloni wrote: post #54

The fake news phenomenon is something that worries me at a local level: friends and family. I'm constantly bombarded by forwarded messages from them that don't pass a simple cursory review and are 99% fake if you dig further. I've tried to combat this by researching what's forwarded to me and pointing that out (including how I discovered it was false) but people either don't reply back or get hostile, assuming I'm on…

I've had very similar experiences and find it really frustrating. People inherently don't like being wrong, don't like being proven to be gullible and are less likely to believe information that doesn't reaffirm their beliefs. It's a scary issue that's only likely to get worse.

Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#75

Post by TomMarius »

duxup wrote: post #67
jsonne wrote: post #6

I gave a talk at Denver startup week last year about the underlying profit incentives tied to fake news and how industry reforms in the way media companies do business could not only benefit the advertisers but also stop Fake news. At the end of the talk I had 3 people ask how they could make fake news to promote their startups. That this has turned into a booming industry surprises me 0%, though it is depressing.

I went to a local tech event. A few folks gave talks about their products / services and their marketing. A few included people straight up talking about paying "influencers" or pod casters, or youtubers, to mention their product or service and so forth. Nobody seemed to note anything about disclosing that it was an advertisement or not. I liked to think that maybe they just assumed the influencer was going to mentio…

> I liked to think that maybe they just assumed the influencer was going to mention it was paid or everyone understood that was the case but me .... but it never was actually spoken about.

All major social media (Instagram, Youtube, ...) require you to disclose any promotions. It's absolutely normal in "old" media. I think that it's assumed if the audience was composed of actual business people.

Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#76

Post by paulddraper »

whyaduck wrote: post #59
paulddraper wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect you are being downvoted for comparing secretive cannibalism to security/defense. But yes, supply will provide every legal thing in demand. Indeed, that is how the invisible hand is "supposed" to work.

Lockheed's involved in the maintenance (and previously, manufacture) of thermonuclear weapons. I'm pretty comfortable with my comparison.

Thermonuclear weapons also have been the single most effective peacekeeping tool in the history of the world.

Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#77

Post by Kalium »

kartan wrote: post #71
honestlyidk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this something that requires government oversight or is it just a business plan/strategy. If the latter then the free market should tell you that your plan is right or wrong. If it requires government overshight I would say its inherently flawed. "Fake news" isnt a problem the problem is a lazy populace that take any word for granted as long as the production value is good enough. Fake news is how free speech is s…

> Fake news is how free speech is supposed to work. I can't agree with your statement. Game news is the contrary of what free speach stands for. Free speach is about being able to express your opinions. Fake news are intentionally misleading and hurt other people's well-being. > Fake news" isnt a problem the problem is a lazy populace that take any word for granted as long as the production value is good enough. Blam…

> Free speach is about being able to express your opinions. Fake news are intentionally misleading and hurt other people's well-being.

As fake news is a form of expression, how do you propose to draw a meaningful distinction between protected speech and speech that may hurt the well-being of others? Especially one that does not risk chilling effects or becoming prior restraint, and is thus compatible with freedom of speech.

Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#78

Post by NPC32419419 »

jotm wrote: post #43
blueadept111 wrote: post #34

The concept of "fake" news is a slippery slope. Anyone that's in the business of gathering and presenting news has a number of vested interests. Sensationalism. Fabrication. Fear mongering. Persuasion. Ingratiation. Language itself is mostly a tool for some shade of lying and/or intimidation, with the occasional fringe use of conveying factual information or for enabling cooperation between peers.

Really not sure what kind of people are downvoting these kinds of comments. Anyone care to enlighten?

0range Man BAD.

Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#79

Post by paulddraper »

gambler wrote: post #65
burtonator wrote: post #12

I've been working on some algorithms I think can identify fake news easily and reliably. The key part is you have to have a massive dataset of historical information. With Datastreamer (my company) we have about 1PB of news, blogs, and social media from the last 4-5 years. I'm curious if it would make sense to ship an open/public API that would allow people both to report AND check on whether something is fake news.…

What could possibly go wrong? False flagging, FUD based on groupthink and cognitive biases, accidental suppression of newly created websites in favor of older ones. Just to start off a list. Not everything is solvable through algorithms. Especially if your initial goad is ill-defined. There are about half a dozen completely separate things that are being labeled as "fake news" today, from websites impersonating news…

> People should be able to use their own judgement to spot nonsense, without algorithms telling them what to think. If they can't, the first questions should be "why?" and "why now?", not "how do I make an app to fix it?".

Sort of.

People should also be able to use their own judgement to spot scams.

And yet there are spam filters. Both to detect garbage, and also to hide garbage.

Obviously, the email client that classifies my bank loan documents as "spam" is not going to be popular.

Re: Fake news ‘as a service’ booming among cybercrooks

#80

Post by utternerd »

kartan wrote: post #71
honestlyidk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this something that requires government oversight or is it just a business plan/strategy. If the latter then the free market should tell you that your plan is right or wrong. If it requires government overshight I would say its inherently flawed. "Fake news" isnt a problem the problem is a lazy populace that take any word for granted as long as the production value is good enough. Fake news is how free speech is s…

> Fake news is how free speech is supposed to work. I can't agree with your statement. Game news is the contrary of what free speach stands for. Free speach is about being able to express your opinions. Fake news are intentionally misleading and hurt other people's well-being. > Fake news" isnt a problem the problem is a lazy populace that take any word for granted as long as the production value is good enough. Blam…

I wonder if we'll look back at the Bloomberg "chip implant" story as fake news, and if that's the case, can you imagine the police breaking into their offices with a warrant because of it?

Fraud is one thing, but hiring some e-celeb to pitch your product isn't something we need jack-booted thugs kicking in doors for. We don't even have an objective definition of "fake news", and you'll never convince me the State should be the one defining or enforcing that.

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