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Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

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Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#11

Post by charlchi »

threeseed wrote: post #6
lopmotr wrote: post #3

That's interesting to analyze and everything, but it's surely inconsequential compared to what real people say and all their misinformation, rhetoric and general bias. What's the difference between a popular influencer with a public persona spreading politically biased stories and an faceless account doing the same thing? It sounds like they're looking for someone to blame for right wing candidates' success in the sa…

The difference is that those faceless accounts are in many occasions coming from foreign entities. Some of whom have no motivation other than to sow discord and cause chaos. And nobody is attributing right wing success purely to bots. That's just some strawman that you invented. The issue is that is a significant factor and is causing polarisation and distrust in institutions. And you need those instutitions to work…

Rightwingers see pro-migration and liberal organisations like the UN and the EU as wanting to sow discord and disrupt society though. So this type of argument goes both ways. The distrust of institutions is already there.

Foreign anti-western forces feed off of that, because the modern western right is essentially anti-western from the start.

Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#12

Post by lopmotr »

threeseed wrote: post #6
lopmotr wrote: post #3

That's interesting to analyze and everything, but it's surely inconsequential compared to what real people say and all their misinformation, rhetoric and general bias. What's the difference between a popular influencer with a public persona spreading politically biased stories and an faceless account doing the same thing? It sounds like they're looking for someone to blame for right wing candidates' success in the sa…

The difference is that those faceless accounts are in many occasions coming from foreign entities. Some of whom have no motivation other than to sow discord and cause chaos. And nobody is attributing right wing success purely to bots. That's just some strawman that you invented. The issue is that is a significant factor and is causing polarisation and distrust in institutions. And you need those instutitions to work…

I never understood that foreign influence complaint. The whole world is sharing opinions and misinformation about the EU elections, just as the whole world was sharing opinions and misinformation about the US elections. How is it worse if it comes from someone in another country and is a bot compared to a real person in another country or a bot in the local country? Do you really think that these political bots are there to create chaos rather than either to generate ad revenue or get their preferred candidate elected?

No purely. But people certainly attribute it to bots or they wouldn't be concerned about bots if they believed they had no effect.

Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#13

Post by nl »

DFXLuna wrote: post #8
lopmotr wrote: post #3

That's interesting to analyze and everything, but it's surely inconsequential compared to what real people say and all their misinformation, rhetoric and general bias. What's the difference between a popular influencer with a public persona spreading politically biased stories and an faceless account doing the same thing? It sounds like they're looking for someone to blame for right wing candidates' success in the sa…

Didn't the FBI and the Mueller report pretty thoroughly lay out the massive scope of Russian social media influence on the 2016 election and beyond? I thought this was a decided issue but maybe I'm wrong.

Yes they did.

Yet people (even here on HN) refuse to look at the evidence and pass around things like the Seth Rich conspiracy as facts[1].

The same thing happened here with the Comet Pizza conspiracy theory.

Facts don't matter, and they just act as ways to polarize people.

Edit: and see how the voting goes on this and the parent comment, and on the thread I linked. The battle for facts is lost, and partisanship is all that is left.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19997995

Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#14

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

lopmotr wrote: post #12
threeseed wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that those faceless accounts are in many occasions coming from foreign entities. Some of whom have no motivation other than to sow discord and cause chaos. And nobody is attributing right wing success purely to bots. That's just some strawman that you invented. The issue is that is a significant factor and is causing polarisation and distrust in institutions. And you need those instutitions to work…

I never understood that foreign influence complaint. The whole world is sharing opinions and misinformation about the EU elections, just as the whole world was sharing opinions and misinformation about the US elections. How is it worse if it comes from someone in another country and is a bot compared to a real person in another country or a bot in the local country? Do you really think that these political bots are t…

Yes, some of the fake accounts - not necessarily bots - are there to create chaos. Russian political influencers have publicly boasted about this.

Of course this is no different to the US and the rest of the West using the media and social networks in other countries to promote their own agenda.

The difference is we're supposed to be immune from having it done to us - and of course we aren't. Because it's no different in principle from a fake advertising and promo campaign, or a fake pro-corporate stage-managed PR campaign - just larger in scope, and weaponised as opposed to financialised.

In reality troll and Tweet farms are incredibly cheap compared to other propaganda vectors, and incredibly cost effective.

At some point knowingly misleading the public for political or financial gain is going to have to become a criminal offence.

Currently consumers/voters have more protection from fake claims about a toaster than they do from fake claims made by a president or a hostile foreign power.

If you're trying to be a genuine democracy, that's a bad place to be.

Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#15

Post by nl »

threeseed wrote: post #7
skummetmaelk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds like they're looking for someone to blame for right wing candidates' success in the same way people blamed Russian bots for Trump's success because they can't believe that real people could possibly be voting for such obviously "wrong" candidates of their own free will and they must surely have been fooled into it by clever tricksters. Since the media consumed by EU voters is so disjoint because of langua…

We recently had an Australian election in which there was a lot of fake news around a "death tax" imposed by one of the parties. That party lost in a close election in which at polling booths one of the top 3 issues was the death tax. Trickery works. It's why everyone keeps doing it.

The Australian election wasn't particularly close. The two-party-preferred margin was 3.2%, which is the mid-range in terms of margins this century (7 federal elections since 2000, 3 have had higher margins and 3 lower).

Yes the "death tax" was an outright lie. But there were lots of factors which went into that margin.

Also it's important to clarify that (for the most part - except possibly on some WeChat groups) - this wasn't a foreign campaign. It was mostly old fashioned paid advertising by the Liberal party itself.

Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#16

Post by lopmotr »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #14
lopmotr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood that foreign influence complaint. The whole world is sharing opinions and misinformation about the EU elections, just as the whole world was sharing opinions and misinformation about the US elections. How is it worse if it comes from someone in another country and is a bot compared to a real person in another country or a bot in the local country? Do you really think that these political bots are t…

Yes, some of the fake accounts - not necessarily bots - are there to create chaos. Russian political influencers have publicly boasted about this. Of course this is no different to the US and the rest of the West using the media and social networks in other countries to promote their own agenda. The difference is we're supposed to be immune from having it done to us - and of course we aren't. Because it's no differen…

When you say weaponized, do you mean done for a foreign government's interests rather than a person's financial gain?

You seem to believe that people can't be trusted to think for themselves and must be shielded from lies to protect them from their own stupidity. I agree on the first part, but not the second which is arrogant authoritarianism. In democracy, the voters are also the ones who experience the consequences of their decisions and them having the ultimate power over themselves is what protects them from extremes. They might hurt themselves a little bit but it's still themselves doing it, so they won't go too far and can change their mind next election if they made a mistake.

If there's something new and unique about social media that actually breaks democracy worse than anything since the ancients Greeks, then perhaps you'd have a point, but I don't see any evidence of that. I think people will adapt to false information and learn to decide what to believe, just like they currently make decisions about how much to trust any stories they hear. There's nothing wrong with having a few conspiracy theorists or people who believe a wrong version of history. They keep everyone else on their toes and we can't really be sure that it's not us who's wrong. Remember when God obviously created the world and anyone who disagreed was punished for spreading dangerous fake knowledge?

Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#17

Post by Proven »

Interestingly no amount of analysis ever discovers that the EU itself is an anti-freedom organization or that most tweets by the EU elites are plain lies. The euro was going to increase prosperity and the EU was going to bring increased freedoms. Right... Show me one official EU tweet that is _not_ a lie!

Why would I care about anti-EU sock puppet accounts? I would be against the EU even if the Internet didn't exist. The lies started long before social networks appeared.

Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#18

Post by lopmotr »

blunte wrote: post #5

It’s useful to know details such as these, but the bigger problem is that the audience that most “enjoys” and retweets this stuff honestly doesn’t care that it is false. I personally know people that, when provided clear evidence of entirely false and manipulative stories will justify them by saying, “well, this story may not be true, but there are a lot of stories like this that you haven’t seen which are true”. The…

Sure, that's normal human pleasure from having their beliefs reinforced. It's probably and even bigger problem for vague unfalsifiable ideas like "police are racist", "capitalism is evil" or "immigration is bad". If a news story appears to support such a belief, the person will have their belief reinforced, even if it's wrong and the (true) news story is an exception. One photo of an immigrant vandalizing a statue or one photo of a border guard making a child cry says "See? You were right! That whole political party is bad!".

Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#19

Post by vneumanarc »

threeseed wrote: post #6
lopmotr wrote: post #3

That's interesting to analyze and everything, but it's surely inconsequential compared to what real people say and all their misinformation, rhetoric and general bias. What's the difference between a popular influencer with a public persona spreading politically biased stories and an faceless account doing the same thing? It sounds like they're looking for someone to blame for right wing candidates' success in the sa…

The difference is that those faceless accounts are in many occasions coming from foreign entities. Some of whom have no motivation other than to sow discord and cause chaos. And nobody is attributing right wing success purely to bots. That's just some strawman that you invented. The issue is that is a significant factor and is causing polarisation and distrust in institutions. And you need those instutitions to work…

Nobody is attributing it to bots? I believe the media has. But you are blaming it on "foreign entities" so is that any better?

Also, the institutions are the ones causing polarization and distrust. And the problems you listed - mass migration, aging population, climate change, etc were caused by the establishment and the institutions they control.

What caused mass migration? The establishment and their institutions encouraging it perhaps?

What caused the aging population? The attacks on femininity by encouraging women not to have children? The attacks on masculinity by encouraging men to stay immature and childish? The media portraying raising a family as burdensome and undesirable had something to do with it no? The media encouraging women to forego child rearing so that they can be career women and consume, consume, consume.

What caused climate change? Oh that's right, the establishemtn and their institutions encouraging globalization and consumption, consumption, consumption.

Believing these institutions are going to solve these issues is as silly as believing an arsonist is going to help put out the fire.

I guess it's easier to scapeout "foreign entities" rather than dealing with the real problem.

Re: Coverage of a Disinformation Operation Against 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections

#20

Post by marcus_holmes »

To answer the question at the end of the post: probably none.

As others have said, it's incredibly unlikely that a tweet is going to change your mind about anything.

Having worked both in and out of the journalism industry, I know that journalists get a lot more worked up about what people say online than everyone else does. They think it matters a lot more than it does (probably why they got into the job of saying things online in the first place). Twitter is completely irrelevant to most people. They're vaguely aware it exists, but it really doesn't matter.

In TFA, you can see each tweet getting a few hundred to a few thousand likes/retweets, and most of those identified by the analysts as bots. So each tweet is maybe reaching an audience of a couple hundred humans, at best (and it'll be the same few hundred humans for all such tweets). How many of those humans are going to change their vote because of that tweet?

It's irrelevant.

But it is dangerous. Politicians get very nervous about elections. If the politicians are persuaded that any of this matters, then they'll be more inclined to stop it mattering. And that means laws that curb free speech online, monitor communication, prevent encryption, and all the rest of the shitstorm we're facing.

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